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 multiple expressive forms, such as novels, poems, plays, films, and visual art, not only make imaginative and critical sense of history and the present but also project us into a range of possible futures.

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RECENT NEWS

New Books Network | High Theory: A “Generic” Podcast Interview with Prof. Mangrum,

Hosted by Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu In this episode of High Theory, Kim talks to Prof. Ben Mangrum about Generic. A curious term that denotes both the conventions and rules of genre, and the impersonal or nameless quality of things like generic drugs or generic...

Critical Inquiry | New review of Prof. Mangrum’s book, The Comedy of Computation

Written by Kate Marshall, Thomas J. and Robert T. Rolfs College Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, where she also serves as Associate Dean for Research and is Director of the Franco Institute. She is the author, most recently, of Novels by Aliens:...

Congratulations! Literature’s second annual celebration of our recently published Literature faculty: Profs Bennett, Mangrum, and Perry!

This May 6th, Literature's end-of-year party celebrated the recent publications of our faculty: The People Can Fly American Promise, Black Prodigies, and the Greatest Miracle of All Time by Joshua Bennett The Comedy of Computation, Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying...

Arts in America | Prof. Eugenie Brinkema and Two Museums Take on Performative Masculinity, Looksmaxxing, Incels, and Other Macho Buzzwords That Don’t Belong There.

“Beyond the Manosphere: Masculinities Today” is a clickbait thirst-trap trend-driven symptom of everything wrong with museums entering the attention-economy game. The veneer of urgency and cultural relevance feels forced and already dated. It’s the tweedy teacher...

Lit@MIT Summer 2026 Reading List: Literature Instructor Picks

Whether you’re looking to have a thoughtful or relaxing summer (or a good balance of both), here you’ll find a list of books worth your time to read and curated by your very own MIT Literature instructors to boot. Lit Instructor Picks Title: Author: Description:...

Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies | Prof. Jessica Ruffin “Fluid in All Aspects, Except for Race”: Black Faces and the Limits of Abstraction

This May 2026, the journal Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies published Prof. Jessica Ruffin's newest article, “‘Fluid in All Aspects, Except for Race’: Black Faces and the Limits of Abstraction,” as part of a dossier edited by Tess Takahashi...

Lit Majors Kelly Kim’26 and Sabine Chu’26: Thesis Defended!

Kelly Hanah Kim presented, "Unearthing Human Flourishing through Bibliotherapy: Rescripting Han Kang’s The Vegetarian" with advisor Prof. Wiebke Denecke, appearing on Zoom with a UCLA guest reader, and reader Prof. Joaquín Terrones. Questions and conversations...

SHASS Alumni Gallery Spotlights | Cara Lai graduated from MIT in 2016 with degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Literature!

Cara Lai ’16 Mechanical Engineering (Course 2A) Literature (Course 21L) Cara Lai, who graduated from MIT in 2016 with degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Literature, is a medical resident in orthopedic surgery. “Literature, and the humanities more broadly, helped me...

MIT Global Humanities Launches New Podcast Series “Medicine and Healing Arts”

The MIT Global Humanities is pleased to announce the launch of its new podcast series, Medicine and Healing Arts, a platform for conversations exploring the intersections of medicine, history, culture, and human flourishing across time and traditions. The inaugural...

Peter S. Donaldson Prize 2026 awarded to Literature Major: Sabine Chu!

The Peter S. Donaldson Prize for Excellence in Literary Studies is awarded each spring at the last Lit Tea to Literature majors who excel academically and engage participants in the literary community at MIT. This year, the winner was Sabine Chu, MIT Class of 2026!...

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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!

William Carlos Williams was an American poet, writer, and physician of pediatrics and general medicine.