Spanish is a cross-national and global language. It is the second language of the United States, and the first language of over 400 million people in Latin America, Europe, and Africa. It is a vehicle for myriad cultural expressions that find audiences far beyond its traditional trans-Atlantic axis to Asia and the Pacific, and it has given voice to struggles for social justice that have echoed around the world.
The Department of Hispanic Studies at Bates College (formerly Spanish) responds to the cultural richness and diversity of the peoples who speak Spanish as well as to the obligations and opportunities of a globalized world through a threefold mission:
1.) we enable students to acquire a strong and useful proficiency in Spanish that allows them to navigate cultural spaces in which over 500 million people interact worldwide.
2.) we foster the development of interpretative skills and contextual knowledge to engage critically a broad range of cultural productions originating in the Spanish-speaking world.
3.) we contribute to the study of the humanities through a curriculum of courses taught in Spanish that includes studies of Latin American, Spanish, and US/Latino literature, media and visual arts covering an array of historical periods, and is informed by diverse and varied theoretical approaches.