Institute for Comparative Literature and Society

Columbia University

The Center for Comparative Literature and Society was founded at Columbia in 1998 to promote a global perspective in the study of literature, culture, and their social context. The Center became an Institute in July 2007. It houses the interdepartmental undergraduate and graduate programs in Comparative Literature and Society and draws its faculty from the humanities, the social sciences, and the Schools of Architecture and Law. In Spring 2012, ICLS added an undergraduate major track in Medicine, Literature, and Society, collaborating with faculty in the Arts & Sciences and the Medical School at Columbia University.

One of the Institute’s primary goals is to provide support for cross-disciplinary and cross-regional comparative work, acknowledging the force of recent changes in the humanities, the social sciences, law, architecture, and the performing arts. ICLS is both a full-fledged curricular and degree-granting unit and a research hub. The Institute offers undergraduate majors in Comparative Literature and Society and Medicine, Literature and Society and graduate certificates in Comparative Literature and Society and Psychoanalytical Studies at the PhD-level. ICLS is a participating member of the CHCI-Mellon Foundation Medical Humanities Project. Other current research initiatives include Bandung Humanisms and a forthcoming Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar in Global Language Justice.