Skip to main content
Skip to main content

Department of Spanish and Portuguese

“El animal político moderno es primero un animal literario.”

            Jacques Rancière, El desacuerdo

Explore Spanish at UMD

Undergraduate Degrees

Undergraduate Degrees in Spanish

The Spanish major is flexible and designed to allow you to satisfy your intellectual curiosity. While all majors study Spanish language through the advanced levels, you will also have the opportunity to select from over 75 courses to accommodate your specific needs and interests.

Explore our undergraduate Programs

Graduate Degrees

Graduate Degrees in Spanish

Our M.A. and Ph.D. students are mentored by our faculty, engage in substantive research projects, and benefit from rigorous training in the teaching skills required by the profession. They graduate prepared to meet the demands of highly competitive academic positions in the United States and Latin America.

Spanish Graduate Programs

Study Abroad

Study Abroad in Spanish speaking countries

Explore our Study Abroad programs in Spain, Ecuador, Cuba, and Argentina.


Living Learning Program

Living Learning Program

Discover the Language House Spanish Cluster, our living-learning program to experience daily language and cultural immersion.


Lecture Series

Speaker Series and Special Lectures

The Department of Spanish and Portuguese is proud to organize and host several important lecture series open to the university and the general public. Renowned intellectuals and professors from Latin America, Spain, and the American Academy have mentored many generations of our students. 


Translation Services

Spanish and Portuguese Translation and Interpretation Services

Our services provide quality and reasonably priced English-Spanish/Portuguese or Spanish/Portuguese-English translations or interpretations to the University of Maryland and to other institutions, community organizations, and businesses in the Greater Washington DC area.


People

People

The Faculty of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese (SPAP) is committed to excellence in teaching and mentoring, along with the production of new knowledge that is the hallmark of a strong department. 

Spanish Program People

Donate

Give to the Spanish Program

The generous support of alumni and friends makes what we do in SPAP possible. Give today to fund real-world experiences, both local and global, and support pioneering research across disciplines that will confront the most difficult questions and problems that we face in today’s ever-changing world. Together we can make a difference!


About Our Programs

The Department of Spanish and Portuguese (SPAP) at the University of Maryland, College Park, offers students the unique opportunity to engage with the diverse, complex, and globalized literatures, cultures, and linguistics of the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking world from the political capital and uniquely diverse cultural center of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Our goal is to foster learning, develop critical perspectives, and promote intellectual growth in our students. We teach across interdisciplinary fields such as literature, cinema and media, popular and visual culture, theater, history, philosophy, critical theory, gender and queer studies, philology, and linguistics in different cultural and geographic contexts. We strive for the creation and discussion of new forms of knowledge and the effective engagement of our students and faculty with the world, preparing students to become promising professionals in their chosen careers.

The UMD Spanish and Portuguese Department offers a B.A. with multiple tracks; Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in language, literature and culture of both Latin America and Spain as well as an M.A. track in Hispanic Applied Linguistics; undergraduate minors in both Spanish and Portuguese; and courses specially designed for Heritage speakers and specific purposes.

The Department is renowned for its transdisciplinary strengths in Latin American literatures and cultures as well as faculty research and teaching on intellectual history, literary politics, colonial and transatlantic discourses, Judeo-Latin American writing, Mexican literature, reinscriptions of the 19th century, Southern Cone studies, Central American transnational cultural studies, U.S. Latina/o/x studies, Caribbean studies, Archipelagic poetics, salsa and sabor, deconstructions of the Cuban Revolution, transnational perspectives on 1968, and creative writing.

In the area of Spanish literature and culture, faculty research and teaching is recognized for their work in Linguistics, the history of the Spanish language and Romance Philology from the Middle Ages to the present, Medieval and Neomedievalism Studies, Spain in the US, Golden Age poetics, the traditions of Cervantes and Quevedo, revisions of the Enlightenment, 18th and 19th century gender and queer studies, the philosophical traditions of romanticism and realism, modern and postmodern narrative and poetics, as well as transnational and transatlantic representations of the Spanish Civil War and narratives of exile, particularly in Latin America.

The Department is also at the forefront of Spanish Applied Linguistics, language teaching pedagogy, language teacher education, language use and identity, social and political issues in foreign language teaching and learning, instructional technology, language for specific purposes, cross-cultural communication, and heritage language learning.

Department Head

Manel Lacorte

Professor, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Professor and Program Head, Spanish and Portuguese
Affiliate Faculty, Latin American and Caribbean Studies Center

2215D Jiménez Hall
College Park MD, 20742

301-405-8233

Program Advisors

Evelyn Canabal-Torres

Principal Lecturer, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Principal Lecturer, Spanish and Portuguese

2202 Jiménez Hall
College Park MD, 20742

M. Christopher Lewis

Assistant Clinical Professor, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Assistant Clinical Professor, Advisor, Spanish and Portuguese

2211 Jiménez Hall
College Park MD, 20742

(301) 405-6556

Thayse Lima

Associate Professor, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Associate Professor and Advisor, Spanish and Portuguese
Affiliate Faculty, Latin American and Caribbean Studies Center
Faculty Fellow for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, College of Arts and Humanities

2210 Jiménez Hall
College Park MD, 20742

Director of Graduate Studies

Laura Demaría

Professor, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Affiliate Faculty, Latin American and Caribbean Studies Center

2215B Jiménez Hall
College Park MD, 20742

(301) 405-0142

Director of Undergraduate Studies

Mehl Penrose

Associate Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Associate Professor, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Affiliate Associate Professor, Classics
Affiliate Faculty, Latin American and Caribbean Studies Center

3123 Jiménez Hall
College Park MD, 20742

(301)405-8902

Coordinator of Spanish Language Program

Elisa Gironzetti

Associate Professor, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Associate Professor, Spanish and Portuguese

2204 Jiménez Hall
College Park MD, 20742

Connect With Us on Social Media

Follow us on Facebook for up-to-date information and events!