Our graduate program offers well-prepared students rigorous training by some of the best philosophers in the world. After starting with a proseminar only for first years, students continue taking multiple small seminars, as well as participating in reading groups and receiving one-on-one mentoring.
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Our internationally-renowned Linguistics department stands at the center of work in Phonology (specifically, Optimality Theory), Syntax (specifically, Generative Grammar and the Minimalist Program), and Semantics and Pragmatics (specifically, formal theory and the interfaces). Our department also has a strong Experimental core investigating Language Acquisition, Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics, and Phonetics/Phonology. Many students and faculty are also actively engaged in fieldwork.
Our graduate programs are geared toward students with strong background in Spanish and with interest in Spanish acquisition, literature, culture, or teaching. Most of our students obtain certificates in addition to the Ph.D. (e.g., cinema studies, cognitive science, language teaching). Half of our graduate students are placed in tenure-track academic positions and the other half in teaching and industry positions.
The PhD Program prepares highly accomplished future scholars in the field of Italian Studies for academic as well as alternative careers. A strong pedagogical approach in language and culture teaching offers MA and MAT students job opportunities at the K-12 level.
The department is particularly noted for its strengths both in traditional regional specialties (the histories of the U.S., Europe, Latin America, for example) and in thematic, transnational and comparative fields, including the history of Atlantic cultures and the African diaspora; African-American history; women's and gender history; comparative and global history; and the history of science, technology, environment, and health. In recent years, we have built on these strengths while expanding our geographic scope to include East Asia and Africa.
The Department of French offers areas of interest that go beyond the normal confines of a language and literature program. These include a strong emphasis on Francophone literatures and cultures (three core faculty members and one affiliated member), the theory and practice of translation, Frenc and Francophone cultural studies, and French and Francophone film and media.
In addition to theories of literature and the very possibility of comparison, our faculty teach graduate seminars and supervise projects in such areas as: East/West and North/South poetics, the practice of translation, philosophical thought, the literatures of migration and diaspora, colonial, postcolonial and decolonial thinking, environmental humanities, cultural studies, ethnic and critical race studies, film, performance and media studies, and gender, sexuality, queer and trans studies.