About the Department

Welcome to the Department of Spanish and Portuguese! Our department blends a community of scholars, whose strong research interests range across Spanish, Latin American and Brazilian literatures and cultures, and a community of instructors, who are dedicated to teaching a strong culture-based language program. Our faculty offers a rich array of courses in Spanish, Portuguese, and English in an effort to serve not only majors and minors but also a variety of students from Weinberg College and other schools who may take only one of two classes.

Our goal is to convey a liberating variety of approaches to learning, a wide sweep of content, and a broad range of texts so that students may gain a thorough understanding of the languages, the literatures, and the cultures of the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking worlds. We believe that it is essential to understand contemporary novels by reading Cervantes, modern poetry by appreciating Paz, today’s film by watching Salles. And we believe that with command of Spanish and Portuguese, two of the most commonly spoken languages on Earth, our students are well prepared for the world of the 21st century. Read more

Why Study Spanish?

Spanish is currently spoken by nearly 400 million people world-wide! It is an official language of 21 countries, spanning 4 continents, with significant populations of speakers in other countries as well. Here at home, native Spanish speakers number 30 million, about 12.5% of the total U.S. population. Furthermore, the percentage of Spanish speakers in the U.S. is rapidly increasing as Hispanic consumers have been declared the fastest growing market segment. Speaking Spanish can open the door to a wide world of professional and personal opportunities. Find out more!

Why Study Portuguese?

Portuguese is spoken by about 230 million people worldwide and is the sixth most widely spoken language on the globe. It is the official language of six countries, ranging from Brazil, with its 200 million speakers, to Mozambique, where more than five million people speak Portuguese as their first or second language, to India, with its quarter million Portuguese speakers. The European Union has made it one of its official languages. Over the last two decades, during Brazil’s emergence as the fourth largest democracy and the tenth largest economy in the world, Portuguese has become an important language of communication and commence. And there is now a large community of Portuguese and Brazilian immigrants in the United States; the Portuguese language has become commonly spoken in several areas of the US. Read more