Comparative Literature/Theatre Studies

Comparative literature is the study of literary works across national boundaries, languages, time periods, and genres, based on the conviction that no single literary tradition can fully be understood in isolation and that the most illuminating questions about how literature works often emerge when you read across traditions rather than within one. When you pair it with theatre studies, you gain an additional dimension: the study of performance, of texts that are written to be enacted in space and time rather than read in silence. Together, these subjects develop a sophisticated and genuinely international understanding of how storytelling operates.

At Glasgow you will engage with literary texts from multiple languages and traditions, studying them in translation where necessary and in the original where your languages allow. Theatre studies will introduce you to dramatic theory, performance history, the analysis of live and recorded performance, and the relationship between the page and the stage. Comparative literature trains you to read across periods and genres, attending to questions of influence, adaptation, and cultural exchange, while theatre studies asks how meaning is produced not just through words but through bodies, space, light, and sound.

The four-year programme includes a year abroad, an invaluable opportunity given the subject's international scope, allowing you to experience literary and theatrical culture in another country directly.

Graduates pursue careers in arts administration, theatre and film production, publishing, journalism, education, cultural policy, and academia. The analytical skills the degree develops, close reading, cross-cultural thinking, and the ability to interpret complex texts, are valued across a wide range of professional contexts beyond the arts. Many students continue to postgraduate study in comparative literature, performance studies, translation, or related areas.