Comparative Literature/Economics

Comparative literature and economics is an unusual and intellectually rewarding combination, bringing together the humanistic study of literary texts across cultures and languages with the rigorous analytical framework of economics. Comparative literature is the study of literature across cultural and national frontiers, time periods, languages, and genres, even across the boundaries between literature and the other arts. It trains you to read closely and comparatively, to think about how literary forms and conventions vary across cultures, and to engage with texts in their original languages.

Economics, meanwhile, provides the theoretical and quantitative tools to understand how markets, incentives, and institutions shape human behaviour and social outcomes.

At the University of Glasgow, this part-time programme develops your literary and economic understanding in parallel, building your skills in textual analysis and critical writing alongside your ability to engage with economic theory and data. A year abroad is built into the programme, giving you the experience of studying in a different linguistic and cultural context. The combination develops an unusual range of analytical and communicative skills that few graduates possess.

Graduates of comparative literature and economics are well placed for careers in international organisations, cultural institutions, policy research, journalism, translation, publishing, the civil service, consultancy, and any role that benefits from both the ability to interpret complex cultural material and to reason analytically about social and economic questions. The rarity of the combination is a genuine asset, and many graduates continue to postgraduate study in economics, literary studies, or interdisciplinary humanities.