Comparative Literature/Scottish Literature

Comparative literature is the study of literary texts and traditions across cultural boundaries, time periods, languages, and genres, and sometimes across the boundary between literature and other arts. It refuses the assumption that any single national tradition is sufficient, instead reading works from different cultures alongside and in dialogue with one another to ask what literature does, how it works, and what it reveals about the societies and historical moments that produce it. Scottish literature brings a specific and rich tradition to that comparative frame: a body of writing in English, Scots, and Gaelic that extends from medieval poetry through Burns and Hogg and Stevenson to the remarkable flowering of contemporary Scottish writing.

At the University of Glasgow, this part-time programme allows you to pursue both comparative literature and Scottish literature with the seriousness they deserve, alongside other commitments. You will develop the analytical and theoretical tools needed to read texts from different traditions, including literary theory, translation studies, and cultural history, and you will engage with the distinctive character and history of Scottish writing in its linguistic and cultural specificity. Glasgow's location in Scotland, and the university's strong research presence in both comparative and Scottish literary studies, gives the programme a grounding and authority that is hard to replicate elsewhere.

A year abroad is part of the programme, offering the opportunity to study literature in a different national or cultural context and to experience what comparative literature means when you are yourself the comparative element.

You will develop strong skills in close reading, critical writing, and the analysis of literary and cultural texts across languages and periods, as well as the wider intellectual agility that comes from engaging seriously with traditions very different from your own.

Graduates go on to careers in publishing, education, journalism, arts administration, translation, heritage, and research. Postgraduate study in comparative literature, Scottish studies, cultural studies, or translation is a natural continuation for those with scholarly ambitions.