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The Department of Romance Languages and Literatures offers programs in
French, Italian, and Spanish literatures of both Europe and the Americas.
These programs include the study of literary history, established and
current critical methodologies, literary theory and analysis, Romance
philology, the sociology of literature, literature and history, cultural
studies, films, and foreign language acquisition and pedagogy. In addition
to the full-time faculty members listed above, the department regularly
invites distinguished scholars and writers from the U.S. and abroad to
lecture and to teach.
Program of Study
Most students enter the graduate program with a strong undergraduate
background in at least one Romance language and with some knowledge of
that linguistic and cultural space. Since the primary mission of the University
of Chicago is the discovery and dissemination of new knowledge, training
at the graduate level is usually conducted through small seminars and
workshops directly related to current faculty and student research. The
master’s program is designed to familiarize students with the literary
history and major works of one or more of the Romance languages, as well
as to provide the critical tools for literary and cultural analysis. Students
with an A.M. degree from another institution generally enter the Ph.D.
program directly.
The A.M. is usually completed in one year, after which students move
directly into the Ph.D. program where they enjoy a wide range of specialized
department seminars on literature, culture, linguistics, and philology,
as well as the opportunity to participate in and to coordinate graduate
workshops. Some current workshops include the France-Chicago Center; Empire;
European and American Avant-Gardes; Gay and Lesbian Studies; Gender and
Society; Mass Culture; Medieval Studies; Theater: Text, Society, and Performance.
To prepare students for a professional career as scholar-teachers, the
department has developed an innovative program of theoretical and practical
teacher-training in Romance languages and literatures. Incoming students
are usually awarded teaching-research fellowships, renewable for four
or five years based on satisfactory progress, which include a stipend
and tuition. These students serve as drill/conversation session leaders
(lectors) for the first four years—allowing ample time to focus on,
and complete, the course work and the examinations; only in their fifth
and sixth years are they actually teachers (lecturers) who conduct stand
alone courses in the College’s language program. Advanced students
may be selected to teach a literature course related to their scholarship.
This gradual program enables RLL students to mature as scholars while
progressively becoming informed and competent teachers.
Opportunities for study and research abroad exist in Barcelona, Oaxaca,
Pisa, Rome, and Toledo. Year-long exchange programs are available with
the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, and the University of Bologna.
Students also successfully compete for national and international fellowships
such as the Chateaubriand and the Fulbright and for a variety of University-sponsored
dissertation fellowships.
Further details regarding programs of instruction in each of the literatures
or in combined degrees in Romance and other fields (Latin American Studies
or Comparative Literature, for example), residency requirements, examinations,
etc., can be requested either from the Admissions Office for the Division
of the Humanities (Room 102) or from the department (Room 205), 1050 East
59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, or at the web page at http://humanities.uchicago.edu/depts/romance/
This text was last revised on 9/08/2003.
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