The Department of Comparative Thought and Literature (CTL) investigates different traditions of thought in order to expand understanding of the ecologies of human expression. Our conception of thought is capacious and includes literature, aesthetic and moral philosophy, and legal and political theory. Interdisciplinary collaboration is the Department’s signature focus, along with commitments to intellectual curiosity and flexibility, attentive reading and criticism, and creative modes of comparison across linguistic, cultural, and temporal boundaries.
The research and teaching of the faculty draw upon philosophy, literature, film, and the arts. Both undergraduates and graduate students are encouraged to undertake projects that draw from diverse media, genres, and traditions, within and beyond the humanities. The courses offered provide students with a broad foundation in the methods, histories, and genres of comparative approaches, with a focus on themes that engage both literature and philosophy, as well as other forms of human expression.
Every year, the department hosts several associates, who are faculty members from other institutions that stay for an extended period to present lectures, give seminars, and interact with faculty and students. Previous and current associates include many distinguished scholars, such as Christiane Voss, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Frances Ferguson, Philip Fisher, Anita LaFrance Allen, Susan James, Barbara Cassin, David Wellbery, Robert Pippin, Jean-Luc Marion, Eli Friedlander, Sari Nusseibeh, and Toril Moi.
History
In the mid-20th century, the department, which was then known as the Humanities Center, was established as a meeting ground for the various humanities departments. With Charles Singleton as its first director, the center aimed to strengthen the humanities at Johns Hopkins and provide a place where scholars could engage in theoretical reflections on the human sciences, including European movements such as structuralist thought and literary hermeneutics.
The department’s first full academic year was 1966–67, and from the outset, its founders sought to establish a focal site for structuralism in the U.S., based on the model of the “sixième section” of the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris or the Institut für Sozialforschung at the University of Frankfurt. The conference held in the fall of its inaugural year, “The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man: The Structural Controversy” brought many of the leading figures of European thought together in the U.S. and continues to be cited as both the substantial introduction of structuralist thought into the American academy and an important moment of transition between structuralism and post-structuralism. This model of exchange and innovation continued into the 21st century with a robust program of visiting scholars, professors, and lecturers.
As of January 1, 2018, the name of the Humanities Center has been changed to Department of Comparative Thought and Literature. The new name recognizes the department’s ongoing commitment to serious interdisciplinary study, with a focus on questions at the intersection of literature, philosophy, and aesthetics. It also represents the various literatures, philosophies, religions, political systems, cultures, and methodologies that its faculty studies and applies.