Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society Ph.D.

While most traditional humanistic disciplines tend to focus either on a given mode of discourse (e.g., art history, musicology) or a specific cultural context (e.g., American studies, European languages and literatures), this program engages a broader problematic—how discourse and cultural production both shape and are shaped by life in time, space, matter, and society. Drawing on a variety of theoretical positions, close attention is paid to various types of discourse, such as music, film, myth, ritual, architecture, landscape and urban design, painting, sculpture, and literature in elite, popular, folk, and mass culture, understanding these as both a site and an instrument of contestation and negotiation among social forces. More generally, the program seeks to re-associate intellectual and cultural history with social and political history, to set discourse of various sorts within a social context, and to consider specific social formations within the ongoing historical process. In all this, the program encourages work that is interdisciplinary (at times, even anti-disciplinary) as well as cross-cultural. The curriculum emphasizes seminars and directed research.