General Information

The department offers programs leading to the Master of Arts and the Doctor of Philosophy degrees with a major in Spanish. For those students in other departments, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese offers doctoral minors in Spanish. Areas of concentration for advanced degrees and minors:

Admission to all graduate programs requires the completion of a bachelor's degree with a major in the proposed field of study. Admission to the doctoral program in Spanish is dependent upon the completion of a Master of Arts degree in Spanish at the University of Arizona or elsewhere.

Professional opportunities

Graduate students in the department have the opportunity to work as:

  • Graduate Research Assistant in faculty research projects in the department (occasionally also outside the department for faculty involved in interdisciplinary research in other departments)
  • Graduate Assistant to the Director of Heritage Language
  • Assistant to the Director of Undergraduate Studies
  • Assistant to the director or director of programs abroad (e.g., Spain, Costa Rica, Brazil)
  • Graduate Teaching Assistant (Instructor of record) for 300 and 400 level undergraduate courses (minor and majors) (e.g. Spanish phonetics, Introduction to Spanish linguistics)
  • Assistant Editor or Editorial Assistant of  Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies  http://ajhcs.arizona.edu/

Academic Life

Academic life in the Department is vibrant. Periodic appointments of visiting scholars and writers in residence, distinguished speakers, conferences and colloquia nourish in intellects of faculty and students and provide for stimulating interchanges of ideas. Among those to visit recently are Iciar Bollaín, -as writer in residence- Debra Castillo, Franciso Marcos Marín, John Lipski, David Herzberger, Tey Diana Rebolledo, Edward Friedman, Carol Klee and Guadalupe Valdés. Recent Conferences sponsored or hosted by the Department include: Hispanic Cultural Studies: The State of the Art, Portuguese for Spanish Speakers: Acquisition and Teaching and the MPA Latin American Film Tour. The Department is also one of the sponsors of the Jornadas Metropolitanas de Estudios Culturales held annually in Mexico City. Graduate students in the Department organize the Annual Symposium on Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Language, Literature and Culture and publish the Selected Proceedings of the Symposium on Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Language, Literature and Culture. The Department is also home to the Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies. Students have the opportunity to gain valuable experience working on the graduate student journal and the conference or through appointment to an editorial position ont he AJHCS or SLAPC.

The University of Arizona

The University of Arizona is an AAU Research-1 University with an enrollment of 45,000 and a faculty and staff of 12,000. The University library system contains more than nine million items, including more than four million books and ranks among the top twenty research libraries in the country. The library holdings include extensive collections in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian literature, linguistics and history as well as a wide range of original and microfilmed manuscripts and documents dealing with the Southwest US.

Campus Life

The campus offers an environment that nourishes and enriches the lives of graduate students and strengthens their intellectual development. The Department collaborates actively with the Center for Latin American Studies whose designation as a Title VI National Resource Center provides substantial resources for graduate students. Some important cultural dimensions on campus include the Poetry Center, the Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry, and the Center for Creative Photography which houses the archives of world-renowned photographers. Major art collections are housed in the University of Arizona Museum of Art. A wide variety of dance, theater and music is presented throughout the year by the departments of the College of Fine Arts.

For questions regarding the graduate programs, please contact:

Director of Graduate Studies and Graduate Advisor for Literature & Cultural Studies

Dr. Faith Harden, 
ML 565
fharden@arizona.edu
520.621-5240
Fax: (520) 621-6104

Graduate Advisor for Hispanic Linguistics

Dr. Julieta Fernández,
ML 530
julietafernandez@arizona.edu
520.621-5521
Fax: (520) 621-6104

Program Coordinator, Senior

Isela J. Gonzales-Cook
Spanish & Portuguese Department
iselag@arizona.edu
520-621-3125
Fax: (520) 621-6104