What Duke's Literature Program Focuses On Academically

Duke's Literature Program is an interdisciplinary humanities program that keeps language, literature, and aesthetics as its base while drawing in philosophy, critical theory, history, political economy, cultural sociology, anthropology, visual culture, and cinema studies. It is best understood as a program in global studies from a humanities perspective rather than a traditional literature department: its stated aim is to rethink what comparison means in a world shaped by economic and technological integration, and to treat literature and culture as active forces in defining and changing social formations.

The Core: Literature and Aesthetics, Reframed

The program does not abandon literary study. According to its own description, a focus on language, literature, and aesthetics "continues to ground our work." What distinguishes it is how that base is put to use: philosophical and theoretical reflection on the status of "literature" and "culture" is brought together with work in other disciplines.

This means a course of study here is less about period-by-period literary history and more about how the category of literature itself is constructed, contested, and connected to broader social questions.

Where It Reaches Beyond Literature

The program explicitly names the fields it draws on:

• History
• Political economy
• The sociology of culture
• Anthropology
• Visual culture
• Cinema studies
• Philosophy and critical theory

The unifying question across these is the historically changing relationship between society and culture. Literature, in the program's framing, uses philosophical critique to interrogate and mediate its relationship to the social sciences — modeling a humanities-based approach to global studies.

Global Culture & Theory: The Undergraduate Major and Minor

The undergraduate major and minor are called Global Culture & Theory. They draw broadly on humanities resources to address the ethical, cultural, social, and political complexities of world events, with courses focused on film and media, literature, and the arts.

The curriculum's foundation is interdisciplinary, spanning:

• Critical theory
• Literary studies
• Race and gender studies, and queer theory
• Philosophy and political theory
• Visual culture, film, new media, and sound studies

The stated goal is to give students a broad knowledge base and analytical skills rather than training in a single national literature.

Who This Program Suits

This program fits you if you want to:

• Work across disciplines rather than within one department's canon
• Combine literary and cultural analysis with social and political theory
• Study film, media, and visual culture alongside texts
• Approach globalization and comparison from a humanities angle

It is a weaker fit if you are looking for a conventional literature degree organized around a single national tradition or historical survey.

Program Identity and Context

The program's public identity is closely tied to critical theory. Its page notes the death of Fredric Jameson (1934–2024), a cultural theorist and literary critic who, in the program's words, influenced generations of scholars and helped raise the international profile of Duke's Literature program. The page also highlights faculty recognition — Toril Moi's election to the American Philosophical Society — and public events such as a critical theory lecture on anger and rage, alongside undergraduate research like a senior project on the historical construction of Borderline Personality Disorder.

For prospective students, the practical takeaway is that this is a theory-forward, interdisciplinary program whose requirements are organized around the Global Culture & Theory major, a Film & Media concentration, and a separate Ph.D. track — so checking the specific requirements page for your level is the right next step.