Overview

The Department of Spanish and Portuguese is big enough to offer a wide variety of approaches to teaching and research yet small enough to afford students at both the graduate and undergraduate level personal attention and mentoring. The Department offers an abundance of opportunities to learn and achieve mastery of the languages and cultures studied, which include Catalan, Nahuatl, Portuguese, Romance Studies and Spanish. Programs are specially designed for highly motivated students with a passion for other languages, literatures and cultures, for imaginative approaches to these, and for careful crossing of traditionally defined geographic, linguistic and disciplinary borders.

The sequence of undergraduate and graduate programs is designed to help students gain competence in written and spoken Spanish or Portuguese through the structure and history of one or both of these languages as well as gain a critical understanding of the development and achievements of their literatures in the Old World and in the New through advanced study and independent research. The Department's policy is to maintain a balanced strength between language and literature and between Iberian and Latin American facets of a unified field.

Several faculty members are formally involved with or are active in other departments or academic units on campus—for example, Comparative Literature, Rhetoric, Film Studies, Gender & Women’s Studies, the Portuguese Studies Program , the Spanish Studies Program , and the Center for Latin American Studies . The current Director of the Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities at UC Berkeley  is a professor of Spanish and Portuguese, as is the current Director of UC Berkeley’s renowned Bancroft Library , which contains a rich collection of materials related to the fields of study.

The variety of research interests and expertise held by faculty is echoed in the diversity of backgrounds and academic interests among students. While most come from California, a significant number come from other states and foreign countries. At the graduate level, about a third of the fifty-some students are from Spain and Latin America. A few regularly practice, as well as study, one or more of the literary, musical, or visual arts. The graduate students publish a journal, Lucero, and organize an international conference each year, which brings leading scholars to Berkeley to engage with students and faculty over several days. The Department holds professor- and student-sponsored colloquia on a regular basis.

Providing opportunities to experience the living languages and cultures studied in the Department is essential to the academic mission. Besides regular co-sponsorship of cultural events and performances on campus and elsewhere in the Bay Area, the Department currently administers two travel study programs, one in Spain and one in Portugal, through UC Berkeley Summer Sessions . Undergraduates are also able to study abroad for an entire year in a variety of locations in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere through participation in the University of California’s Education Abroad Program .

Undergraduate Programs

Hispanic Languages and Bilingual Issues : BA
Iberian Language and Literature : BA
Latin American Literatures : BA
Luso-Brazilian Language and Literature : BA
Spanish Language and Literature : BA
Luso-Brazilian Language and Literature : Minor
Spanish Language and Literature : Minor
Spanish Linguistics : Minors

Graduate Programs

Hispanic Languages and Literatures : PhD
Romance Languages and Literatures (Spanish) : PhD (offered by the Graduate Group in Romance Languages and Literatures)

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Courses

Select a subject to view courses

• Catalan
• Portuguese
• Spanish

Catalan

Portuguese

Spanish

Faculty

Professors

Francine R Masiello, Professor. Gender theory, culture, globalization, comparative literature, Spanish, Latin American literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, comparative North and South literatures.
Research Profile

Professors

Milton M. Azevedo, Professor. Linguistics, Spanish, Portuguese.
Research Profile

Emilie L. Bergmann, Professor. Early modern Spain, colonial Spanish America, Spanish literature, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, visual studies, gender and sexuality studies.
Research Profile

Dru Dougherty, Professor. Poetry, stage history, Valle-Inclan, Spanish poetics, war and literature.
Research Profile

Ignacio Navarrete, Professor. Poetry, poetic theory, narrative and culture, history of the book, Cervantes, Don Quixote, Medieval and Early Modern Spanish literature.
Research Profile

Candace Slater, Professor. Spanish, Portuguese.
Research Profile

Associate Professors

Natalia Brizuela, Associate Professor. Spanish, Portuguese.
Research Profile

Ivonne Del Valle, Associate Professor. Imperial politics and Early Modern Political Theory, colonialism and capitalism, globalization, colonial period in México, internal colonialism in Mexico, Jesuits (Loyola, Acosta, Baegert), Baroque and Enlightenment from a colonial perspective, technology and environment, drainage of Mexico City lakes, Christianity and Pre-Hispanic religions.
Research Profile

Michael Iarocci, PhD, Associate Professor. Spanish, Portuguese.
Research Profile

Estelle Tarica, Associate Professor. Latin America, Mexico, race, nationalism, Spanish, mestizo, Indians, Andes, Bolivia, Peru, Holocaust, Quechua.
Research Profile

Assistant Professors

Daylet Dominguez, Assistant Professor. Modern and Contemporary Latin American and Caribbean Literatures and Cultures.
Research Profile

Lecturers

Amelia R Barili, Lecturer.

Clelia Francesca Donovan, Lecturer.

Professors

Milton M. Azevedo, Professor. Linguistics, Spanish, Portuguese.
Research Profile

Emilie L. Bergmann, Professor. Early modern Spain, colonial Spanish America, Spanish literature, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, visual studies, gender and sexuality studies.
Research Profile

Dru Dougherty, Professor. Poetry, stage history, Valle-Inclan, Spanish poetics, war and literature.
Research Profile

Ignacio Navarrete, Professor. Poetry, poetic theory, narrative and culture, history of the book, Cervantes, Don Quixote, Medieval and Early Modern Spanish literature.
Research Profile

Candace Slater, Professor. Spanish, Portuguese.
Research Profile

Associate Professors

Natalia Brizuela, Associate Professor. Spanish, Portuguese.
Research Profile

Ivonne Del Valle, Associate Professor. Imperial politics and Early Modern Political Theory, colonialism and capitalism, globalization, colonial period in México, internal colonialism in Mexico, Jesuits (Loyola, Acosta, Baegert), Baroque and Enlightenment from a colonial perspective, technology and environment, drainage of Mexico City lakes, Christianity and Pre-Hispanic religions.
Research Profile

Michael Iarocci, PhD, Associate Professor. Spanish, Portuguese.
Research Profile

Estelle Tarica, Associate Professor. Latin America, Mexico, race, nationalism, Spanish, mestizo, Indians, Andes, Bolivia, Peru, Holocaust, Quechua.
Research Profile

Assistant Professors

Daylet Dominguez, Assistant Professor. Modern and Contemporary Latin American and Caribbean Literatures and Cultures.
Research Profile

Lecturers

Amelia R Barili, Lecturer.

Clelia Francesca Donovan, Lecturer.

Professors

Anthony Cascardi, Professor. English, comparative literature, literature, Spanish, Portuguese, philosophy, aesthetics, early modern literature, French, Spanish Baroque.
Research Profile

Milton M. Azevedo, Professor. Linguistics, Spanish, Portuguese.
Research Profile

Emilie L. Bergmann, Professor. Early modern Spain, colonial Spanish America, Spanish literature, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, visual studies, gender and sexuality studies.
Research Profile

Dru Dougherty, Professor. Poetry, stage history, Valle-Inclan, Spanish poetics, war and literature.
Research Profile

Francine R Masiello, Professor. Gender theory, culture, globalization, comparative literature, Spanish, Latin American literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, comparative North and South literatures.
Research Profile

Ignacio Navarrete, Professor. Poetry, poetic theory, narrative and culture, history of the book, Cervantes, Don Quixote, Medieval and Early Modern Spanish literature.
Research Profile

Candace Slater, Professor. Spanish, Portuguese.
Research Profile

Associate Professors

Michael Iarocci, PhD, Associate Professor. Spanish, Portuguese.
Research Profile

Natalia Brizuela, Associate Professor. Spanish, Portuguese.
Research Profile

Ivonne Del Valle, Associate Professor. Imperial politics and Early Modern Political Theory, colonialism and capitalism, globalization, colonial period in México, internal colonialism in Mexico, Jesuits (Loyola, Acosta, Baegert), Baroque and Enlightenment from a colonial perspective, technology and environment, drainage of Mexico City lakes, Christianity and Pre-Hispanic religions.
Research Profile

Michael Iarocci, PhD, Associate Professor. Spanish, Portuguese.
Research Profile

Estelle Tarica, Associate Professor. Latin America, Mexico, race, nationalism, Spanish, mestizo, Indians, Andes, Bolivia, Peru, Holocaust, Quechua.
Research Profile

Assistant Professors

Alexandra Saum-Pascua, Assistant Professor. Spain, contemporary literature, digital humanities, Media Convergence.
Research Profile

Daylet Dominguez, Assistant Professor. Modern and Contemporary Latin American and Caribbean Literatures and Cultures.
Research Profile

Lecturers

Amelia R Barili, Lecturer.

Clelia Francesca Donovan, Lecturer.