At a time when the study of literature and the literary canon itself are once again the focus of intense debate, Building a Profession offers a retrospective on the early days of Comparative Literature in the United States and on its role in defining literary scholarship in the heady decades following the end of the second World War.

Composed of autobiographical sketches by a number of eminent comparatists, chiefly of the generation that has either recently retired or is approaching retirement, it anchors the intellectual and scholarly aspirations of the post-War period, through the personal narratives of those who shared in them and promoted them, in the experience of war, uprooting, racial and religious intolerance or persecution, and a deep longing for peaceful exchange and international understanding.

It is both a contribution to the history of literary study in the United States and a record of changes that have taken place in the culture of this country since World War II.