How is the Romance Language and Literature department At UChicago

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
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Does anybody have any ideas about this department?
Anybody students majoring in any of the languages offered here?

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If you look at the quarterly statistical reports that the University registrar publishes, last spring there were 47 total declared undergraduate majors (16 primary, 31 secondary), 16 of whom received degrees in June. So it’s a pretty small major, with just about 1% of eligible students majoring in it. There are 50 PhD students (8 entering this year), and probably some MA students with an interest in Romance languages, so just about a 1-1 ratio of grad students to undergraduates (especially if you impute some interest to first year students whose major preferences are not included in the statistics). I also have the impression that a fair number of students with an interest in Romance languages and cultures are majoring in International Studies, Linguistics, or that perpetual favorite, Economics.

The faculty-student ratio is pretty good. There are 28 current ladder faculty, a whole bunch of still-active emeriti, and (as is usual with language departments) a bunch of non-ladder lecturers who actually teach the introductory courses. A number of the faculty have joint appointments with other departments, which is not uncommon either. Some specialized courses are taught by PhD students, essentially teaching their dissertations.

When you realize that there are five different languages and traditions covered by the major (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Catalan), that makes it pretty intimate.

I think historically the French portion of the department has a better reputation than the Luso-Hispanics and the Italians, but they have a lot of interesting people. My impression is that the departmental interests skew more to the late middle ages and Renaissance than you would find elsewhere, and somewhat less to 20th century and contemporary literature.

There are popular UChicago study-abroad programs in Barcelona and Paris, and also in Rome and Dakar, and a direct-registration program with a Chilean university in Santiago.