The Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies aims to develop in students a cumulative knowledge of three interconnected areas of work: comparative literature, cultural studies and critical theory. All three extend and develop students' appreciation of the nature of texts and of `textuality'. The distinctiveness of the program consists in the way students are encouraged to analyse literature both as an international rather than national phenomenon and as one aspect among many of a wider `culture'. The stress on `world' literature is unique to Monash - no other university in Australia teaches a full major sequence in comparative literature. The stress on the connection between literary and cultural studies is also distinctive - elsewhere cultural studies has more commonly been defined in opposition to literary studies.
The completion of a major sequence in this program should enable students to:
* develop skills in reading and interpretation to a point where they can analyse quite demanding texts in a variety of genres and, where relevant, in languages other than English (the centre teaches its undergraduate courses using texts in English translation, but fourth-year honours theses in comparative literature are required to deal with literary texts in their original languages);
* come to understand, feel comfortable with and be able to articulate the analytical skills, theoretical vocabularies and conceptual apparatuses studied;
* establish and assess criteria by which to distinguish current intellectual fashion from potentially more enduring contributions to the `human sciences';
* develop a sense of their own personal and cultural reflexivity as they observe and interpret the linguistic and cultural forms and productions analysed in the various subjects they undertake.