Outreach is inherent in the structure of our Department, which, at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, relies heavily on curricular offerings in other departments and programs. In addition to offerings under the COLT prefix, our majors and doctoral students take courses in the various literature departments (ENG, GERSCAN, EALL, RL, CLAS) as well as in philosophy, anthropology, CINE, Ethnic Studies and WGS. Moreover, our courses and seminars in COLT frequently have participants from those departments and programs.
COLT not only hosts speakers of its own (e. g. Lan Samantha Chang, Saba Mahmoud and Anjouli Arandakar are recent guests) but also co-sponsors and helps host visitors invited by other units (e. g. Amitav Ghosh [co-sponsored with History], Wendy Belcher [co-sponsored with African Studies], Rochona Majumdar [sponsored by CINE]. We are currently co-sponsoring a speaker series in African Studies.
Comparative Literature doctoral candidate Susana Gómez has received $1,500 from the Fund for Community Engaged Teaching. This amount—the largest award possible through the fund—comes in support of her course Latina Literature and Community, which she is teaching for Comparative Literature this fall. The course includes a service-learning component meant to enhance our undergraduates’ understanding of the Latina/o experience in Lane County. This is of particular importance as it represents an independent initiative (and not the first) on the part of one of our graduate students to combine learning with active community engagement. A full description of the course can be found here:
https://complit.uoregon.edu/course/gender-identity-in-literature-2/
The Department of Comparative Literature also provides financial and moral support to a group organized by one of our doctoral students. The group is composed of women of color, who meet on a weekly basis to discuss their experiences and air their concerns in the face of the current social and political climate.
The Department of Comparative Literature provided a SAIL workshop in Summer 2018, engaging the high school students in linguistic, literary, and cultural activities.