Spanish is a world language, spoken widely throughout the Americas as well as in Spain and its former colonies in Africa and the Philippines. The Hispanic world has long been a major contributor to international culture and intellectual life. The Spanish major at UL Lafayette offers a broad-based education in the humanities, including the consideration of current debates on literacy, decolonization, and globalization, as well as a strong background in the Spanish language, the literatures of the Spanish speaking world, and Hispanic linguistics. Students majoring and minoring in Spanish, or, as the field is called more formally, Hispanic Studies, are not simply language majors and minors. Rather, they are liberal arts students concentrating on Spanish and Latin American literary, cultural and linguistic studies with language skills as a base.
Hispanic Studies at UL Lafayette
The University of Louisiana at Lafayette offers an undergraduate major and minor in Spanish, and the Hispanic Studies faculty participate actively in the interdisciplinary minor in Latin American Studies offered through the College of Liberal Arts. The Department of Modern Languages offers a joint M.A. in Spanish and French.
Prominent scholars in Hispanic and Latin American Studies from other United States and foreign universities speak at UL Lafayette at least once a semester, and we have strong library holdings in film. There is an active student-run Spanish Club, a chapter of the national Spanish honor society Sigma Delta Pi, an exchange program with the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara (Mexico), and a study abroad agreement with the Universidad de Cantabria (Spain). We strongly encourage majors and minors to take advantage of these study abroad programs. Credit is transferable and financial aid applies.
Our language courses aim to teach students to communicate and to be literate in Spanish, as well as to appreciate and function in Hispanic cultural contexts. The basic language courses (100 and 200 level) are followed by advanced language and analysis skills courses in Hispanic literature, culture, and linguistics (300 and 400 level) that prepare students for advanced coursework in specific areas (400G and 500 levels). Our courses in literature emphasize historical and cultural contexts as well as formal textual analysis, and we offer upper level courses in popular culture, media, and translation as well as language and literature.