Attention Undergraduate Students: You've already discovered Comp Lit, the best-kept secret in the College. Now we're asking you to help us get the word out and "declassify" this "top secret" for your fellow students. For details on how you can get involved, please click here.

The application deadline for Fall 2009 graduate admission has now passed. For priority consideration for financial assistance, applications and supporting documents for Fall 2010 admission must be received by December 1st, 2009. For more information about our requirements for graduate admission and our application process, go to Graduate Admissions. Where possible, prospective students are encouraged to attend a USC Graduate Preview event in the Fall. In addition to providing you with a full overview of the opportunities and resources offered by the university, the Graduate Preview program gives you the chance to visit the department and meet our faculty. For more information about the program and how you can register to attend an event, please click here. Once you've registered, please contact us (complit@usc.edu) to let us know who you are, when you'll be attending, and what your research interests are or if there is a particular faculty member(s) you would like to meet.

The Department of Comparative Literature is looking for one or more students to work as office assistants. If you are looking for work and have a Work Study Award, please send your resume to complit@usc.edu or stop by THH 161 to fill out an application.

The Department of Comparative Literature is pleased to welcome our new graduate students for 2008-2009: Nada Ayad, Sandra Kim, Ana Lee, Yu-Kai Lin, and Ricardo Wilson.

Congratulations to Christine Matsuda (Comparative Literature 2008 B.A.), recipient of the 2008 Comparative Literature Prize for the most outstanding graduating senior in the Comparative Literature major. To learn more about the Comparative Literature Major Prize, go to Undergraduate Honors & Awards.

Congratulations also to Monica Joyce (Comparative Literature and Philosophy 2008 B.A.) and Andrew Pouw (Comparative Literature and Biological Sciences Major), both recipients of the 2008 Laurence C. Welch Essay Prize for the most distinguished critical essay produced in a Comparative Literature seminar. You can read Monica Joyce's prize-winning essay, "Images about images: The criticism of Bazin and the philosophy of Rancière in confluence and conflict," here; and Andrew Pouw's prize-winning essay, "The Globalization of the Pharmaceutical Industry," here. To learn more about the Laurence C. Welch Essay Prize, go to Undergraduate Honors & Awards.

The 2008 Welch Prize Winners. From left to right: Andrew Pouw, Monica Joyce, and Christine Matsuda.

The USC Provost's Undergraduate Research Associates Program has awarded 3 research associate positions to the Literature and Justice Project for 2008-09. The team, whose faculty advisor is Vincent Farenga, professor of classics and comparative literature, will be meeting on the following Thursdays during the Spring 2009 semester from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in THH 109: 2/19, 2/26, 3/5, 3/12, 4/2, 4/16, and 4/23. All interested students and faculty are invited to attend. To read the 2007-08 Literature and Justice Project Report, click here.

Edwin Hill, professor of French and comparative literature, is the organizer of Project banlieue: French (Peri)Urban Cultures and Crises, which this year will take the form of both a year-long lecture series (beginning October 17, 2008, with Daniel Sabbagh) and a one day colloquium (March 6, 2009) on French (peri)urban cultures and crises, focusing on the riots in 2005 and beyond. The lecture series features scholars in the social sciences. The colloquium this spring will feature on French and francophone scholars in the humanities. In conjunction with these events, Edwin Hill invites interested students and faculty to participate in a reading group about banlieue (or peri-urban) cultural production and crisis this semester. The group would read one text (article/chapter) by each one of the speakers for this year's events and meet an hour or two about once a month, perhaps the Friday before the guest speaker's arrival, to discuss them. French mastery is not strictly required. Interested parties are asked to contact him at edwinhil@usc.edu with their availability and interest.