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Comparative Literature Theses and Dissertations

Theses/dissertations from 2023 2023.

Constructing Selfhood Through Fantasy: Mirror Women and Dreamscape Conversations in Olga Grushin’s Forty Rooms , Grace Marie Alger

Eugene O’Neill Returns: Theatrical Modernization and O’Neill Adaptations in 1980s China , Shuying Chen

The Supernatural in Migration: A Reflection on Senegalese Literature and Film , Rokhaya Aballa Dieng

Breaking Down the Human: Disintegration in Nineteenth-Century Fiction , Benjamin Mark Driscol

Archetypes Revisited: Investigating the Power of Universals in Soviet and Hollywood Cinema , Iana Guselnikova

Planting Rhizomes: Roots and Rhizomes in Maryse Condé’s Traversée de la Mangrove and Calixthe Beyala’s Le Petit Prince de Belleville , Rume Kpadamrophe

Violence, Rebellion, and Compromise in Chinese Campus Cinema ----- The Comparison of Cry Me a Sad River and Better Days , Chunyu Liu

Tracing Modern and Contemporary Sino-French Literary and Intellectual Relations: China, France, and Their Shifting Peripheries , Paul Timothy McElhinny

Truth And Knowledge In A Literary Text And Beyond: Lydia Chukovskaya’s Sofia Petrovna At The Intersections Between Selves, Culture, And Paratext , Angelina Rubina

From Roland to Gawain, or the Origin of Personified Knights , Clyde Tilson

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

Afro-Diasporic Literatures of the United States and Brazil: Imaginaries, Counter-Narratives, and Black Feminism in the Americas , David E. S. Beek

The Pursuit of Good Food: The Alimentary Chronotope in Madame Bovary , Lauren Flinner

Form and Voice: Representing Contemporary Women’s Subaltern Experience in and Beyond China , Tingting Hu

Geography of a “Foreign” China: British Intellectuals’ Encounter With Chinese Spaces, 1920-1945 , Yuzhu Sun

Truth and Identity in Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov and Prince Myshkin , Gwendolyn Walker

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

Postcolonial Narrative and The Dialogic Imaginatio n: An Analysis of Early Francophone West African Fiction and Cinema , Seydina Mouhamed Diouf

The Rising of the Avant-Garde Movement In the 1980s People’s Republic of China: A Cultural Practice of the New Enlightenment , Jingsheng Zhang

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

L’ Entre- Monde : The Cinema of Alain Gomis , Guillaume Coly

Digesting Gender: Gendered Foodways in Modern Chinese Literature, 1890s–1940s , Zhuo Feng

The Deconstruction of Patriarchal War Narratives in Svetlana Alexievich’s The Unwomanly Face of War , Liubov Kartashova

Pushing the Limits of Black Atlantic and Hispanic Transatlantic Studies Through the Exploration of Three U.S. Afro-Latio Memoirs , Julia Luján

Taiwanese Postcolonial Identities and Environmentalism in Wu Ming-Yi’s the Stolen Bicycle , Chihchi Sunny Tsai

Games and Play of Dream of the Red Chamber , Jiayao Wang

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

Convertirse en Inmortal, 成仙 ChéngxiāN, Becoming Xian: Memory and Subjectivity in Cristina Rivera Garza’s Verde Shanghai , Katherine Paulette Elizabeth Crouch

Between Holy Russia and a Monkey: Darwin's Russian Literary and Philosophical Critics , Brendan G. Mooney

Emerging Populations: An Analysis of Twenty-First Century Caribbean Short Stories , Jeremy Patterson

Time, Space and Nonexistence in Joseph Brodsky's Poetry , Daria Smirnova

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

Through the Spaceship’s Window: A Bio-political Reading of 20th Century Latin American and Anglo-Saxon Science Fiction , Juan David Cruz

The Representations of Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Arab Women’s Literature: Elements of Subversion and Resignification. , Rima Sadek

Insects As Metaphors For Post-Civil War Reconstruction Of The Civic Body In Augustan Age Rome , Olivia Semler

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

Flannery O’Connor’s Art And The French Renouveau Catholique: A Comparative Exploration Of Contextual Resources For The Author’s Theological Aesthetics Of Sin and Grace , Stephen Allen Baarendse

The Quixotic Picaresque: Tricksters, Modernity, and Otherness in the Transatlantic Novel, or the Intertextual Rhizome of Lazarillo, Don Quijote, Huck Finn, and The Reivers , David Elijah Sinsabaugh Beek

Piglia and Russia: Russian Influences in Ricardo Piglia’s Nombre Falso , Carol E. Fruit Diouf

Beyond Life And Death Images Of Exceptional Women And Chinese Modernity , Wei Hu

Archival Resistance: A Comparative Reading of Ulysses and One Hundred Years of Solitude , Maria-Josee Mendez

Narrating the (Im)Migrant Experience: 21st Century African Fiction in the Age of Globalization , Bernard Ayo Oniwe

Narrating Pain and Freedom: Place and Identity in Modern Syrian Poetry (1970s-1990s) , Manar Shabouk

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

The Development of ‘Meaning’ in Literary Theory: A Comparative Critical Study , Mahmoud Mohamed Ali Ahmad Elkordy

Familial Betrayal And Trauma In Select Plays Of Shakespeare, Racine, And The Corneilles , Lynn Kramer

Evil Men Have No Songs: The Terrorist and Literatuer Boris Savinkov, 1879-1925 , Irina Vasilyeva Meier

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

Resurrectio Mortuorum: Plato’s Use of Ἀνάγκη in the Dialogues , Joshua B. Gehling

Two Million "Butterflies" Searching for Home: Identity and Images of Korean Chinese in Ho Yon-Sun's Yanbian Narratives , Xiang Jin

The Trialectics Of Transnational Migrant Women’s Literature In The Writing Of Edwidge Danticat And Julia Alvarez , Jennifer Lynn Karash-Eastman

Unacknowledged Victims: Love between Women in the Narrative of the Holocaust. An Analysis of Memoirs, Novels, Film and Public Memorials , Isabel Meusen

Making the Irrational Rational: Nietzsche and the Problem of Knowledge in Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita , Brendan Mooney

Invective Drag: Talking Dirty in Catullus, Cicero, Horace, and Ovid , Casey Catherine Moore

Destination Hong Kong: Negotiating Locality in Hong Kong Novels 1945-1966 , Xianmin Shen

H.P. Lovecraft & The French Connection: Translation, Pulps and Literary History , Todd David Spaulding

Female Representations in Contemporary Postmodern War Novels of Spain and the United States: Women as Tools of Modern Catharsis in the Works of Javier Cercas and Tim O'Brien , Joseph P. Weil

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

Poetic Appropriations in Vergil’s Aeneid: A Study in Three Themes Comprising Aeneas’ Character Development , Edgar Gordyn

Ekphrasis and Skepticism in Three Works of Shakespeare , Robert P. Irons

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

The Role of the Trickster Figure and Four Afro-Caribbean Meta-Tropes In the Realization of Agency by Three Slave Protagonists , David Sebastian Cross

Putting Place Back Into Displacement: Reevaluating Diaspora In the Contemporary Literature of Migration , Christiane Brigitte Steckenbiller

Using Singular Value Decomposition in Classics: Seeking Correlations in Horace, Juvenal and Persius against the Fragments of Lucilius , Thomas Whidden

Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012

Decolonizing Transnational Subaltern Women: The Case of Kurasoleñas and New York Dominicanas , Florencia Cornet

Representation of Women In 19Th Century Popular Art and Literature: Forget Me Not and La Revista Moderna , Juan David Cruz

53x+m³=Ø? (Sex+Me=No Result?): Tropes of Asexuality in Literature and Film , Jana -. Fedtke

Argentina in The African Diaspora: Afro-Argentine And African American Cultural Production, Race, And Nation Building in the 19th Century , Julia Lujan

Male Subjectivity and Twenty-First Century German Cinema: Gender, National Idenity, and the Problem of Normalization , Richard Sell

Theses/Dissertations from 2011 2011

Blue Poets: Brilliant Poetry , Evangelin Grace Chapman-Wall

Sickness of the Spirit: A Comparative Study of Lu Xun and James Joyce , Liang Meng

Dryden and the Solution to Domination: Bonds of Love In the Conquest of Granada , Lydia FitzSimons Robins

Theses/Dissertations from 2010 2010

The Family As the New Collectivity of Belonging In the Fiction of Bharati Mukherjee and Jhumpa Lahiri , Sarbani Bose

Lyric Transcendence: the Sacred and the Real In Classical and Early-Modern Lyric. , Larry Grant Hamby

Abd al-Rahman Al-Kawakibi's Tabai` al-Istibdad wa Masari` al-Isti`bad (The Characteristics of Despotism and The Demises of Enslavement): A Translation and Introduction , Mohamad Subhi Hindi

Re-Visions: Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy In German and Italian Film and Literature , Kristina Stefanic Brown

Plato In Modern China: A Study of Contemporary Chinese Platonists , Leihua Weng

Making Victims: History, Memory, and Literature In Japan's Post-War Social Imaginary , Kimberly Wickham

Theses/Dissertations from 2009 2009

The Mirrored Body: Doubling and Replacement of the Feminine and androgynous Body In Hadia Said'S Artist and Haruki Murakami'S Sputnik Sweetheart , Fatmah Alsalamean

Making Monsters: The Monstrous-Feminine In Horace and Catullus , Casey Catherine Moore

Not Quite American, Not Quite European: Performing "Other" Claims to Exceptionality In Francoist Spain and the Jim Crow South , Brittany Powell

Developing Latin American Feminist Theory: Strategies of Resistance In the Novels of Luisa Valenzuela and Sandra Cisneros , Jennifer Lyn Slobodian

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Gen ed writes, writing across the disciplines at harvard college.

  • Comparative Analysis

What It Is and Why It's Useful

Comparative analysis asks writers to make an argument about the relationship between two or more texts. Beyond that, there's a lot of variation, but three overarching kinds of comparative analysis stand out:

  • Coordinate (A ↔ B): In this kind of analysis, two (or more) texts are being read against each other in terms of a shared element, e.g., a memoir and a novel, both by Jesmyn Ward; two sets of data for the same experiment; a few op-ed responses to the same event; two YA books written in Chicago in the 2000s; a film adaption of a play; etc. 
  • Subordinate (A  → B) or (B → A ): Using a theoretical text (as a "lens") to explain a case study or work of art (e.g., how Anthony Jack's The Privileged Poor can help explain divergent experiences among students at elite four-year private colleges who are coming from similar socio-economic backgrounds) or using a work of art or case study (i.e., as a "test" of) a theory's usefulness or limitations (e.g., using coverage of recent incidents of gun violence or legislation un the U.S. to confirm or question the currency of Carol Anderson's The Second ).
  • Hybrid [A  → (B ↔ C)] or [(B ↔ C) → A] , i.e., using coordinate and subordinate analysis together. For example, using Jack to compare or contrast the experiences of students at elite four-year institutions with students at state universities and/or community colleges; or looking at gun culture in other countries and/or other timeframes to contextualize or generalize Anderson's main points about the role of the Second Amendment in U.S. history.

"In the wild," these three kinds of comparative analysis represent increasingly complex—and scholarly—modes of comparison. Students can of course compare two poems in terms of imagery or two data sets in terms of methods, but in each case the analysis will eventually be richer if the students have had a chance to encounter other people's ideas about how imagery or methods work. At that point, we're getting into a hybrid kind of reading (or even into research essays), especially if we start introducing different approaches to imagery or methods that are themselves being compared along with a couple (or few) poems or data sets.

Why It's Useful

In the context of a particular course, each kind of comparative analysis has its place and can be a useful step up from single-source analysis. Intellectually, comparative analysis helps overcome the "n of 1" problem that can face single-source analysis. That is, a writer drawing broad conclusions about the influence of the Iranian New Wave based on one film is relying entirely—and almost certainly too much—on that film to support those findings. In the context of even just one more film, though, the analysis is suddenly more likely to arrive at one of the best features of any comparative approach: both films will be more richly experienced than they would have been in isolation, and the themes or questions in terms of which they're being explored (here the general question of the influence of the Iranian New Wave) will arrive at conclusions that are less at-risk of oversimplification.

For scholars working in comparative fields or through comparative approaches, these features of comparative analysis animate their work. To borrow from a stock example in Western epistemology, our concept of "green" isn't based on a single encounter with something we intuit or are told is "green." Not at all. Our concept of "green" is derived from a complex set of experiences of what others say is green or what's labeled green or what seems to be something that's neither blue nor yellow but kind of both, etc. Comparative analysis essays offer us the chance to engage with that process—even if only enough to help us see where a more in-depth exploration with a higher and/or more diverse "n" might lead—and in that sense, from the standpoint of the subject matter students are exploring through writing as well the complexity of the genre of writing they're using to explore it—comparative analysis forms a bridge of sorts between single-source analysis and research essays.

Typical learning objectives for single-sources essays: formulate analytical questions and an arguable thesis, establish stakes of an argument, summarize sources accurately, choose evidence effectively, analyze evidence effectively, define key terms, organize argument logically, acknowledge and respond to counterargument, cite sources properly, and present ideas in clear prose.

Common types of comparative analysis essays and related types: two works in the same genre, two works from the same period (but in different places or in different cultures), a work adapted into a different genre or medium, two theories treating the same topic; a theory and a case study or other object, etc.

How to Teach It: Framing + Practice

Framing multi-source writing assignments (comparative analysis, research essays, multi-modal projects) is likely to overlap a great deal with "Why It's Useful" (see above), because the range of reasons why we might use these kinds of writing in academic or non-academic settings is itself the reason why they so often appear later in courses. In many courses, they're the best vehicles for exploring the complex questions that arise once we've been introduced to the course's main themes, core content, leading protagonists, and central debates.

For comparative analysis in particular, it's helpful to frame assignment's process and how it will help students successfully navigate the challenges and pitfalls presented by the genre. Ideally, this will mean students have time to identify what each text seems to be doing, take note of apparent points of connection between different texts, and start to imagine how those points of connection (or the absence thereof)

  • complicates or upends their own expectations or assumptions about the texts
  • complicates or refutes the expectations or assumptions about the texts presented by a scholar
  • confirms and/or nuances expectations and assumptions they themselves hold or scholars have presented
  • presents entirely unforeseen ways of understanding the texts

—and all with implications for the texts themselves or for the axes along which the comparative analysis took place. If students know that this is where their ideas will be heading, they'll be ready to develop those ideas and engage with the challenges that comparative analysis presents in terms of structure (See "Tips" and "Common Pitfalls" below for more on these elements of framing).

Like single-source analyses, comparative essays have several moving parts, and giving students practice here means adapting the sample sequence laid out at the " Formative Writing Assignments " page. Three areas that have already been mentioned above are worth noting:

  • Gathering evidence : Depending on what your assignment is asking students to compare (or in terms of what), students will benefit greatly from structured opportunities to create inventories or data sets of the motifs, examples, trajectories, etc., shared (or not shared) by the texts they'll be comparing. See the sample exercises below for a basic example of what this might look like.
  • Why it Matters: Moving beyond "x is like y but also different" or even "x is more like y than we might think at first" is what moves an essay from being "compare/contrast" to being a comparative analysis . It's also a move that can be hard to make and that will often evolve over the course of an assignment. A great way to get feedback from students about where they're at on this front? Ask them to start considering early on why their argument "matters" to different kinds of imagined audiences (while they're just gathering evidence) and again as they develop their thesis and again as they're drafting their essays. ( Cover letters , for example, are a great place to ask writers to imagine how a reader might be affected by reading an their argument.)
  • Structure: Having two texts on stage at the same time can suddenly feel a lot more complicated for any writer who's used to having just one at a time. Giving students a sense of what the most common patterns (AAA / BBB, ABABAB, etc.) are likely to be can help them imagine, even if provisionally, how their argument might unfold over a series of pages. See "Tips" and "Common Pitfalls" below for more information on this front.

Sample Exercises and Links to Other Resources

  • Common Pitfalls
  • Advice on Timing
  • Try to keep students from thinking of a proposed thesis as a commitment. Instead, help them see it as more of a hypothesis that has emerged out of readings and discussion and analytical questions and that they'll now test through an experiment, namely, writing their essay. When students see writing as part of the process of inquiry—rather than just the result—and when that process is committed to acknowledging and adapting itself to evidence, it makes writing assignments more scientific, more ethical, and more authentic. 
  • Have students create an inventory of touch points between the two texts early in the process.
  • Ask students to make the case—early on and at points throughout the process—for the significance of the claim they're making about the relationship between the texts they're comparing.
  • For coordinate kinds of comparative analysis, a common pitfall is tied to thesis and evidence. Basically, it's a thesis that tells the reader that there are "similarities and differences" between two texts, without telling the reader why it matters that these two texts have or don't have these particular features in common. This kind of thesis is stuck at the level of description or positivism, and it's not uncommon when a writer is grappling with the complexity that can in fact accompany the "taking inventory" stage of comparative analysis. The solution is to make the "taking inventory" stage part of the process of the assignment. When this stage comes before students have formulated a thesis, that formulation is then able to emerge out of a comparative data set, rather than the data set emerging in terms of their thesis (which can lead to confirmation bias, or frequency illusion, or—just for the sake of streamlining the process of gathering evidence—cherry picking). 
  • For subordinate kinds of comparative analysis , a common pitfall is tied to how much weight is given to each source. Having students apply a theory (in a "lens" essay) or weigh the pros and cons of a theory against case studies (in a "test a theory") essay can be a great way to help them explore the assumptions, implications, and real-world usefulness of theoretical approaches. The pitfall of these approaches is that they can quickly lead to the same biases we saw here above. Making sure that students know they should engage with counterevidence and counterargument, and that "lens" / "test a theory" approaches often balance each other out in any real-world application of theory is a good way to get out in front of this pitfall.
  • For any kind of comparative analysis, a common pitfall is structure. Every comparative analysis asks writers to move back and forth between texts, and that can pose a number of challenges, including: what pattern the back and forth should follow and how to use transitions and other signposting to make sure readers can follow the overarching argument as the back and forth is taking place. Here's some advice from an experienced writing instructor to students about how to think about these considerations:

a quick note on STRUCTURE

     Most of us have encountered the question of whether to adopt what we might term the “A→A→A→B→B→B” structure or the “A→B→A→B→A→B” structure.  Do we make all of our points about text A before moving on to text B?  Or do we go back and forth between A and B as the essay proceeds?  As always, the answers to our questions about structure depend on our goals in the essay as a whole.  In a “similarities in spite of differences” essay, for instance, readers will need to encounter the differences between A and B before we offer them the similarities (A d →B d →A s →B s ).  If, rather than subordinating differences to similarities you are subordinating text A to text B (using A as a point of comparison that reveals B’s originality, say), you may be well served by the “A→A→A→B→B→B” structure.  

     Ultimately, you need to ask yourself how many “A→B” moves you have in you.  Is each one identical?  If so, you may wish to make the transition from A to B only once (“A→A→A→B→B→B”), because if each “A→B” move is identical, the “A→B→A→B→A→B” structure will appear to involve nothing more than directionless oscillation and repetition.  If each is increasingly complex, however—if each AB pair yields a new and progressively more complex idea about your subject—you may be well served by the “A→B→A→B→A→B” structure, because in this case it will be visible to readers as a progressively developing argument.

As we discussed in "Advice on Timing" at the page on single-source analysis, that timeline itself roughly follows the "Sample Sequence of Formative Assignments for a 'Typical' Essay" outlined under " Formative Writing Assignments, " and it spans about 5–6 steps or 2–4 weeks. 

Comparative analysis assignments have a lot of the same DNA as single-source essays, but they potentially bring more reading into play and ask students to engage in more complicated acts of analysis and synthesis during the drafting stages. With that in mind, closer to 4 weeks is probably a good baseline for many single-source analysis assignments. For sections that meet once per week, the timeline will either probably need to expand—ideally—a little past the 4-week side of things, or some of the steps will need to be combined or done asynchronously.

What It Can Build Up To

Comparative analyses can build up to other kinds of writing in a number of ways. For example:

  • They can build toward other kinds of comparative analysis, e.g., student can be asked to choose an additional source to complicate their conclusions from a previous analysis, or they can be asked to revisit an analysis using a different axis of comparison, such as race instead of class. (These approaches are akin to moving from a coordinate or subordinate analysis to more of a hybrid approach.)
  • They can scaffold up to research essays, which in many instances are an extension of a "hybrid comparative analysis."
  • Like single-source analysis, in a course where students will take a "deep dive" into a source or topic for their capstone, they can allow students to "try on" a theoretical approach or genre or time period to see if it's indeed something they want to research more fully.
  • DIY Guides for Analytical Writing Assignments

For Teaching Fellows & Teaching Assistants

  • Types of Assignments
  • Unpacking the Elements of Writing Prompts
  • Formative Writing Assignments
  • Single-Source Analysis
  • Research Essays
  • Multi-Modal or Creative Projects
  • Giving Feedback to Students

Assignment Decoder

Home » Blog » A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Comparative Analysis

A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Comparative Analysis

Table of Contents

How to Write a Comparative Analysis with Examples

Writing a comparative analysis in a research paper is not as difficult as many people might tend to think. With some tips, it is possible to write an outstanding comparative review. There are steps that must be utilized to attain this result. They are as detailed in this article.

Within the literary, academic, and journalistic world, analysis allows exposing ideas and arguments in front of a context, making it an important material for discussion within professional work.

Within this genre, we can find a comparative analysis. For some authors, the comparative essay is defined as the text where two opposing positions are proposed or where two theses are verified. The author intends to make the reader reflect on a specific topic through this comparison. It consists of giving a written opinion about two positions, which are compared between them to conclude. Do you know how to write a comparative essay? In this article, we will explain how to do it step by step.

So, let’s see the guidelines you must follow to achieve a good comparative analysis.

How to Write a Good Comparative Analysis

The structure.

The approach is generally developed in the first paragraph or at the beginning of the work. Its objective is to propose the author’s position regarding a specific subject. Generally, this approach specifies the objective to be achieved. You must be clear about what topic you will deal with, what you want to explain, and what perspectives will be used in your comparative analysis, and you must also define who you write for.

As it is a comparative text, it begins with a general observation that can serve as a context for both approaches, then begins by establishing the arguments in each of the two cases. Do not forget to compare both objects of study according to each argument or idea to develop.

Let it be the reader himself who finds or defines his position in this essay and chooses one of the two alternatives.

In this entry, there are two possibilities of approach: one deductive and the other inductive. The deductive method raises the issue, and you use your analysis of the variables to guide the reader to draw their conclusions or fix a position on the issue. While the inductive method starts with an argument, developing each variable until the topic’s approach or problem is reached. The two ways of approaching the subject are viable. Choose the one that is easiest for you to work with.

At the end of this section, your audience should:

  • First, clearly understand what topics you will cover in your essay, what you want to explain, and under what positions or perspectives you will do it. It begins with a general observation that establishes the similarity between the two subjects and then moves the essay’s focus to the concrete.
  • The reader should understand which points will be examined and which will not be examined in the comparison. At the end of the introduction, state your preference, or describe the two subjects’ meaning.
  • Your readers should be able to describe the ideas you will treat. Make a detailed exposition of its characteristics, history, consequences, and development that you consider appropriate. Your comparative analysis should expose the characteristics of the second position on which you want to speak as much as in the first one.

Development of Body

Generally, in the body of the essay, the author presents all the arguments that support his thesis, which gives him a reflective and justifying body of the author’s initial statement. Depending on the length of the work, which can range from two to 15 pages, each paragraph or before a title corresponds to an argument’s development.

After speaking on the subject, the author must close the essay, conclude, show the findings of his work, and/or show the conclusions he reached. You must write a final closing paragraph as a conclusion, exposing a confrontation between the two positions. Try to create a fight between them so that the reader gets involved. The conclusion should give a brief and general summary of the most important similarities and differences. It should end with a personal statement, an opinion, and the “what then?” – what is important about the two things being compared.

Readers should be left feeling that this essay’s different threads have been put together coherently, that they have learned something – and they must be sure that this is the end – that they do not look around for missing pages. And finally, your assessment must explain your solidarity position and why you prefer it to the other.

Examples of How to Write a Comparative Analysis

Comparative analysis example 1:.

Paragraph 1: Messi’s preferred position / Ronaldo’s preferred position.

Paragraph 2: Messi’s play style / Ronaldo’s play style.

Paragraph 3: Messi aerial game / Ronaldo aerial game.

Comparative Analysis Example 2:

Paragraph 1: Messi teamwork.

Paragraph 2: Ronaldo’s teamwork.

Paragraph 3: Messi stopped the ball.

Paragraph 4: Ronaldo’s stopped the ball.

Paragraph 5: Messi’s achievements.

Paragraph 6: Ronaldo’s achievements.

Few Important Rules for Comparative analysis

Even if the exercise sounds simple, a few rules should be followed to help your audience as best as possible make the best decision.

1. Clearly state your position

The first question is, “Why are you doing a comparison analysis”? To highlight your view or ideas over another, or simply to compare two (or more) solutions that do not belong to you? You must clearly state your position to your reader, and so does your credibility.

Be honest and state, for example:

  • The idea you are trying to espouse
  • The framework you are using
  • The reason why you are doing this comparison is the objective

In addition to the above, you must be consistent with the exposition of your ideas.

2. Stay objective

Even if you include your personal ideology in your comparison, stay objective. Your readers will not appreciate it when you point out all the disadvantages of one idea while you display the advantages of the other. Your comparison will turn into advertising. You have to raise weak points and strong points on both sides.

These analyses are always subjective, so you must clarify which position convinces you the most.

3. Think about audience’s expectations

The research paper is intended for your readers, meaning you must consider their expectations when writing your review. Put aside your desire to sell your desired idea and take your readers’ perspective:

  • What information are they interested in?
  • What are their criteria?
  • What do they want to know?
  • What do they want from the product or service?

Again, it is about being objective in all your statements.

4. Organize information

It is important to structure your comments for your readers to want to read your comparative analysis. The idea is to make it easy for your readers to navigate your paper and get them to find the information that interests them quickly.

5. End with a conclusion

You’ve tried to be as objective as possible throughout your comparison, and now is the time to let go, as we have mentioned many times in this post. In your conclusion, you can go directly to your readers and give your opinion. With a few tips, you can also encourage them to go towards one or the other idea.

Note: If time is not an issue, the best way to review the essay is to leave it for one day. Go for a walk, eat something, have fun, and forget. Then it’s time to return to the text, find and fix problems. This must be done separately; first, find all the problems you can without correcting them. Although doing it simultaneously is tempting, it is smarter to do it separately. It is effective and fast.

Tips on Comparative Analysis

Be concise or accurate in your analysis and dissertation of the topic.

Sometimes the authors believe that the more elaborate the language and the more extensive the writing, the better the writers or essayists. On the contrary, a good essay refers to an exact topic analysis, where the reader can dynamically advance the work and understand the author’s position.

Use only the arguments necessary to explain the topic, do not talk too much. You risk being redundant or repetitive, making the text-heavy when reading and understanding it.

Write in Short Sentences

Just as we recommend that you do not redound in your texts, we also encourage you to write with short sentences. They give dynamism to the text. Communication is direct. The reader advances in the text and understands much more.

Include Reflections in Your Text

Supporting your approach with reflections or quotes from authors makes your essay more important. Above all, use those arguments that justify or strengthen your position regarding one thesis or the other.

Text Revision

Since comparative analysis can tend to be a subjective work, you must let it “sit” for a day or a few hours and read it again. This exercise will allow you to make corrections. Modify those aspects that are not clear enough for you. And you can improve it in a few words. Once you do this exercise, you can submit it just like this.

If you like this article, see others like it:

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  • > The Research Imagination
  • > COMPARATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

comparative study thesis

Book contents

  • Frontmatter
  • 1 RESEARCH PROCESS
  • 2 THEORY AND METHOD
  • 3 RESEARCH DESIGN
  • 4 MEASUREMENT
  • 5 ETHICAL AND POLITICAL ISSUES
  • 7 SURVEY RESEARCH
  • 8 INTENSIVE INTERVIEWING
  • 9 OBSERVATIONAL FIELD RESEARCH
  • 10 FEMINIST METHODS
  • 11 HISTORICAL ANALYSIS
  • 12 EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH
  • 13 CONTENT ANALYSIS
  • 14 AGGREGATE DATA ANALYSIS
  • 15 COMPARATIVE RESEARCH METHODS
  • 16 EVALUATION RESEARCH
  • 17 INDEXES AND SCALES
  • 18 BASIC STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
  • 19 MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS AND STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE
  • EPILOGUE: THE VALUE AND LIMITS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE
  • Appendix A A Precoded Questionnaire
  • Appendix B Excerpt from a Codebook
  • Author Index
  • Subject Index

15 - COMPARATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

INTRODUCTION

In contrast to the chapters on survey research, experimentation, or content analysis that described a distinct set of skills, in this chapter, a variety of comparative research techniques are discussed. What makes a study comparative is not the particular techniques employed but the theoretical orientation and the sources of data. All the tools of the social scientist, including historical analysis, fieldwork, surveys, and aggregate data analysis, can be used to achieve the goals of comparative research. So, there is plenty of room for the research imagination in the choice of data collection strategies. There is a wide divide between quantitative and qualitative approaches in comparative work. Most studies are either exclusively qualitative (e.g., individual case studies of a small number of countries) or exclusively quantitative, most often using many cases and a cross-national focus (Ragin, 1991:7). Ideally, increasing numbers of studies in the future will use both traditions, as the skills, tools, and quality of data in comparative research continue to improve.

In almost all social research, we look at how social processes vary and are experienced in different settings to develop our knowledge of the causes and effects of human behavior. This holds true if we are trying to explain the behavior of nations or individuals. So, it may then seem redundant to include a chapter in this book specifically dedicated to comparative research methods when all the other methods discussed are ultimately comparative.

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  • COMPARATIVE RESEARCH METHODS
  • Paul S. Gray , Boston College, Massachusetts , John B. Williamson , Boston College, Massachusetts , David A. Karp , Boston College, Massachusetts , John R. Dalphin
  • Book: The Research Imagination
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511819391.016

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Comparative Studies

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online: 09 February 2018
  • Cite this living reference work entry

comparative study thesis

  • Mario Coccia 2 , 3 &
  • Igor Benati 3  

3562 Accesses

Comparative analysis ; Comparative approach

Comparative is a concept that derives from the verb “to compare” (the etymology is Latin comparare , derivation of par = equal, with prefix com- , it is a systematic comparison). Comparative studies are investigations to analyze and evaluate, with quantitative and qualitative methods, a phenomenon and/or facts among different areas, subjects, and/or objects to detect similarities and/or differences.

Introduction: Why Comparative Studies Are Important in Scientific Research

Natural sciences apply the method of controlled experimentation to test theories, whereas social and human sciences apply, in general, different approaches to support hypotheses. Comparative method is a process of analysing differences and/or similarities betwee two or more objects and/or subjects. Comparative studies are based on research techniques and strategies for drawing inferences about causation and/or association of factors that are similar or...

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Benati I, Coccia M (2017) General trends and causes of high compensation of government managers in the OECD countries. Int J Public Adm. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/01900692.2017.1318399

Benati I, Coccia M (2018) Rewards in Bureaucracy and Politics. In Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance –section Bureaucracy (edited by Ali Farazmand) Chapter No: 3417-1, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_3417-1 , Springer International Publishing AG

Coccia M, Rolfo S (2007) How research policy changes can affect the organization and productivity of public research institutes. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, Research and Practice, 9(3): 215–233. https://doi.org/10.1080/13876980701494624

Coccia M, Rolfo S (2013) Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior of Public Research Institutions. International Journal of Public Administration, 36(4): 256–268, https://doi.org/10.1080/01900692.2012.756889

Cooksey RW (2007) Illustrating statistical procedures. Tilde University Press, Prahran

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Peters BG (1998) Comparative politics-theory and method. Macmillan Press, London

Peters BG, Pierre J (2016) Comparative governance: rediscovering the functional dimension of governing. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

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Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

Mario Coccia

CNR – National Research Council of Italy, Torino, Italy

Mario Coccia & Igor Benati

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Correspondence to Igor Benati .

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Coccia, M., Benati, I. (2018). Comparative Studies. In: Farazmand, A. (eds) Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_1197-1

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_1197-1

Received : 31 January 2018

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How to Write a Comparative Analysis Dissertation: Useful Guidelines

comparative study thesis

Writing a dissertation involves more than just demonstrating your expertise in your chosen field of study. It also requires using important skills, such as analytical thinking. Without it, developing sound theories, introducing arguments, or making conclusions would be impossible. And nowhere is this ability more prominently showcased than in writing comparative analysis dissertations.

Comparative analysis is a helpful method you can use to do research. Remember writing compare-and-contrast essays at school? It’s actually very similar to conducting this type of analysis. But it also has plenty of peculiarities that make it a unique approach. Keep reading to learn more about it!

What Is a Comparative Analysis Dissertation?

Comparative analysis types.

  • Possible Difficulties
  • Elements of Comparative Analysis
  • How to Write a Comparative Analysis Dissertation

Comparative analysis boils down to studying similarities and differences between two or more things, be it theories, texts, processes, personalities, or time periods. This method is especially useful in conducting social sciences , humanities, history, and business research.

Conducting a comparative analysis helps you achieve multiple goals:

  • It allows you to find parallels and dissimilaritie s between your subjects and use them to make broader conclusions.
  • Putting two or more things against each other also helps to see them in a new light and notice the usually neglected aspects.
  • In addition to similarities and differences, conducting a comparative analysis helps to determine causality —that is, the reason why these characteristics exist in the first place.

Depending on your research methods, your comparative analysis dissertation can be of two types:

  • Qualitative comparative analysis revolves around individual examples. It uses words and concepts to describe the subjects of comparison and make conclusions from them. Essentially, it’s about studying a few examples closely to understand their specific details. This method will be especially helpful if you’re writing a comparative case study dissertation.
  • Quantitative comparative dissertations will use numbers and statistics to explain things. It helps make general statements about big sample groups. You will usually need a lot of examples to gather plenty of reliable numerical data for this kind of research.

There are no strict rules regarding these types. You can use the features of both in your comparative dissertation if you want to.

Possible Difficulties of Writing a Comparative Analysis Dissertation

As you can see, comparison is an excellent research method that can be a great help in dissertation writing . But it also has its drawbacks and challenges. It’s essential to be aware of them and do your best to overcome them:

  • Your chosen subjects of comparison may have very little in common . In that case, it might be tricky to come up with at least some similarities.
  • Sometimes, there may not be enough information about the things you want to study. This will seriously limit your choices and may affect the accuracy of your research results. To avoid it, we recommend you choose subjects you’re already familiar with.
  • Choosing a small number of cases or samples will make it much more challenging to generalize your findings . It may also cause you to overlook subtle ways in which the subjects influence each other. That’s why it’s best to choose a moderate number of items from which to draw comparisons, usually between 5 and 40.
  • It’s also essential that your dissertation looks different from a s high school compare-and-contrast essay. Instead, your work should be appropriately structured. Read on to learn how to do it!

Elements of Dissertation Comparative Analysis

Do you want your dissertation comparative analysis to be successful? Then make sure it has the following key elements:

  • Context Your comparative dissertation doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It has historical and theoretical contexts as well as previous research surrounding it. You can cover these aspects in your introduction and literature review .
  • Goals It should be clear to the reader why you want to compare two particular things. That’s why, before you start making your dissertation comparative analysis, you’ll need to explain your goal. For example, the goal of a dissertation in human science can be to describe and classify something.
  • Modes of Comparison This refers to the way you want to conduct your research. There are four modes of comparison to choose from: similarity-focused, difference-focused, genus-species relationship, and refocusing.
Such studies focus on what’s similar and pay little attention to differences.
This type of research uses the opposite approach, highlighting differences.
studies examine how various subjects (“species”) relate to a broader category (“genus”) to which they belong.
Refocusing allows you to better understand one thing by looking at it through the lens of another.
  • Scale This is the degree to which your study will be zooming on the subjects of comparison. It’s similar to looking at maps. There are maps of the entire world, of separate countries, and of smaller locations. The scale of your research refers to how detailed the map is. You will need to use similar scale maps for each subject to conduct a good comparison.
  • Scope This criterion refers to how far removed your subjects are in time and space. Depending on the scope, there are two types of comparisons:
Contextual comparison refers to studying things from the same time and place, for example, two European countries from the medieval period.
comparisons revolve around things from different time periods or places, such as ancient Greek and Chinese religions. This type isn’t necessarily about completely separate things. It just means that they’re not immediately related.
  • Research Question This is the key inquiry that guides your entire study. In a comparative analysis thesis, the research question usually addresses similarities and differences, but it can also focus on other patterns you’ll be exploring. It can belong to one of the following types, depending on the kind of analysis you want to apply:
Your research question can present your findings by describing how things are different or similar.
Alternatively, it can explain how some aspects in one group influence another group.
A question of the third type shows how two or more things are related in different contexts. Essentially, it questions whether the same relationship holds true in various cases.
A comparative explanatory question asks why relationships are different in different groups.

Want to write your research question quickly and easily? Try our thesis statement generator ! It has four modes depending on your type of writing, which helps it produce customized results.

  • Data Analysis Here, you analyze similarities, differences, and relationships you’ve identified between the subjects. Make sure to provide your argumentation and explain where your findings come from.
  • Conclusions This element addresses the research question and answers it. It can also point out the significance of similarities and differences that you’ve found.

How to Write a Comparative Analysis Dissertation

Now that you know what your comparative analysis should include, it’s time to learn how to write it! Follow the steps, and you’ll be sure to succeed:

  • Select the Subjects This is the most critical step on which your entire dissertation will depend. To choose things to compare, try to analyze several important factors, including your potential audience , the overall goal of the study, and your interests. It’s also essential to check whether the things you want to discuss are sufficiently studied. While you research possible topics, you may stumble upon untrustworthy AI-generated content. Unfortunately, it’s getting increasingly difficult to differentiate it from human-made writing. To avoid getting into this trap, consider using an AI detection tool . It provides 100% accurate results and is completely free.
  • Describe Your Chosen Items Before you can start comparing the subjects, it’s necessary to describe them in their social and historical contexts. Without taking a long, hard look at your topic’s background, it would be impossible to determine what you should pay attention to during your research. To describe your subjects properly, you will need to study plenty of sources and convey their content in your dissertation. Want to simplify this task? Check out our excellent free summarizer tool !
  • Juxtapose Now, it’s time to do the comparison by checking how similar and different your subjects are. Some may think focusing on the resemblances is more critical, while others find contrasts more exciting. Both these viewpoints are valid, but the best approach is to find the right balance depending on your study’s goal.
  • Provide Redescription Unlike previous steps, this one is optional. It involves looking at something for the second time after conducting the comparison. The point is that you might learn new things about your subjects during your study. They may even help shed light on each other (it’s called “ reciprocal illumination .”) This knowledge will likely deepen your understanding or even change it altogether. It’s a good idea to point it out in your comparative case study dissertation.
  • Consider Rectification and Theory Formation These two processes are also optional. They involve upgrading your writing and theories after conducting your research. This doesn’t mean changing the topic of you study. Instead, it refers to changing how you think about your subjects. For example, you may gain some new understanding and realize that you weren’t using the right words to properly describe your subjects. That’s when rectification comes into play. Essentially, you revise the language used in your discussion to make it more precise and appropriate. This new perspective may even inspire you to come up with a new theory about your topic! In that case, you may write about it, too. Usually, though, rectification is enough. If you decide to do it, feel free to use our paraphrasing tool to help you find the right words.
  • Edit and Proofread After you’re done writing the bulk of your text, it’s essential to check it and ensure it passes the plagiarism check. After all, even if you haven’t directly copied other people’s texts, there may still be some percentage of accidental plagiarism that can get you in trouble. To ensure that it doesn’t happen, use our free plagiarism detector .

And this is how you write a comparative analysis dissertation! We hope our tips will be helpful to you. Read our next article if you need help with a  literature review in a dissertation . Good luck with your studies!

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How to Do Comparative Analysis in Research ( Examples )

Comparative analysis is a method that is widely used in social science . It is a method of comparing two or more items with an idea of uncovering and discovering new ideas about them. It often compares and contrasts social structures and processes around the world to grasp general patterns. Comparative analysis tries to understand the study and explain every element of data that comparing. 

Comparative Analysis in Social SCIENCE RESEARCH

Most social scientists are involved in comparative analysis. Macfarlane has thought that “On account of history, the examinations are typically on schedule, in that of other sociologies, transcendently in space. The historian always takes their society and compares it with the past society, and analyzes how far they differ from each other.

The comparative method of social research is a product of 19 th -century sociology and social anthropology. Sociologists like Emile Durkheim, Herbert Spencer Max Weber used comparative analysis in their works. For example, Max Weber compares the protestant of Europe with Catholics and also compared it with other religions like Islam, Hinduism, and Confucianism.

To do a systematic comparison we need to follow different elements of the method.

In social science, we can do comparisons in different ways. It is merely different based on the topic, the field of study. Like Emile Durkheim compare societies as organic solidarity and mechanical solidarity. The famous sociologist Emile Durkheim provides us with three different approaches to the comparative method. Which are;

2 . The unit of comparison

3. The motive of comparison

As another method of study, a comparative analysis is one among them for the social scientist. The researcher or the person who does the comparative method must know for what grounds they taking the comparative method. They have to consider the strength, limitations, weaknesses, etc. He must have to know how to do the analysis.

Steps of the comparative method

As mentioned earlier, the first step is to consider and determine the unit of comparison for your study. You must consider all the dimensions of your unit. This is where you put the two things you need to compare and to properly analyze and compare it. It is not an easy step, we have to systematically and scientifically do this with proper methods and techniques. You have to build your objectives, variables and make some assumptions or ask yourself about what you need to study or make a hypothesis for your analysis.

The best casings of reference are built from explicit sources instead of your musings or perceptions. To do that you can select some attributes in the society like marriage, law, customs, norms, etc. by doing this you can easily compare and contrast the two societies that you selected for your study. You can set some questions like, is the marriage practices of Catholics are different from Protestants? Did men and women get an equal voice in their mate choice? You can set as many questions that you wanted. Because that will explore the truth about that particular topic. A comparative analysis must have these attributes to study. A social scientist who wishes to compare must develop those research questions that pop up in your mind. A study without those is not going to be a fruitful one.

The grounds of comparison should be understandable for the reader. You must acknowledge why you selected these units for your comparison. For example, it is quite natural that a person who asks why you choose this what about another one? What is the reason behind choosing this particular society? If a social scientist chooses primitive Asian society and primitive Australian society for comparison, he must acknowledge the grounds of comparison to the readers. The comparison of your work must be self-explanatory without any complications.

The main element of the comparative analysis is the thesis or the report. The report is the most important one that it must contain all your frame of reference. It must include all your research questions, objectives of your topic, the characteristics of your two units of comparison, variables in your study, and last but not least the finding and conclusion must be written down. The findings must be self-explanatory because the reader must understand to what extent did they connect and what are their differences. For example, in Emile Durkheim’s Theory of Division of Labour, he classified organic solidarity and Mechanical solidarity . In which he means primitive society as Mechanical solidarity and modern society as Organic Solidarity. Like that you have to mention what are your findings in the thesis.

Your paper must link each point in the argument. Without that the reader does not understand the logical and rational advance in your analysis. In a comparative analysis, you need to compare the ‘x’ and ‘y’ in your paper. (x and y mean the two-unit or things in your comparison). To do that you can use likewise, similarly, on the contrary, etc. For example, if we do a comparison between primitive society and modern society we can say that; ‘in the primitive society the division of labour is based on gender and age on the contrary (or the other hand), in modern society, the division of labour is based on skill and knowledge of a person.

Demerits of comparison

Comparative analysis is not always successful. It has some limitations. The broad utilization of comparative analysis can undoubtedly cause the feeling that this technique is a solidly settled, smooth, and unproblematic method of investigation, which because of its undeniable intelligent status can produce dependable information once some specialized preconditions are met acceptably.

One more basic issue with broad ramifications concerns the decision of the units being analyzed. The primary concern is that a long way from being a guiltless as well as basic assignment, the decision of comparison units is a basic and precarious issue. The issue with this sort of comparison is that in such investigations the depictions of the cases picked for examination with the principle one will in general turn out to be unreasonably streamlined, shallow, and stylised with contorted contentions and ends as entailment.

However, a comparative analysis is as yet a strategy with exceptional benefits, essentially due to its capacity to cause us to perceive the restriction of our psyche and check against the weaknesses and hurtful results of localism and provincialism. We may anyway have something to gain from history specialists’ faltering in utilizing comparison and from their regard for the uniqueness of settings and accounts of people groups. All of the above, by doing the comparison we discover the truths the underlying and undiscovered connection, differences that exist in society.

Also Read: How to write a Sociology Analysis? Explained with Examples

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Towards a Media History of Writing in Ancient Italy Stephanie Frampton Character Before the Novel: Representing Moral Identity in the Age of Shakespeare Jamey Graham

Transforming Trauma: Memory and Slavery in Black Atlantic Literature since 1830 Raquel Kennon

Renaissance Romance: Rewarding the Boundaries of Fiction Christine S. Lee

Psychomotor Aesthetics: Conceptions of Gesture and Affect in Russian and American Modernity, 1910s-1920s Ana Olenina

Melancholy, Ambivalence, Exhaustion: Responses to National Trauma in the Literature and Film of France and China Erin Schlumpf

The Poetics of Human-Computer Interaction Dennis Tenen

Novelizing the Muslim Wars of Conquest: The Christian Pioneers of the Arabic Historical Novel Luke Leafgren

Secret Lives of the City: Reimagining the Urban Margins in 20th-Century Literature and Theory, from Surrealism to Iain Sinclair Jennifer Hui Bon Hoa

Archaic Greek Memory and Its Role in Homer Anita Nikkanen

Deception Narratives and the (Dis)Pleasure of Being Cheated: The Cases of Gogol, Nabokov, Mamet, and Flannery O’Connor Svetlana Rukhelman

Aesthetic Constructs and the Work of Play in 20th Century Latin American and Russian Literature Natalya Sukhonos

Stone, Steel, Glass: Constructions of Time in European Modernity Christina Svendsen

See here for a full list of dissertations since 1904 .

comparative study thesis

Founded as a graduate program in 1904 and joining with the undergraduate Literature Concentration in 2007, Harvard’s Department of Comparative Literature operates at the crossroads of multilingualism, literary study, and media history.

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comparative study thesis

Department of Comparative Literature

You are here, recent dissertations in comparative literature.

Dissertations in Comparative Literature have taken on vast number of topics and ranged across various languages, literatures, historical periods and theoretical perspectives. The department seeks to help each student craft a unique project and find the resources across the university to support and enrich her chosen field of study. The excellence of student dissertations has been recognized by several prizes, both within Yale and by the American Comparative Literature Association.

2012 – Present

Student Name Dissertation Title Year Advisors
Stern, Lindsay Personhood: Literary Visions of a Legal Fiction 2023

Jesus Velasco

Rudiger Campe

Todorovic, Nebojsa Tragedies of Disintegration: Balkanizing Greco-Roman Antiquity 2023

Emily Greenwood Milne

Moira Fradinger

Abazon, Lital Speaking Sovereignty: The Plight of Multilingual Literature in Independent Israel, Morocco, and Algeria 2023

Hannan Hever

Jill Jarvis

Huang, Honglan Reading as Performance: Theatrical Books From Tristram Shandy to Artists’ Books for Children 2023 Katie Trumpener
Peng, Hsin-Yuan Cinematic Meteorology: Aesthetics and Epistemology of Weather Images 2023

Aaron Gerow

John Peters

Sidorenko, Ksenia Modernity’s Others: Marginality, Mass Culture, and the Early Comic Strip in the US 2023

Katie Trumpener

Marta Figlerowicz

Hamilton, Ted Imagining a Crisis: Human-Environmental Relations in North and South American Law and Literature 2022

Michael Warner

Moira Fradinger

Lee, Xavier Nonhistory: Slavery and the Black Historical Imagination 2022 Marta Figlerowicz
Suther, Jensen Spirit Disfigured: The Persistence of Freedom in the Modernist Novel 2022 Martin Hagglund
Baena, Victoria The Novel’s Lost Illusions: Time, Knowledge, and Narrative in the Provinces, 1800-1933 2021

Katie Trumpener

Maurice Samuels

Brunazzo, Alessandro Conjuring People: Pasolini’s Specters and the Global South 2021

Millicent Marcus

Dudley Andrew

Gubbins, Vanessa The Poem and Social Form: Making a People Out of a Poem in Peru and Germany 2021

Moira Fradinger

Paul North

Hirschfeld-Kroen, Leana Rise of the Modern Mediatrix: The Feminization of Media and Mediating Labor, 1865-1945 2021

Katie Trumpener

Charles Musser

Velez Valencia, Camila Craft and Storytelling: Romance and Reality in Joseph Conrad and Gabriel García Márquez 2021

Moira Fradinger

David Bromwich

Sheidaee, Iraj In Between Dār Al-Islām and the ‘Lands of the Christians’: Three Christian Arabic Travel Narratives From the Early Modern/Ottoman Period (Mid-17th-Early18th Centuries)  2021 Creswell, Robyn
Tolstoy, Andrey Where Do We Go When We Go Off-the-Grid? 2021

Francesco Casetti

Charles Musser

Fox, Catherine Christophe’s Ghost: The Making and Unmaking of Tragedy in Post-Revolutionary Haiti 2020

Marta Figlerowicz

Emily Greenwood

Piňos, Václav Haeckel’s Feral Embryo: Animality and Personal Formation in Western Origin Myths from Milton to Golding 2020

Rüdiger Campe

Marta Figlerowicz

Yovel, Noemi Confession and the German and American Novel: Intimate Talk, Violence and Last Confession 2019

Rüdiger Campe

Katie Trumpener

Mathew, Shaj

Wandering Comparisons: Global Genealogies of Flânerie and Modernity 2019

Marta Figlerowicz

Amy Hungerford

Tartici, Ayten

Adagios of Form 2019

Amy Hungerford

Carol Jacobs

Ruth Yeazell

Kivrak, Pelin Imperfect Cosmopolitans: Representations of Responsibility and Hospitality in Contemporary Middle Eastern Literatures, Film, and Art 2019

Katerina Clark

Martin Hägglund

Shpolberg, Masha Labor in Late Socialism: the Cinema of Polish Workers’ Unrest 1968-1981 2019

Katie Trumpener

Charles Musser

Powers, Julia Brazil’s Mystical Realists: Hilda Hilst, João Guimarães Rosa and Clarice Lispector in the 1960s 2018

David Quint

K. David Jackson

Eklund, Craig The Imagination in Proust, Joyce, and Beckett 2018 Martin Hägglund
Forsberg, Soren An Alien Point of View: Singular Experience and Literary Form 2018 Amy Hungerford;     Katie Trumpener
Weigel, Moira Animals, Media, and Modernity: Prehistories of the Posthuman 2017

Dudley Andrew;

Katie Trumpener

Carper, David Imagines historiarum: Renaissance Epic and the Development of Historical Thought  2017 David Quint
Fairfax, Daniel Politics, Aesthetics, Ontology: The Theoretical Legacy of Cahiers du cinema (1968-1973)  2017 Dudley Andrew
Li, Yukai Being late and being mistaken in the Homeric tradition 2017 Egbert Bakker;
Moira Fradinger
Nalencz, Leonard The Lives of Astyanax: Romance and Recovery in Ariosto, Spenser, and Milton 2017 David Quint
Chreiteh, Alexandra Fantastice Cohabitations: Magical Realism in Arabic and Hebrew and the Politics of Aesthetics 2016 Robyn Creswell
Harper, Elizabeth The Lost Children of Tragedy from Euripides to Racine 2016 David Quint
Piazza, Sarah Performing the Novel and Reading the Romantic Song: Popular Music and Metafiction in Tres tristes tigres, Sirena Selena vestida de pena, La importancia de llamarse Daniel Santos, Le cahier de romances, and Cien botellas en una pared  2016 David Quint;
Anibal González Pérez
Sinsky, Carolyn The Muse of Influence: Reading Russian Fiction in Britain, 1793 -1941  2016 Katie Trumpener
Sperling, Joshua Realism, Modernism and Commitment in the Work of John Berger: 1952-76  2016 Dudley Andrew
Younger, Neil D’apres le Roman: Cross-Channel Theatrical Adaptations from Richardson to Scott  2016 Thomas Kavanaugh;
Katie Trumpener
Bardi, Ariel Cleansing, Constructing, and Curating the State: India/Pakistan ‘47 and Israel/Palestine ‘48 2015 Hannan Hever
Kelbert, Eugenia Acquiring a Second Language Literature: Patterns in Translingual Writing from Modernism to the Moderns 2015

Vladimir Alexandrov;

Haun Saussy

Pfeifer, Annie To the Collector Belong the Spoils: The Transformation of Modernist Practices of Collecting 2015 Rüdiger Campe;Katie Trumpener
Roszak, Suzanne Triangular Diaspora and Social Resistance in the New American Literature 2015 Wai Chee Dimock;
Katie Trumpener
Dahlberg, Leif “Spacing Law and Politics: The constitution and representation of judicial places and juridicial spaces in law, literature and political philosophy in the works from Greek antiquity to the present” 2014 Carol Jacobs;
Haun Saussy
Weisberg, Margaret “Inventing the Desert and the Jungle: Creating identity through landscape in African and European culture” 2014 Christopher Miller;
Katie Trumpener
Wiedenfeld, Grant “Elastic Esthetics: A Comparative Media Approach to Modernist Literature and Cinema” 2014 Haun Saussy;
Francesco Casetti
Avrekh, Mikhail “Romantic Geographic and the (Re)invention of the Provinces in the Realist Novel” 2013

Katerina Clark

Maurice Samuels

Klemann, Heather “Developing Fictions: Childhood, Children’s Books, and the Novel” 2013 Jill Campbell;
Katie Trumpener
Mcmanus, Ann-Marie “Unfinished Awakenings: Afterlives of the Nahda and Postcolonialism in Arabic Literature 1894–2008” 2013 Haun Saussy;
Edwige Talbayev
Wolff, Spencer “The Darker Sides of Dignity: Freedom of Speech in the Wake of Authoritarian Collapse” 2013 Haun Saussy
Bloch, Elina “ ‘Unconfessed Confessions’: Strategies of (Not) Telling in Nineteenth-Century Narratives” 2012 Margaret Homans;
Katie Trumpener
Devecka, Martin “Athens, Rome, Tenochtitlan: A Historical Sociology of Ruins” 2012 Emily Greenwood
Gal, Noam “Fictional Inhumanities: Wartime Animals and Personification” 2012 Carol Jacobs;
Katie Trumpener
Jackson, Jeanne-Marie “Close to Home: Forms of Isolation in the Postcolonial Province” 2012 Katerina Clark;
Justin Neuman
Odnopozova, Dina “Russian-Argentine Literary Exchanges” 2012 Katerina Clark;
Moira Fradinger
Stevic, Aleksandar “Falling Short: Failure, Passivity, and the Crisis of Self-Fashioning in the European Novel, 1830–1927” 2012 Katie Trumpener;
Maurice Samuels
Student Name Dissertation Title Year Advisors
Cramer, Michael “Blackboard Cinema: Learning from the Pedagogical Art Film” 2011 Dudley Andrew;
John MacKay
Djagalov, Rossen “The People’s Republic of Letters: Twoards a Media History of Twentieth-Century Socialist Internationalism” 2011 Katerina Clark;
Michael Denning
Esposito, Stefan “The Pathological Revolution: Romanticism and Metaphors of Disease” 2011 Paul Fry;
Carol Jacobs
Feldman, Daniel “Unrepeatable: Fiction After Atrocity” 2011

Katie Trumpener

Benjamin Harshav

Jeong, Seung-hoon “Cinematic Interfaces: Retheorizing Apparatus, Image, Subjectivity” 2011 Thomas Elsaesser;
Dudley Andrew
Lienau, Annette “Comparative Literature in the Spirit of Bandung: Script Change, Language Choice, and Ideology in African and Asian Literatures (Senegal & Indonesia)” 2011 Christopher Miller
Coker, William “Romantic Exteriority: The Construction of Literature in Rousseau, Jean Paul, and P.B. Shelley” 2010 Cyrus Hamlin;
Paul Fry
Fan, Victor “Football Meets Opium: A Topological Study of Political Violence, Sovereignty, and Cinema Archaeology Between ‘England’ and ‘China’ ” 2010 Haun Saussy;
Dudley Andrew
Johnson, Rebecca “A History of the Novel in Translation: Cosmopolitan Tales in English and Arabic, 1729–1859” 2010 Katie Trumpener
Parfitt, Alexandra “Immoral Lessons: Education and Novel in Nineteenth-Century France” 2010 Peter Brooks;
Maurice Samuels
Xie, Wei “Female Cross-Dressing in Chinese Opera and Cinema” 2010 Dudley Andrew
Flynn, Catherine “Street Things: Transformations of Experience in the Modern City” 2009 Carol Jacobs;
Katie Trumpener
Lovejoy, Alice “The Army and the Avant-Garde: Art Cinema in the Czechoslovak Military, 1951–1971” 2009 Katie Trumpener
Rhoads, Bonita “Frontiers of Privacy: The Domestic Enterprise of Modern Fiction” 2009 Peter Brooks
Rubini, Rocco “Renaissance Humanism and Postmodernity: A Rhetorical History” 2009 David Quint;
Giuseppe Mazzotta
Chaudhuri, Pramit “Themoacy: Ethical Criticism and the Struggle for Authority in Epic and Tragedy” 2008 Susanna Braund;
David Quint
Lisi, Leonardo “Aesthetics of Dependency: Early Modernism and the Struggle against Idealism in Kierkegaard Ibsen, and Henry James” 2008 Paul Fry;
Pericles Lewis
Weiner, Allison “Refusals of Mastery: Ethical Encounters in Henry James and Maurice Blanchot” 2008 Wai Chee Dimock;
Carol Jacobs
Hafiz, Hiba “The Novel and the Ancien Régime: Britain, France, and the Rise of the Novel in the Seventeenth Century” 2007 Peter Brooks;
Katie Trumpener
Illibruck, Helmut “Figurations of Nostalgia: From the Pre-Enlightenment to Romanticism and Beyond” 2007 Paul Fry
Kern, Anne Marie “The Sacred Made Material: Instances of Game and Play in Interwar Europe” 2007 Dudley Andrew
Boes, Tobias “The Syncopated Self: Crises of Historical Experience in the Modernist ” 2006 Carol Jacobs;
Pericles Lewis
Boyer, Patricio “Empire and American Visions of the Humane” 2006 Rolena Adorno;
Roberto Gonález Echevarría
Chang, Eugene “Disaster and Hope: A Study of Walter Benjamin and Maurice Blanchot” 2006 Shoshana Felman
Mannheimer, Katherine “ ‘The Scope in Ev’ry Page’: Eighteenth-Century Satire as a Mode of Vision” 2006 Jill Campbell;
Katie Trumpener
Solovieva, Olga “A Discourse Apart: The Body of Christ and the Practice of Cultural Subversion” 2006 Haun Saussy
van den Berg, Christopher “The Social Aesthetics of Tacitus’ ” 2006 Susanna Braund;
David Quint
Anderson, Jerome B. “New World Romance and Authorship” 2005 Vera Kutzinski;
Roberto Gonález Echevarría
Enjuto Rangel, Cecilia “Cities in Ruins in Modern Poetry” 2005 Roberto Gonález Echevarría
Kliger, Ilya “Truth, Time and the Novel: Verdiction in Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Balzac” 2005 Peter Brooks;
Michael Holquist
Kolb, Martina “Journeys of Desire: Liguria as Literary Landscape in Eugenio Montale, Ezra Pound, and Gottfried Benn” 2005 Harold Bloom;
Peter Brooks
Matz, Aaron “Satire in the Age of Realism, 1860–1910” 2005 Peter Brooks;
Ruth Bernard Yeazell
Student Name Dissertation Title Year Advisors
Barrenechea, Antonio “Telluric Monstrosity in the Americas: The Encyclopedic Taxonomies of Fuentes, Melville, and Pynchon” 2004 Roberto Gonález Echevarría;
Vera Kutzinski
Buchenau, Stefanie “The Art of Invention and the Invention of Art. Logic, Rhetoric, and Aesthetics in the Early German Enlightenment” 2004 A. Wood;
G. Raulet
Friedman, Daniel “Pedagogies of Resistance” 2004 Shoshana Felman
Raff, Sarah “Erotics of Instruction: Jane Austen and the Generalizing Novel” 2004 Peter Brooks
Steiner, Lina “The Poetics of Maturity: Autonomy and Aesthetic Education in Byron, Pushkin, and Stendhal” 2004 Peter Brooks;
Michael Holquist
Chesney, Duncan “Signs of Aristocracy in : Proust and the Salon from Mme de Remouillet to Mme de Guermantes” 2003 Peter Brooks;
Pericles Lewis
Farbman, Herschel “Dreaming, Writing, and Restlessness in Freud, Blanchot, Beckett, and Joyce” 2003 Paul Fry
Fradinger, Moira “Radical Evil: Literary Visions of Political Origins in Sophocles, Sade and Vargas Llosa” 2003 Roberto Gonález Echevarría;
Shoshana Felman
Gsoels-Lorensen, Jutta “Epitaphic Remembrance: Representing a Catastrophic Past in Second Generation Texts” 2003 Vilashini Cooppan;
Benjamin Harshav
Horsman, Yasco “Theatres of Justice: Judging, Staging, and Working Through in Arendt, Brecht and Delbo” 2003 Shoshana Felman
Katsaros, Laure “A Kaleidoscope in the Midst of the Crowds: Poetry and the City in Walt Whitman’s and Charles Baudelaire’s ” 2003 Shoshana Felman
Reichman, Ravit “Taking Care: Injury and Responsibility in Literature and Law” 2003 Peter Brooks;
Shoshana Felman
Sun, Emily “Literature and Impersonality: Keats, Flaubert, and the Crisis of the Author” 2003 Shoshana Felman;
Paul Fry
Katsaros, George “Tragedy, Catharsis, and Reason: An Essay on the Idea of the Tragic” 2002 Shoshana Felman
Mirabile, Michael “From Inscription to Performance: The Rhetoric of Self-Enclosure in the Modern Novel” 2002 Peter Brooks
Alphandary, Idit “The Subject of Autonomy and Fellowship in: Guy de Maupassant, D.W. Winnicott and Joseph Conrad” 2001 Peter Brooks
Bateman, Chimène “Addresses of Desire: Literary Innivation and the Female Destinataire in Medieval and Renaissance Literature” 2001 Edwin Duval
David Quint
Butler, Henry E. “Writing and Vampires in the Works of Lautréamont, Bram Stoker, Daniel Paul Schreber, and Fritz Lang” 2001 Michael Holquist;
David Quint
Duerfahrd, Lance “The Work of Poverty: the Minimum in Samuel Beckett and Alain Resnais” 2001 Shoshana Felman;
Susan Blood
Hunt, Philippe “Spectres du réel: Déliminations du Réalism Magique” 2001 Paolo Valesio
Liu, Haoming “Transformation of Childhood Experience: Rainer Maria Rilke and Fei Ming” 2001 Cyrus Hamlin
Peretz, Eyal “Literature and the Enigma of Power: A Reading of Moby-Dick” 2001 Shoshana Felman
Pickford, Henry “The Sense of Semblance: Modern German and Russian Literature after Adorno” 2001 Karsten Harries;
Winfried Menninghaus;
William M. Todd III
von Zastrow, Claus “The Ground of Our Beseeching: The Guiding Sense of Place in German and English Elegiac Poetry” 2001 Paul Fry;
Cyrus Hamlin;
Winfried Menninghaus
Wilson, Emily “Why Do I Overlive? Greek, Latin and English Tragic Survival” 2001 Victor Bers;
David Quint
Lintz, Edward M. “A Curie for Poetry? Nuclear Disintegration and Gertrude Stein’s Modernist Reception” 2000 Michael Holquist;
Tyrus Miller
Anderson, Matthew D. “Modernity and the Example of Poetry: Readings in Baudelaire, Verlaine and Ashbery” 1999 Geoffrey Hartman
Bernstein, Jonathan “Parataxis in Heraclitus, Höderlin, Mayakovsky” 1999 Benjamin Harshav;
Winfried Menninghaus
Pollard, Tanya L. “Dangerous Remedies: Poison and Theatre in the English Renaissance” 1999 David Quint
Freeland, Natalka “Trash fiction: The Victorian Novel and the Rise of Disposable Culture” 1998 Peter Brooks;
Ruth Bernard Yeazell
Hood, Carra “Reading the News: Activism, Authority, Audience” 1998 Hazel Carby
MacKay, John “Placing the Lyric: An Essay on Poetry and Community 1998 Geoffrey Hartman; Tomas Venclova
Schuller, Mortiz “ ‘Watching the Self’: The Mirror of Self-Knowledge in Ancient Literature” 1998 Heinrich von Staden;
Gordon Williams
Stark, Jared “Beyond Words: Suicide and Modern Narrative” 1998 Cathy Caruth;
Geoffrey Hartman
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Comparative literature program senior theses presentations.

COLT Senior Theses Presentations

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 Dartmouth Hall 104 4:30 pm

Fabrizio Lopez Cochachi From History to memory: Comparative Discourse of Proust's Le Temps Retrouvé and Michelet's Historire del la Révolution Francaise Advisor Lawrence D. Kritzman

Matthew O. Skrod Representing the Occupation: Subversive Memory and History in Two Postwar French Films Advisors Lawrence D. Kritzman Lucas C. Hollister

Tiffany H. Chang Loving 바 리 데 기 :  A Traveler's Guide to Anthologizing the 여 성   시 인 Advisors: Michelle R. Warren Nancy L. Canepa

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New Cairo 11835, Egypt

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    The American University in Cairo
   
  Jul 11, 2024  
In-progress version of 2024-2025 Academic Catalog    
In-progress version of 2024-2025 Academic Catalog [Published Catalog]

The graduate program in Political Science Department offers advanced study in the discipline of Political Science, with particular emphasis and specializations in three areas; Comparative Politics; International Relations, and; Development Studies (previously Professional Development). The Political Science Department values its location in the heart of the Middle East and seeks, through its faculty, courses and activities, to link the discipline of political science to the thriving and complex political realities of Cairo, Egypt and the region. Its graduate programs offer students a thorough grounding in the theoretical underpinnings of the political phenomena as well as a deep understanding of political realities in Egypt, the Arab World and the international arena. The programs combine courses aimed at familiarizing students with the knowledge necessary for developing their understanding of these political realities with research seminars that are required for familiarizing students with research methods that they will need to independently analyze complex political phenomena. The graduate programs are intended for students who would like to pursue academic careers as well as those presently working, or desiring to work, in international political bodies, government departments concerned with political issues, or in other public, private and international sectors where there is increasingly a need for persons who have a scientific understanding of the political realities of the Middle East and the World. Students have the option of pursuing a one-year Graduate Diploma or a Master’s degree in any of the three specializations offered by the Department. In addition to the requirements of each option, students will be able to choose elective courses covering the political topics closest to their interest. They are also encouraged to take up to two relevant courses from other departments and units of AUC. The Department works closely with its students to ensure that their chosen courses correspond to and serve their academic and professional goals. Graduate students constitute an integral part of the academic life of the Political Science Department. They are encouraged to participate, individually and through their association, at the events and activities organized by the Department both inside AUC campus and in the thriving metropolis that constitutes its environment.

Comparative Politics

The strength of Comparative Politics at AUC is in the areas of Third World Politics and Development, with greatest faculty expertise being in Egypt and the Middle East. Graduate studies in Comparative Politics seek to increase students’ knowledge about the political dynamics of disparate systems within the larger contexts of state and society, political economy, interstate and regional relations. It seeks to develop skills of analysis and writing in order to enhance students’ understanding of their region of interest and its relations with the world. Comparative Politics is particularly suitable for students who wish to pursue a career in academia, research, journalism, political consultancy, or similar positions in which a solid political background and analytical abilities are required.

International Relations

International Relations include examination of current world politics as well as the many dimensions of the international system. This includes regional relations, foreign policies of selected states, as well as Middle Eastern international and interstate relations, and international political economy. The International Relations option seeks to provide greater depth of understanding of the forces operating in the international arena and the constraints that face foreign policy makers. Practice in analyzing current world and regional events and in the skills of written and oral presentation is provided as well as extra curricular activities that are designed to give students the opportunity to put their academic learning into practice. International Relations option is valuable for students who are working or seek to work in foreign relations, either in their own government or in international organizations. The field also prepares students for employment in other kinds of positions that require the ability to analyze and write about national or international politics.

Development Studies

Development Studies (previously Professional Development) is designed for those who have an interest in studying the developing world. The program includes (but is not limited to) courses with practical components and requires an internship usually done in the summer between the first and second years. Development Studies (previously Professional Development) seeks to prepare students to assume positions of greater responsibility in development agencies and organizations by expanding their understanding of the development field, its aims, objectives, methods of operation, and the broad scope of development work in the world today. It seeks to develop students’ critical and analytical capacities, and provide practice in linguistic and writing skills needed for development work. Creativity in finding solutions to development problems is encouraged so that graduates may have an impact in their chosen areas of work in development. Practice in preparing project documents is included in the program. Development Studies (previously Professional Development) is designed for those who are either presently working in development organizations or who are seeking to enter a development career.

The applicant for admission to the master’s program should have an acceptable bachelor’s degree in political science or in a closely related social science (preferably with a minor in political science), and a grade-point average of at least 3.00 (an overall grade of gayyid giddan for graduates from Egyptian universities). Applicants with deficiencies in their preparation may be required to take appropriate courses at the undergraduate level.

The requirements for the specializations are as follows

All specializations have gateway courses that situate each specialization within its theoretical context and provide students with analytic tools for other courses. These introductory courses also prepare students for research and analysis needed for writing original seminar papers and for the thesis.  

Requirements

Specialization in comparative politics.

A specialization in Comparative Politics requires the following courses.

  • POLS 501/5201 - Comparative Theory (3 cr.)
  • POLS 504/5204 - Advanced Political Science Methods (3 cr.)
  • POLS 000/5206 - Foundations of Political Philosophy (3 cr.)
  • POLS 530/5230 - Regime Change and Democratization (3 cr.)
  • POLS 558/5258 - Comparative Politics of the Middle East (3 cr.)

Plus one course from the following:

  • POLS 502/5202 - Scope and Method of Developmental Analysis (3 cr.)
  • POLS 503/5203 - International Relations Theories (3 cr.)
  • POLS 525/5225 - International Political Economy (3 cr.)

In addition, two courses to be chosen in consultation with the Graduate Studies Director, for a total of 24 credit hours.

Specialization in international relations.

A specialization in International Relations requires the following course.

  • POLS 000/5208 - Critical Approaches to International Relations Theories (3 cr.)

Plus two courses from the following:

  • POLS 000/5209 - Race, Gender, and Sexuality in International Relations (3 cr.)
  • POLS 510/5210 - Global Governance and World Order(s) (3 cr.)
  • POLS 554/5254 - Comparative Foreign Policy: Theories and Applications (3 cr.)
  • POLS 555/5255 - Conflict and Security in Global Politics (3 cr.)

In addition, one course to be chosen in consultation with the Graduate Studies Director, for a total of 24 credit hours.

Specialization in development studies.

A specialization in Development Studies (previously Professional Development) requires the following courses:

  • POLS 545/5245 - Development Politics and International Cooperation (3 cr.)
  • POLS 586/5286 - Project Management in Development (3 cr.)

With department approval, students may take relevant courses outside the department.

A thesis, written in English and submitted in accordance with university regulations, is required of all specializations for the master’s degree in Political Science. Students, working with a supervisor of their choice, should submit a detailed thesis prospectus to the department for approval. Once approved, students must register for thesis supervision until graduation. The thesis must be defended in an oral examination. The Department encourages its students to familiarize themselves with procedures regarding committee selection, writing of the thesis, presentation to the supervisor and readers, and defense of the thesis. It strongly encourages them to plan ahead their program in order to successfully meet the procedural requirements within the specified time frame.  

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COMMENTS

  1. (PDF) A Short Introduction to Comparative Research

    A comparative study is a kind of method that analyzes phenomena and then put them together. to find the points of differentiation and similarity (MokhtarianPour, 2016). A comparative perspective ...

  2. PDF How to Write a Comparative Analysis

    To write a good compare-and-contrast paper, you must take your raw data—the similarities and differences you've observed —and make them cohere into a meaningful argument. Here are the five elements required. Frame of Reference. This is the context within which you place the two things you plan to compare and contrast; it is the umbrella ...

  3. PDF A Causal Comparative Study on The Effect of Proficiency-based ...

    A CAUSAL COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THE EFFECT OF PROFICIENCY-BASED EDUCATION ON SCHOOL CLIMATE by Kay B. York Liberty University A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Education Liberty University 2017 View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE

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    Sickness of the Spirit: A Comparative Study of Lu Xun and James Joyce, Liang Meng. PDF. Dryden and the Solution to Domination: Bonds of Love In the Conquest of Granada, Lydia FitzSimons Robins. Theses/Dissertations from 2010 PDF. The Family As the New Collectivity of Belonging In the Fiction of Bharati Mukherjee and Jhumpa Lahiri, Sarbani Bose. PDF

  5. Comparative Analysis

    Comparative analysis asks writers to make an argument about the relationship between two or more texts. Beyond that, there's a lot of variation, but three overarching kinds of comparative analysis stand out: Subordinate (A → B) or (B → A): Using a theoretical text (as a "lens") to explain a case study or work of art (e.g., how Anthony Jack ...

  6. A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Comparative Analysis

    Writing a comparative analysis in a research paper is not as difficult as many people might tend to think. With some tips, it is possible to write an outstanding comparative review. ... Generally, in the body of the essay, the author presents all the arguments that support his thesis, which gives him a reflective and justifying body of the ...

  7. PDF How to Write a Comparative Analysis

    Determine the focus of your piece. Determine if you will focus on the similarities, the differences, or both. Be sure you treat each individual the same; each person deserves the same amount of focus-meaning, do not place most of the emphasis on you or the other person. Find a balance.

  8. Honors Theses

    Undergraduate. Undergraduate Research. Honors Theses - Examples. 1. A Carne e a Navalha : Self-Reflective Representation of Marginalized Characters in Brazilian Narrative by Clarice Lispector, Eduardo Coutinho, and Racionias MCs by Corina Ahlswede, 2018. 2. The Travel of Clear Waters: A Case Study on the Afterlife of a Poem by Kaiyu Xu, 2019. 3.

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    What makes a study comparative is not the particular techniques employed but the theoretical orientation and the sources of data. All the tools of the social scientist, including historical analysis, fieldwork, surveys, and aggregate data analysis, can be used to achieve the goals of comparative research. So, there is plenty of room for the ...

  10. Comparative Studies

    Comparative is a concept that derives from the verb "to compare" (the etymology is Latin comparare, derivation of par = equal, with prefix com-, it is a systematic comparison).Comparative studies are investigations to analyze and evaluate, with quantitative and qualitative methods, a phenomenon and/or facts among different areas, subjects, and/or objects to detect similarities and/or ...

  11. Comparative Analysis Dissertation Guide: Useful Tips on Writing a

    Research Question This is the key inquiry that guides your entire study. In a comparative analysis thesis, the research question usually addresses similarities and differences, but it can also focus on other patterns you'll be exploring. It can belong to one of the following types, depending on the kind of analysis you want to apply:

  12. Comparative research

    Comparative research is a research methodology in the social sciences exemplified in cross-cultural or comparative studies that aims to make comparisons across different countries or cultures.A major problem in comparative research is that the data sets in different countries may define categories differently (for example by using different definitions of poverty) or may not use the same ...

  13. A Causal Comparative Study Of Student Success And Retention In An

    Tudor, Daniel David, "A Causal Comparative Study Of Student Success And Retention In An Undergraduate Program Offered Online And On Campus" (2018). Online Theses and Dissertations. 585. https://encompass.eku.edu/etd/585 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at

  14. PDF The Comparative Study of Religion Harvard University

    The senior thesis is the capstone of the undergraduate curriculum in the Study of Religion, and has the potential to be a significant experience of intellectual and personal growth. The subject matter of the thesis will naturally vary widely, by virtue of the nature of the field of religion. In every case, the subject should be specific enough ...

  15. PDF Single case studies vs. multiple case studies: A comparative study

    For creating high-quality theory, Dyer & Wilkins (1991) argue that single case studies are better than multiple cases because a single case study produce extra and better theory. Also, the more case studies a scientific article has, the less observation time the writer has studied the case studies.

  16. Causal Comparative Study: The Effect of School Scheduling and Academic

    Brannon, Marcus D., "Causal Comparative Study: The Effect of School Scheduling and Academic Outcomes of Economically Disadvantaged Students" (2020). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 344. https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/etds/344 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by SFA ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for

  17. How to Do Comparative Analysis in Research ( Examples )

    Comparative analysis is a method that is widely used in social science. It is a method of comparing two or more items with an idea of uncovering and discovering new ideas about them. It often compares and contrasts social structures and processes around the world to grasp general patterns. Comparative analysis tries to understand the study and ...

  18. Recent PhD Dissertations

    Recent PhD Dissertations. 2023-2024. Postdramatic African Theater and Critique of Representation. Oluwakanyinsola Ajayi. Troubling Diaspora: Literature Across the Arabic Atlantic. Phoebe Carter. The Contrafacta of Thomas Watson and Simon Goulart: Resignifying the Polyphonic Song in 16th-century England and France. Joseph Gauvreau.

  19. Recent Dissertations in Comparative Literature

    Dissertations in Comparative Literature have taken on vast number of topics and ranged across various languages, literatures, historical periods and theoretical perspectives. The department seeks to help each student craft a unique project and find the resources across the university to support and enrich her chosen field of study ...

  20. PDF Chapter Two Conceptual Frameworks of Comparative Studies, Systems

    2006: 3). Studies employing the comparative perspective promote an understanding of pervasive global reforms and characteristics. Comparative studies ‗open the door to a transition from traditional ethnocentric perspectives to a global scope that integrates knowledge from various places and cultures' (Salminen and Viinamäki, 2006: 3).

  21. A Comparative Case Study of The Relationships Between Policy Context

    A COMPARATIVE CASE STUDY OF THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN POLICY CONTEXT, DESIGN, AND IMPLEMENTATION OF P-20 EDUCATIONAL REFORM MOVEMENTS IN TEXAS AND TENNESSEE By Stefani L. Thachik, Ph.D. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of

  22. PDF A Comparative Analysis of Thesis Guidelines and Master Thesis Abstracts

    This study examines master of art (MA) theses abstracts written in English in terms of their texual structures. In order to design a comparative study, abstracts are collected from universities (i) with a guideline in Turkey (ii) without a guideline in Turkey and (iii) with a guideline in the USA. 94 abstracts, randomly selected from

  23. 13 Compare and Contrast Thesis Examples to Inspire You

    With these points in mind, let's take a look at 13 compare and contrast thesis statement examples to get you started with your essay. I've included a broad topic for each thesis statement and divided the lists into general comparisons and literary comparisons. I've also linked each of the topics to a related example essay for extra ...

  24. Comparative Literature Program Senior Theses Presentations

    A diverse and inclusive intellectual community is critical to an exceptional education, scholarly innovation, and human creativity. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences is committed to actions and investments that foster welcoming environments where everyone feels empowered to achieve their greatest potential for learning, teaching, researching, and creating.

  25. Political Science, with specializations in Comparative Politics

    Graduate studies in Comparative Politics seek to increase students' knowledge about the political dynamics of disparate systems within the larger contexts of state and society, political economy, interstate and regional relations. ... A thesis, written in English and submitted in accordance with university regulations, is required of all ...