Graduate study is typically funded by an array of sources, including fellowships, scholarships, grants, and/or an appointment as an associate instructor in the department's undergraduate courses or another department in the university.
Financial Support
Graduate fellowships + grants
Because admission with a fellowship is highly competitive, we can only consider applicants for fellowships who indicate their desire to be admitted to the Ph.D. program after completing their M.A. degree. Applicants to the graduate program in Comparative Literature may also be eligible to compete for additional fellowship opportunities, such as the Borns Fellowship in Jewish Studies, the Liebenow Fellowship in African Studies, the Kade Fellowship in Germanic Studies, or the Chancellor’s Fellowships offered by the College of Arts and Sciences.
After their first year of study, students become eligible to compete for fellowships and grants to support foreign language study, presentation of conference papers, and dissertation research. Students who have completed the M.A. degree may apply for the department’s fellowship to study and teach at the University of Paris X (Nanterre) for one year, with possible renewal.
Fellowships awarded on admission usually include a year of scholarship followed by appointments as an associate instructor in the department’s undergraduate courses. Students admitted without fellowship funding who have outstanding academic records after their first semester of study become eligible to compete for associate instructorship appointments in the Comparative Literature department and in many other departments in the university.
Associate instructorships
It is the policy of the Comparative Literature department to provide teaching experience for as many qualified graduate students as possible. However, the department is not in a position to guarantee teaching assignments or to offer an already-appointed associate instructor (A.I.) a guarantee of support for a specific number of years. A student who is hired as an A.I. may be eligible for graduate fee scholarships or remissions.
To be considered for appointment as an associate instructor in Comparative Literature, a student has to apply to the Comparative Literature department, Ballantine Hall Room 913A. The student should pick up an application form from the Graduate Studies Office, complete it, and return it by the announced deadline.
Students who are not native speakers of English must pass the Indiana Academic English Test (IAET) and the Test of English Proficiency for International AI Candidates (TEPAIC) in order to be certified to teach on the Bloomington campus. Normally, students must be certified at the C1 (Outstanding) or C2 (Satisfactory) level to teach C-110, since this course involves instruction in English composition. Students who receive a C3 (Adequate) certification may request further evaluation by the department if they have had prior experience teaching English composition courses at the college level in the United States.
The internal evaluation procedure, which will be conducted by the AI Affairs committee, will consist of a teaching demonstration, correcting and commenting on sample essays, and an interview.
Students must notify the director of graduate studies by January 10 if they wish to schedule a departmental evaluation in time to be considered for teaching the following academic year.
The College of Arts