Other Activities

Body: 
graduate students talking outside of 451 college street buildingGraduate Liaison Committee

The Graduate Liaison Committee serves as a forum for on-going discussions between faculty and graduate students about a variety of issues relating to the Graduate Program. It typically meets once a semester and is convened by the Chairman of the department. These meetings are open to all interested students and faculty but are always attended by the Liaison committee members, the Chairman, the DGS and the DUS of the department. In addition, the DGS usually has a meeting with the committee at least once a semester.

The Liaison committee consists of a Chair, a Secretary, the organizers of the Baldwin-Dahl lecture, the organizers of the Annual Graduate Student Conference and the organizers of the department’s Open Forum series. Usually, there are members from all cohorts of students in the program. 

baldwin-dahl lecture 2015 poster
The Baldwin-Dahl Lecture

The Baldwin-Dahl lecture series was established in 1989 in memory of two of the Comparative Literature program’s most promising students, Birgit Baldwin and Julia Dahl, who both died, tragically, that same year. The annual endowed speaker series affords graduate students in the Department the privilege of inviting a renowned literary scholar of their own choice for a lecture and seminar. Past speakers have included Stanley Cavell, Slavoj Zizek, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Avital Ronell, Nancy Miller, Neil Hertz, David Damrosch, Cathy Caruth, Wolfgang Iser, W. J. T. Mitchell, Anthony Grafton, Judith Butler, Jonathan Culler, Homi Bhabha, Michael Hardt, Bruce Robbins, Susan Buck-Morss, Robert Pippin, and, most recently, Claire Colebrook.

Open Forum

The Comparative Literature Open Forum series is a monthly opportunity for graduate students to share ongoing work (conference papers, dissertation chapters,  job talks, or articles) and to receive feedback from peers and department members. The series, which is organized by graduate students in the department, has a fluid format and is open to suggestion, and encourages students to take advantage of the informal setting in any way they find productive. This can include workshops of ideas in early stages, and even invitations to faculty members to present their current research. The purpose of Open Forum is, in essence, to foster intellectual community within the department. 

Graduate Student Conference

The Comparative Literature Graduate Student Conference is an annual conference organized by graduate students in the department on a topic of their choice. Past conference topics included “Singing the World: Song in/as Literature” (2015), “Shapeshifters: Recycling and Literature,” (2014). 

conference poster for interdisciplinary conference on empathy