At a moment when the university has recognized the necessity and fact of internationalization, Romance Studies offers an unparalleled opportunity to get to know the languages, cultures, histories, and societies of a consistent part of the population on our planet. In our Department, we strive to focus not just on being global, but also on understanding the human processes, ethical ramifications, cultural, aesthetic, and political possibilities of globalization.
Our curriculum, from language to culture courses, explores the rich traditions of Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Italian cultures, both in their countries of origin, and in the cultures of diaspora, including Latin America, the Caribbean, Quebec, and the Chicano border. Our research thus covers, both historically and geographically, an extensive area of the planet: from Europe to Africa and South America; from the Caribbean to the Philippines; from the Mediterranean to Indochina and the Mauritius Islands.
The cultures taught in Romance Studies are those of the earliest European and American vernaculars and of today's global world; those of the Renaissance, and of postmodernism; of the Enlightenment, and of deconstruction; of European hegemony, and of Muslim Al-Andalus; of European colonialism, and of the de-colonial thought of Franz Fanon, Antonio Gramsci, and Amilcal Cabral.