Course Structure

With works developed in lines of research that cover a diverse set of objects and methods, the UFRJ’s Literature Science Program aims to offer comprehensive theoretical-critical training, which ensures that postgraduate students can intervene in national and international debates on literary phenomenon and its interface with other artistic-cultural productions and areas of knowledge. The two areas of concentration of the Program (Literary Theory and Comparative Literature) house researches that focus on literature as a complex cultural artifact, considering its aesthetic, political and historical dimensions.

Promoting a permanent exchange of knowledge and experiences developed in its centers and research groups, the Program seeks to encourage the autonomy of researchers. It strives to provide professors and students with research developed in other Brazilian and foreign institutions, through agreements, cooperation and stimulation of the formation of inter-institutional research groups.

Aware of the importance of continuing education and the university’s commitment to society as a whole, the Program encourages the participation of professors and students in undergraduate courses and extension projects (with a view to expanding the integration of research at all levels and fields of university activity), as well as valuing the experiences of master’s and doctoral students who work in secondary and elementary education or in fields such as literary creation, editing and other modalities of cultural production.

The area of LITERARY THEORY, drawing on contributions from fields such as Philosophy, History, Psychoanalysis, Sociology and Anthropology, deals with diversified methods that serve interdisciplinary investigations, characterized by a reflection that is always open to the critical reception of new trends and reconfigurations of the literature debate.

Lines of research in LITERARY THEORY: “Languages, art, thought” and “Literature, culture and society”.

The area of COMPARATIVE LITERATURE seeks to reflect on the literary and cultural production of different peoples and communities, and on the relationships between these productions, maintaining a dialogue with discourses that have been built on literature and culture, such as theory, criticism and historiography, and with contributions from other areas of knowledge, especially those of the human and social sciences.

Research lines in COMPARATIVE LITERATURE: “Comparatism and intercultural dialogues”.

Master’s and doctoral students of the PPG in Science of Literature are prepared to work in the field of research in the area of ​​Letters and related areas, in the various segments of the Brazilian education system and in the circuit of literary and cultural criticism.

The scientific and/or professional skills provided by the Program include: critical positioning in relation to the long theoretical tradition accumulated in the field of literary studies; ability to define methodologies and practices appropriate to the different objects related to this field (according to the context in which knowledge about literature, aesthetics and culture is inserted); ability to interact with other areas of knowledge; ability to select relevant objects for research, teaching or criticism – taking into account the contemporary context, the commitment to the dissemination of knowledge and the possibilities of contributing to society in each type of professional activity.

The Masters and Doctors graduated from the Program have stood out predominantly in the field of teaching and research, with insertion both in higher education institutions in different states of the country and in the public primary and secondary education system.