The Department of Literature Ph.D. Program is interdisciplinary in focus, although students may write dissertations on any topic or in any field in which members of the faculty do research. The Program allows students a large measure of independence, at the same time it encourages a community of scholar-critics whose concerns are not restricted to any single literature or critical tradition. The Ph.D. program in the Department of Literature at UCSD offers an intriguing example of how the Humanities can renew their place in today's university by reconfiguring literary and cultural studies in an era of unprecedented global exchange. The collective strengths of our diverse faculty suggest ways in which it is possible to develop theoretical sophistication and openness to various forms of cultural production while remaining sensitive to the nuances of the literary text, to be up-to-date in the exploration of contemporary culture without losing sight of the rich historical legacy that extends back to antiquity, to offer fresh looks at familiar works while remaining attuned to new voices in contemporary culture and receptive to those who have not been clearly heard in the past, to place local concerns in global context/ to remain multi-lingual even as English becomes the dominant global language in an era of Hollywood film, trans-national corporate influence, and the Internet, and to remain aware of the discipline of literary studies and its history even as we move increasingly into interdisciplinary work.