Modern Languages and Literatures

The Department of Modern Languages and Literatures – which offers course work in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish as well as occasional courses in Portuguese – embraces a dynamic and innovative approach to language study. Here, culture is defined broadly to include both the academic and the everyday. Our students acquire language skills and study the relevant literature of that language. They also learn how to engage other cultures as global citizens.

Guided by creative and enthusiastic faculty, who are committed to a pedagogy of language immersion, students explore topics ranging from literature, film, and politics to cuisine. Our students may spend one day working on a literary translation and the next blogging with taxi drivers in Mexico City. In one class, students study francophone literature; in another, they learn the idioms of contemporary French business-speak through conversations and e-mail correspondence with students across the Atlantic.

More real-world language interactions await students in nearby Chicago. Field trips to immigrant neighborhoods like Chinatown and Pilsen allow students to meet and learn from native-speakers. Since the department also has close ties to the city’s major cultural institutions such as the Alliance Française and the Chicago Latino Film Festival, students have chosen to pursue internships with these organizations as well as local Spanish television and radio stations.

The department strongly encourages language majors to study abroad. Through either Lake Forest or the Associated Colleges of the Midwest, students may choose programs in Paris, Beijing, Costa Rica and Tokyo, among others. Some of these programs combine classwork with internship experience in which students have worked on a presidential campaign in Chile or for a major newspaper in France.
  
Back on campus, students busy themselves with the student-run French, Spanish, and Asian clubs, which bring films, speakers, dance lessons, workshops, and concerts to campus. Some hone their writing and editing skills by working on Collage, a magazine of student and staff writing in the foreign languages. Listening skills improve with the help of direct TV from China and France; conversation skills develop with the help of such activities as Spanish Table, a weekly luncheon gathering of students, faculty, staff and guests. 

Recent majors have gone on to graduate school at Columbia, Tulane, and Yale Universities, among others. Many have parlayed their language skills into service in the Peace Corps, teaching English abroad in Taiwan and Japan, jobs in education, law, business, and the diplomatic service.

Department Contact:
847-735-5265

 

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