Guidelines for the Senior Thesis (CO 431)

Program in Comparative Literature

I. Content Guidelines

There are three basic requirements for the content of the thesis: it should be comparative, have a theoretical component, and be a research project. "Comparative" means that the thesis should discuss at least two texts from different linguistic groups, historical periods or genres; or texts from different media, for example, literature and film or literature and music. The "theoretical component" means that thesis writers should demonstrate a knowledge of literary criticism and theory by referring to theoretical texts and ideas that have particular bearing on the thesis topic or approach. This does not mean that each thesis must strictly follow a particular school of theory or a specific interpretive practice. Finally, the "research" aspect means that the thesis must demonstrate that the writer has a knowledge of secondary material relating to his or her project. That is, through references in the body of the text and in the bibliography, the writer must show that he or she has examined the ideas of the important interpretations and commentaries on the works at issue in the thesis.

II. Style Guidelines

All theses must be printed on acid-free paper, and either on a laser printer or a letter-quality printer.
Margins: 1" top, bottom, and right; 1.5" left.
Last name and page number on the top right hand corner. No number on the first page (although it is counted as 1); no number on title page (and it is not counted, or is counted as page zero).
Title page: Layout at your discretion. However, do not use fancy or large fonts; stay within the margin limitations; and include the following information: Name, title, class (i.e., May 1994), and the words Senior Thesis in Comparative Literature, The Colorado College.
Use either footnotes or endnotes, but not both. Notes should be substantive. Most bibliographical references should be included parenthetically in the texts. Include name and page number only (no commas or little p's). If you are using more than one source by the same author, include abbreviated version of the title instead of the name. Otherwise, use the author's name. If your context either names the source or makes it self evident, all you need in the reference is the page number.
Bibliography: Include either list of "Works Cited" or "Works Consulted" at your discretion. If you want, you may also want to separate them and include both. Anything cited must be included.

If you have any questions, refer to the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. Copies of this resource are available in the Writing Center.

Recent Senior Thesis Topics

2009

Translation of selected poems from Nursery rhymes in the sky and on earth by Gianni Rodari

Nutshell-Kingdoms, Life-Giving Cremations, Fabulous Operas within Narrow Skulls: Hamlet, the Valmiki Ramayana and Une Saison en Enfer as Redefinitions of Power through Lyric Interludes in Epic

2008

Subverting the Othering Impulse: An Examination of Cortazar's Short Stories and Hopi Myth

Perspectives of Reality: Examining Hemingway's Indian Camp and Borchert's Nachts Schlafen die Ratten doch as Realist Literature in the Light of Lukacs and Bakhtin

Gender and Metamorphic Expression: Subversion in Rilke's and Walcott's Poetry

2007

Linguistic Recombination and the Lyric as a Social Act: How Cahier d'un retour au pays natal and The Heads of the Town Up to the Aether Relocate Social Context

Irreconcilable Differences: The Effects of the Displaced Goddess Archetype on the Adultery Novels of Flaubert, Fontane, and Hardy

Prayer as Sacrifice: The Immolation of Sacred Language in Ritual and Literature

2006

Xhosa Praise Singing, Afro-Cuban Hip-Hop, and the Poetics of Communal Imagination

The Purposes of Literature After Auschwitz: A Comparison of Adorno, Levi, and Pagis

Three Books of Laughter and Death: Writing Women in James Joyce's Ulysses, Milan Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad

2005

I Have the Antidote!: The “Dis-ease” of Bilingualism in the United States and Possible Remedies

The Foreign Gaze and its Affect on the Interaction between the Foreigner and the “Other”: A Cross-Cultural Textual Analysis of the Cuban Jinetera and the Japanese Geisha

Imagining Good Through Discourse: Analyzing Poetry by Frost and Brodsky