Embrace an ExpansIve Vision of Literary Study

With a faculty composed of renowned scholars and dedicated teachers, the MIT Literature section offers a wide range of courses across time periods, international cultures, and languages. Literature courses at MIT examine how novels, poems, plays, films, visual art, and other media make imaginative and critical sense of history and the present.

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RECENT NEWS

Russian Translation of Professor Denecke’s Book Classical World Literatures: Sino-Japanese and Greco-Roman Comparisons is published!

Classical World Literatures: Sino-Japanese and Greco-Roman Comparisons Ever since Karl Jaspers's "axial age" paradigm, there have been a number of influential studies comparing ancient East Asian and Greco-Roman history and culture. However, to date there has been no...

Cynthia Griffin Wolff, acclaimed biographer and longtime MIT professor, dies at 87

Some of you may have known her personally. Others of you, like Prof Alexandre, may have known her only through her scholarship, including her well-known biographies of Emily Dickinson and Edith Wharton. Either way, we extend our deepest and sincerest condolences to...

Celebrating the Launch of the Hsu-Tang Library with Prof Wiebke Denecke!

We recently celebrated the launch of The Hsu-Tang Library at The University of Oxford China Centre, where Prof Wiebke Denecke, Founding Editor-in-Chief, and Lucas Klein, Associate Editor, were joined by Professor Tian Yuan Tan, Shaw Professor of Chinese, to discuss...

Prof Joshua Bennett spotlight on the homepage of MIT with MIT News!

Joshua Bennett’s scholarship, poetry, and teaching help students address core questions about values and meaning in life. “They see it as an opportunity, and they’ve explicitly told me this, to talk about being human,” he says. The Study and Practice of Being Human...

July 31st! Prof Joshua Bennett, Prof Brandon Terry & Prof Imani Perry in conversation: “Poetry, Public Art, and the Politics of Memory” | City of Boston and the Mellon Foundation

POETRY, PUBLIC ART, AND THE POLITICS OF MEMORY The first of three public conversations at The Embrace as part of Un-monument | De-monument | Re-monument: Transforming Boston. Join the Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture and The Hutchins Center for African and African...

MIT Global Shakespeares received an HONORABLE MENTION for the 2024 ATHE-ASTR Award for Excellence in Digital Scholarship from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education.

The committee is also delighted to recognize the following outstanding work and honorable mention: Alexa Alice Joubin & Peter S. Donaldson in Global Shakespeares Video & Performance Archive Peter S. Donaldson is Ford International Professor in the Humanities...

Parapraxis | Prof Eugenie Brinkema publishes article, “Ten to Twelve Dead Brothers”

“Dead brothers disturb the word. They disorder line and page, meter and type. Writing won’t get it quite right, though it will set to it.” Prof Eugenie Brinkema retreads the rivalry and grief of siblings, and the wish to remember, to hold to memory Read it here:...

Raison politiques 94, mai 2024 | Interview with Prof Bruno Perreau with Benjamin Boudou et Félix Mégret

In June, the top French and Francophone journal in political theory (Raisons politiques) published a thirty-page interview on Prof Bruno Perreau's trajectory and research, as well as his work with the Literature Section at MIT. “Une nouvelle théorie de l’injustice,”...

History of Humanities publishes a manifesto-style volume of the Comparative Global Humanities initiative at MIT, coedited by Wiebke Denecke, Alexander Forte, and Tristan Brown

History of Humanities, Volume 9, Number 1, Spring 2024 Co-edited by Wiebke Denecke, Alexander Forte, and Tristan Brown THEME: SHARED PASTS FOR SHARED FUTURES; PROTOTYPING A COMPARATIVE GLOBAL HUMANITIES This volume argues for a comparative and global reimagination of...

Congratulations to the Lit@MIT Class of 2024: Diego, Grace, Katherine, Kelsey, Nina, and Tamea!

Congratulations, Class of 2024! We are so proud of all that you have achieved in your time at MIT! Diego Delarue Grace McMillan Katherine Lei Kelsey Glover Nina Yihong Li Tamea Cobb

EVENTS

21

October

Lit Tea

Date October 21, 2024Time 4:15 pmVenue 14N-417Category Tea Time

22

October

The Green-Taylor Lectures: A Black Life and Letters Speakers Series presents, Imani Perry

Date October 22, 2024Time 6:30 pm - 7:30 pmVenue Bartos Theater, E15-070

28

October

AMS presents, Matthew Edholm “Old voices saying new things: Re-writing classical literature at the monastery of Fulda in the mid-ninth century”

AMS presents, Matthew Edholm "Old voices saying new things: Re-writing classical literature at the monastery of Fulda in the mid-ninth century"

Date October 28, 2024Time 6:00 pm - 7:00 pmVenue E51-275Category Literature Event

FUN FACTS

The Literature concentration takes about three approved subjects to complete! Lit concentrators often go on to minoring or majoring in Literature!

During a 1998 talk at MIT titled, “Devil Girl From Mars’: Why I Write Science Fiction” Octavia Butler explained how media inspired her to start writing.

Literature minors can choose to focus their studies on specific literary complexes as well as film, ancient & medieval studies, and more!

Frank Stella’s “Loohooloo” (1995) conference room located at the MIT School of Architecture and Planning references Herman Melville’s novel, Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Sea.