Master of Arts in Comparative Literary Studies
Utrecht, Netherlands
MA
DURATION
2 years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2026
TUITION FEES
EUR 20,605 / per year *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* for Non-EU/EEA students (institutional fee) | Dutch and other EU/EEA students (statutory fee, full-time) 2025-2026: € 2.601
Key Summary
How do different cultures and societies think about the present, remember the past, and imagine the future in and through literature? And how has literature itself been understood and theorised across historical periods and geographical boundaries? In the RMA Comparative Literary Studies we approach literature as a cultural medium from a comparative, theoretical perspective.
Why this programme?
This two-year, research-intensive MA is designed for students with strong analytical skills and a desire to deepen their understanding of literature as a global, multilingual, and politically engaged practice.
A unique comparative approach
The programme offers a unique comparative approach to literature, which includes comparisons across languages, across media, across time, across forms of knowledge, and across disciplines. The ‘comparative’ approach characteristic for Utrecht is understood to involve comparison between literary phenomena along four principal axes:
- Transculturality: how does literature reflect and negotiate cultural differences and operate across national borders?
- Mediality: how does literature work as a medium and how does it interact with other media? how are literary phenomena adapted to other media?
- Memory: how do stories and cultural forms survive across generations and how are they transformed across time?
- Discursivity: how does literature function as a m ode of knowledge production and how does it relate to other forms of knowledge, both scientific and creative?
Graduates of the program are fully equipped to pursue a Ph.D. in the international field of literary studies. Your training also makes you equipped to pursue alternative career paths requiring advanced skills in analyzing and managing textual information or specific knowledge of literature in an international context (publishing, cultural and educational policy, heritage institutions). Graduates who have specialized in one language area may also find employment in international organizations.
Academic Careers
After successfully completing the research Master’s program in Comparative Literary Studies, you will be able to formulate a research proposal for a Ph.D. project in your specialism within the field of literary studies. Furthermore, you will have an overview of the place that your own research plan occupies in the context of international research in literary studies.
In the past, around 40% of the program’s graduates were awarded fully-funded Ph.D. positions at the following universities (amongst others):
- Utrecht University (The Netherlands)
- Max Planck Institute Berlin (Germany)
- Ghent University (Belgium)
- Queen’s University Belfast (Ireland)
- Norwich University (United Kingdom)
- University of Sao Paulo (Brazil)
- University of Boğaziçi (Turkey)
- City University of New York (United States)
- University of Stockholm (Sweden)
- University of St Andrews (Scotland)
- University of Antwerp (Belgium)
- University of Birkbeck (United Kingdom)
The high rate of acceptance into Ph.D. programs at reputable universities abroad shows that graduates of the Utrecht program are competitive in the extremely selective granting of Ph.D. positions.
Careers outside Academia
Graduates of Comparative Literary Studies have gone on to senior-level careers in publishing (Elsevier, Oxford University Press), text editing, higher and middle education, governmental consultancy, and management. Students who do not go abroad in their second year may opt to do an internship.
Other graduates found jobs as:
- Policy Advisor at Higher Education and Languages, NRTO
- Editorial assistant at Oxford University Press
- Policy Advisor at the Ministry of Defense
- Editor at Elsevier
- French teacher at HVC
Core Courses and Thesis
- Core Theories and Current Debates
- Humanities Today
- Thinking Literature: Creative Forms of Knowledge
- Cultural Memory and Citizenship
- Literature in the Postcolony: Transculturality and New Comparativism
- Media Materialities
- Distant Reading
- Masterclasses: Work in Progress
- Research Lab: Tools, Methods, Design
- Research MA Thesis Comparative Literary Studies and Thesis Lab
Electives offered by the programme
- Aesthetics of the Posthuman
- Study Abroad / Across the Border
- Internship RMA Comparative Literary Studies
- Topics in Literary Research A
- Topics in Literary Research B
Electives offered by related programs
- Research School I
- Research School II