To the Editor:
Recently, the Comparative Literature Program submitted a proposal to the EPPC requesting a permanent part-time faculty position. We are writing to express our support for this proposal, and to urge students, faculty and members of the administration to support it as well.
Comparative Literature majors specialize in a wide variety of disciplines. Comparative Literature offers us the opportunity to approach these areas not as isolated departments, but in the context of different languages, cultures and forms of expression. The unique methodology associated with Comparative Literature is integral to our understandings of our studies.
Our current status as an almost entirely cross-listed major allows for a strong background in the areas we are comparing. However, this alone is not Comparative Literature. At present, it is all too easy for Comparative Literature majors to leave Oberlin lacking the framework and fundamental skills necessary to continue with graduate study. We believe that a faculty member should be hired not only to broaden the core curriculum, but to coordinate and advise students in their comparative studies and to help solidify the program.
The absence of a tenured faculty position in Comparative Literature is a wide gap in Oberlin's credibility and appeal as a progressive institution with a broad and diverse curriculum. Since Comparative Literature is an important, up-and-coming discipline, this puts the program at a disadvantage not only in meeting the needs of students here, but in preparing majors to meet the high expectations of graduate programs.
Adding courses that address comparative methodology and its application to various disciplines would not only supply much-needed structure to the Comparative Literature major, but would provide majors in other departments, (i.e. English, Art, Modern Languages, Anthropology, Classics) with the benefits of comparative study. In short the proposed faculty position would enable us to access existing resources within a comparative framework. This step is crucial to the essence of the discipline, fundamental to our studies and important to academic diversity as a common goal.
Copyright © 1996, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 124, Number 20; April 12, 1996
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