How do literary and cultural studies approach the question of similarity without collapsing into sameness? And how do we consider and write through the consequences of comparison? This course takes as its premise the unevenness inherent in any act of comparison across geography, history, group. Rather than treating the incommensurate but proximate as an impasse, this course investigates what methodologies can ethically bring intertwined and/or disparate histories into view, and explores how to productively read literatures that arise from contexts of oppression. Reading will focus in Black and Postcolonial Studies, but students are encouraged to do comparative work in their research paper within or beyond these fields.