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

Oct 16 | French Library presents, Sphères d’injustice with Bruno Perreau Book Talk

Thursday, October 16, 2025 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM @ The French Library How can the fight against discrimination serve everyone? In his latest book, Professor Perreau argues that minority issues concern us all and that solidarity, rather than competition, our political and...

Oct 25 | French Voices at the Boston Book Festival (featuring Bruno Perreau) in Partnership with the French Library/Villa Albertine

Saturday, October 25, 2025 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM @ The French Library Join us for a day of engaging conversations, thought-provoking ideas, and book signings with some of today’s most celebrated French authors and thinkers. This special event will feature three talks,...

Recall This Book Podcast | Ben Mangrum’s Comical Computation

When does comedy become more than a laugh? Ben Mangrum of MIT joins RtB to discuss his new book, The Comedy of Computation: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Obsolescence (Stanford University Press, 2025), which in some ways is organized around “the...

Sept 30 | Harvard Mahindra Center presents, “The Novel in the Age of AI: A Roundtable with Elyse Graham, Benjamin Mangrum, and Tom Comitta”

NOVEL THEORY SPEAKERS: Elyse Graham (Stonybrook University); Benjamin Mangrum (MIT); Tom Comitta Literature as thinking, or, why AI can't nail metaphors - Elyse Graham This paper explores why large language models (LLMs), for all their superficial fluency with...

MIT News | An adaptable evaluation of justice and interest groups with Prof Bruno Perreau

In his newest published book, Professor Bruno Perreau explores the resonances between minority experiences –what he calls intrasectionality– and how they contribute to improving democratic systems and expanding legal protections for all. For so doing, Bruno...

London Review of Books | “Supereffable” Book Review of Arthur Bahr’s Chasing the Pearl-Manuscript: Speculation, Shapes, Delight

Volume 47, No. 17, September 2025 of the London Review of Books features a review of Professor Arthur Bahr's newest book Chasing the Pearl-Manuscript: Speculation, Shapes, Delight. It delves into the history of the works that survived a fire in 1731 as well as the...

Sept 21 | MITCOB presents, Ruth Perry Mrs. Brown of Falkland and 18th century Scottish Ballads

Come join Prof. Ruth Perry and fellow alumni to learn about The Ballad World of Anna Gordon, Mrs. Brown of Falkland. Prof. Perry’s new book contains the known facts and the family stories of the eighteenth-century Forbes and Gordons in the North-east of Scotland; an...

Sept 20 | Atlantic Reads: Walt Hunter presents The Singing Word, in conversation with Joshua Bennett & Rita Dove

The poetry of The Atlantic has, from the magazine’s first issue in 1857, called attention to the unfinished project of the nation. Join us at McNally Jackson as The Atlantic's poetry editor, Walt Hunter, and the poets Joshua Bennett and Rita Dove discuss The Singing...

Sept 17 | WGS presents, Spheres of Injustice: Gender, Race, Sexuality, Age, Disability… book talk with Prof. Bruno Perreau

Please join us in this book talk with Prof. Bruno Perreau. In “Spheres of Injustice”, Perreau studies anti-discrimination policies and politics in France and the US. He shows that reactionary groups abuse the notion of minority by demanding to be protected just as...

MIT SHASS | Joshua Bennett awarded Institute for Advanced Study fellowship!

Congratulations, Dr. Joshua Bennett! This prestigious fellowship, which facilitates focused research and the free and open exchange of ideas among an international community of scholars, was awarded to Professor Joshua Bennett by the Institute for Advanced Study for...

EVENTS

20

October

HumaniTea

Date October 20, 2025Time 4:15 pm - 5:45 pmVenue Room 14E-304Category Tea Time

27

October

Lit Tea

Date October 27, 2025Time 4:15 pm - 5:45 pmVenue 14N-417Category Tea Time

27

October

Global France Seminar presents, Subha Xavier “From Opium to Fentanyl Wars: China in the Western Imaginary”

Date October 27, 2025Time 5:15 pm - 6:30 pmVenue MIT Building 14E-304

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.