WELCOME to the Department of Languages, Linguistics, and Comparative Literature on FAU’s Boca Raton campus.

We offer BA-degree programs in French, German, Italian, Linguistics, and Spanish and courses in Classical Greek, Modern Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, and Latin. We provide our students with a broad liberal arts background through course work in language, culture, and literature in an interdisciplinary context. Our programs appeal to a wide variety of students, including humanities-oriented students, future educators, and those who wish to widen their horizons in areas outside the context of the humanities, such as business, law, and health care, to name a few. Our curriculum is designed to reflect South Florida’s diversity and meet the intellectual needs of our multi-ethnic population. At all times the department’s philosophy is that interdisciplinarity and multiculturalism must be expressed in a plurality of languages, approached from multiple cultural perspectives, and cross temporal and spatial boundaries.

Our MA programs in Comparative Literature, French, German, Linguistics, and Spanish prepare students either for doctoral work in discipline-specific areas, as well as for broader-based Comparative Studies and Cultural Studies degrees. In addition, our faculty are proud to direct certificate programs in ESL and Caribbean and Latin American Studies and participate in college-wide certificate programs as well as the interdisciplinary PhD program in Comparative Studies. The department is home to the journal FACS (Florida Atlantic Comparative Studies), and a new journal in Linguistics is forthcoming.

We take pride in the quality and caliber of our faculty whose academic profiles have earned the department multiple research and teaching awards. We are equally impressed by the accomplishments of our students who are our inspiration.

It would be our pleasure to welcome you to our dynamic Department of Languages, Linguistics, and Comparative Literature. We invite you to explore our different programs and to “stop by” either in person or in cyberspace.

Myriam S. Ruthenberg,
Chair and Associate Professor of Italian & Comparative Literature
Head of Italian Studies

Michael J. Horswell,
Associate Chair and Associate Professor of Spanish & Latin American Literature
Director of Graduate Studies
Head of Spanish Studies

Jackie Carassa,
Office Administrator