Peer Advisors

Comp Lit Peer Advisors

Comp lit is one of the best, most challenging, and most supportive concentrations on campus. I love it as both a field of study and as a community. Feel free to contact any one of our peer advisors for more information on what it’s like to concentrate in Comparative Literature. They can also invite you for a coffee chat on us.

Emma Fang

Why CompLit?

I chose CompLit to explore literature freely and broadly– as a process, as a cultural practice, as an experience– and in other languages.

Junior,

Leverett House, efang AT college

Languages: Chinese, Spanish
Tutorial interest: perceived relationships between life and literature, relationships between the individual and society, and experiences of isolation in modern Chinese literature, especially in works of semi-autobiographical fiction.

Carli Cooperstein

Why CompLit?

Beyond being home to a highly personalized academic environment, Comp Lit is the warmest, most welcoming and inclusive community I have encountered at Harvard. As a Comp Lit concentrator, I am given me the opportunity to tailor my studies to my direct areas of interest while pushing the bounds of my knowledge into new domains. I am particularly grateful for the individualized nature of Comp Lit – by working directly with professors and grad students, I can feel the effects of studying at a high level and am learning from true thought-leaders in the field.

Senior,

Mather House, carlicooperstein AT college

Languages: French, Italian
Tutorial interest: I work primarily in French and Italian, particularly curious about instances of involuntary memory and sensory connection in literature. I also am interested in exploring the genre of diary work, as well as art and architecture that evoke similar themes.

Ričards Umbraško

Why CompLit?

Comp Lit is one of the most flexible concentrations at Harvard. You get to cross borders – literary, cultural, or theoretical – in every class taken in the department. I came to Comp Lit because I wished to work more in Eastern European literatures, particularly those that are less known, explored, and translated in the Western academe – but I stayed because of the community. If you want to satisfy your intellectual curiosity while being surrounded by fellow students, faculty members, and tutors from all over the world who work across a wide range of languages and traditions, Comp Lit is the place to be.

Junior,

Dunster House, rumbrasko AT college

Languages: Latvian and Russian
Tutorial interest: I work in Latvian and Russian, exploring how post-Soviet borderlands complicate notions of belonging, identity, time, space, and memory in texts emerging on the frontiers of the former Soviet Union. I am also interested in the theoretical tools that decolonial theory offers for literary studies and literary anthropology. Additionally, I am curious to explore how representations of Eastern Europe in Western popular culture reflect the anxieties of our time surrounding race, sexuality, and gender.