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Do you like small classes with lots of student interaction and faculty involvement? Are you interested in improving your ability to analyze, explain, and persuade? Eager to improve your skills in foreign language so you can work and live abroad? The Department of Romance Languages offers a rich variety of courses in the languages, culture, and literatures of France, Spain, and Latin America and in comparative literature. Many of these courses are cross-listed with the programs in Women's Studies, Chicano Studies, and Latin American Studies. In addition to courses on important authors (from Cervantes to Proust), literary genres (from the great tradition of the novel to tales of the fantastic), and periods (from the Middle Ages to the 1990s), the Department offers innovative classes in cultural studies, history, and film, including Paris: Reality or Myth, the Spanish Civil War, Reading Bodies: Nineteenth-Century French Culture, and Spanish Through Films. While most of these courses are taught in French or Spanish, many are also available in English.
The Romance Languages faculty, which is evenly divided between men and women, is also one of the most diverse departments in the College, including natives of Belgium, Cuba, France, Israel, and Spain.
Jack Abecassis has written extensively on philosophical aspects of French literature and on Montaigne; he also occasionally offers courses on modern Israeli fiction. Peter Allen's scholarly writings and courses in comparative literature, medieval French literature, gay literature, and medical history are linking the AIDS crisis to its deep roots in Western culture. Suzanne Chavez-Silverman's scholarship and pedagogy concentrates on representations of gender and sexuality in contemporary Latin American and U.S. Latino/a literary and cultural texts.
Mary Coffey writes on nineteenth-century and twentieth-century Spanish literature, particularly the work of the eminent novelist Benito Perez Galdos. Rene Coppieters is a theoretical linguist specializing in second-language acquisition. Grace Davila-Lopez is our resident expert on contemporary Latin American (especially Puerto Rican) theatre. Maria Donapetry is well known for her work on Spanish films on which she has lectured extensively in the States and in Europe. Her book on
Spanish Cinema & Women was published in 1997.
Monique Saigal has published extensively on nineteenth- and twentieth-century French literature, and in recent years has written numerous articles on contemporary French women writers.
Here latest book is Héroines françaises 1940-1945. Courage, force et ingéniosité. Michael McGaha is an internationally known Cervantes scholar and edits the journal Cervantes, published by the Cervantes Society of America. Margaret Waller is renowned for her work in women's studies, particularly the question of gender in nineteenth-century French literature. Nivia Montenegro specializes in contemporary Latin American fiction.
Pomona students have the opportunity to study with these distinguished faculty members from the time they enter the College as freshmen; all faculty members in Romance Languages teach both lower-division language classes and literature classes. Enrollment in language classes is limited, ensuring that all students participate actively in class discussions.
Our students are as multidisciplinary as our faculty; many take double majors in Spanish or French and another field. Students graduating with majors in French or Spanish in recent years have been accepted into some of the nation's most prestigious graduate programs in those fields, including Harvard, Yale, Cornell, and Wisconsin.
Pomona's program in Romance Languages is enhanced by a state-of-the-art multimedia laboratory with integrated computer, audio, and visual components, including interactive video disks and computer-assisted language programs. Students can also improve their command of French and Spanish by residing in the Oldenborg Center for Foreign Languages and International Relations (see page 14 for more information) and participating in the programs there, which include daily language tables at lunch, frequent study breaks featuring cultural programming, and a foreign language film series. Most students also spend at least a semester at one of Pomona's Study Abroad programs in France, Spain, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, or Mexico.
Spanish by residing in the Oldenborg
Center for Foreign Languages and International Relations and
participating in the programs there, which include daily tables
at lunch, frequent study breaks featuring cultural programming,
and a foreign language film series. Most students also spend at
least a semester at one of Pomona's Study
Abroad programs in France, Spain, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador
or Mexico.
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