Talk:Jodie Foster

degree at Yale

Jodie Foster graduated Calhoun College (now Hopper College) at Yale College with a B.A. in Comparative Literature. Note, undergraduates from Yale graduate from both their residential college and Yale college. There are 2 separate ceremonies, and one receives a diploma at each. The Master of each residential college speaks at the ceremony at the residential college. In Foster's case, this person would have been the Reverend David Napier, who was the well-liked Master of Calhoun College(now Hopper College.) I do not have a referenCe for that, but I'm sure Yale, Hopper College, and/or Yale Alumni OrganiZation has those, if anyone cares. What is more important is that I very rarely see Foster's degree correctly described. It's described as English quite often, and here it is described as Literature. The Literature Major (which no longer exists at Yale College,) was a separate major, with separate, different requirements, and many more courses in continental philosophy. While there is some literary criticism in Comparative Literature, there is not much. There was much in The Literature Major. There were few required courses in The Literature Major, and it was truly interdisciplinary. As long as your "focus" was approved, late in your sophomore or early in your junior year, you could take many courses from various departments, as long as you were able to relate them to your focus. So you could take courses in Art History, Archeology, Anthropology, History, English, written texts in various languages or translated from various languages (and if they weren't offered, you could often finagle a tutorial,) etc. Then your senior essay encompasses 1-2 semesters (likely depending on length) and related to your focus. Comparative Literature, on the other hand, required more courses of texts written in the foreign language of the student's choice, in various other disciplines, as well as courses in various disciplines translated from that language. (This was usually only one language, and since Foster was only fluent in French, I assume this is what she used. Although I knew her, we shared no classes, and she was actually at Yale very little, but off acting in films and television after finishing the semester's work early.)

So, I have seen Foster's major listed as Literature (there wasn't even a major called "Literature" then, and there is not one now; it was named "The Literature Major," and I happen to know as it was my major, as well as the major of several other people more well-known and more intelligent than I.) Nor did Foster major in African-American Studies, as is stated in the Wikipedia article about Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Yes, he was her advisor, and he taught a course in the Women's Studies Department (which has since been renamed twice since it was founded in 1979,) called "African American Women and Their Fictions." So that article merits correction as well.

https://complit.yale.edu/

Foster is mentioned as a "famous comparatist" in this blurb from The Department of Comparative Literature at Indiana U.

https://comparativeliterature.indiana.edu/undergraduate/whycomplit.shtml

References