The Department of Spanish at Bates College 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: 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; 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; 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. In 2024 the Department of Spanish formally changed it's name to Hispanic Studies.