The Graduate Program in Literary and Cultural Studies trains students diachronically in their fields, providing them with an exceptional theoretical background and thoroughly preparing them for their future careers in the academy and beyond.
Our faculty challenge and extend the notion of “canonical literature” through expansion to other media, art forms, and disciplinary methods.
Specific Areas of Strength
- Transnational modernism and the avant-gardes.
- Critical cosmopolitanism.
- Histories of capitalism.
- Translation studies.
- Affective, feminist, queer, and critical race theories.
- Film, popular culture, and media in Latin America and Iberia.
- Literary and artistic expressions of migration, cultural displacement, and travel.
- The Amazon and ecology.
- Caribbean and Caribbean diasporas.
- Luso-Afro-Brazilian studies.
- Theater and performance in Latin America and Spain.
- Classical reception and cultural exchange between Christian, Muslim, and Jewish traditions in medieval Spain and Europe.
- Material culture in the early modern period, specifically the intersections of literature and visual arts.
- Renaissance and Humanism in Spain and Italy.
Our work is driven by thematic, methodological, and interdisciplinary concerns. Our students are encouraged to pursue the dual title in Visual Studies or the minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and to take classes in other departments such as Comparative Literature, English, History, and Philosophy to enhance their academic preparation.
Our department is committed to maintaining a low student-to-faculty ratio and granting students individual attention. Our graduate students generally teach in the basic Spanish program beginning in their second semester, but possibilities also exist to teach in Italian and Portuguese. Qualified students are frequently offered opportunities to teach literature and culture courses in Spanish and to accompany faculty-led study abroad programs to Spain and Mexico.
Guest lectures, conferences, colloquia, and collaborations with the Humanities Institute, the Consortium for Early Modern and Medieval Studies, the Latino/a Studies Program, the Latin American Studies Program, and other centers or departments across campus contribute to the intellectual life of faculty and graduate students.