Arabic
Arabic students learn to speak, listen, read, and write in Modern Standard Arabic, with the opportunity to study Egyptian, Levantine, or Moroccan dialects.
Languages & Literatures
How do cultures communicate? What can literary texts teach us about the beliefs and values of their writers and readers? From ancient works to contemporary narratives, discover how literature and language bridge communities and provoke reflection.
Explore Languages & Literatures
Explore how languages and literature open new perspectives and deepen connections across time and place.
Chinese
Chinese Language and Culture students explore a vast range of literary and spoken languages, as well as Chinese culture, traditions, and social issues.
French
French students receive training in language and in the literary, cultural, and intellectual traditions of France and the French-speaking world.
German
German studies includes instruction in speaking and understanding German, as well exploration of Germany's rich cultural heritage.
Hebrew
Hebrew curriculum provides students with a solid foundation in grammar and vocabulary of Modern Hebrew for conversation and reading; courses in Yiddish are also offered.
Hindi-Urdu
The Hindi-Urdu Language Program teaches listening, speaking, reading and writing for effective communication, as well as studying the culture of the Indian sub-continent.
Italian
Italian studies offers proficiency-oriented language training and exploration of Italian history, culture, and society from the Middle Ages to the present day.
Japanese
Japanese studies explores both pre-modern and contemporary approaches to the linguistic and cultural humanities in Japan.
Korean
Korean students will learn Korean cultural and linguistic heritages, past and present.
Latin
Latin minors gain a good knowledge of Latin, so as to work with primary sources in the original language.
Polish
Students concentrating in Polish gain competence in language and knowledge of Polish literature, history, and film.
Portuguese
The Portuguese minor offers linguistic and cultural knowledge through comparative analysis of the cultures and literatures of Portuguese-speaking regions.
Russian
Russian studies focuses on Russian culture, literary traditions, international knowledge, or language proficiency.
Spanish
Spanish studies explores the literary and intellectual traditions in Latin American and Iberian cultures while achieving fluency in the Spanish.
Interesting Courses
Check out courses that uncover the rich world of languages and literatures.
Ling 317-0-20
"My lawyer is a shark," when lawyers are human, and sharks are animals?
FRENCH 355-0-20
Were French sailors outcasts or agents of empire?
ITALIAN 351-0
How many Italian filmakers does it take to influence one another's style?
PORT 210-0-1
How does mythical imagination of the past help us understand modern Brazil?
ASIAN AMER 216-0
How have Asian diasporas shaped and been shaped by migration over time?
CLA 320
What was the last Hippocratic case study you read?
ASIAN LC 322*
Do video games reflect and respond to Japan's cultural and historical crises?
What is it like to be a student?
As a student, you can delve into the study of the languages and literatures through interdisciplinary coursework, internships, community projects, and extra-curricular activities. You also can collaborate with faculty on cutting-edge research.
Nina Bush '24
Nina Bush '24 shares how professors encourage students to bring their perspectives to class discussions, creating a space that values diverse approaches to problem-solving. Bush's journey began with a class on Dante’s Divine Comedy. She applied lessons from Dante to investment banking pitfalls, exploring the morality of finance, and how to navigate corporate America.
I had initially only intended to take Japanese to complete my two-year foreign language requirement but through opportunities offered at Northwestern, I was able to spend time abroad in Japan fully funded, learning more about the language and culture.”
Alex Solivan ’23
Dori-Taylor Carter ‘23
An American studies major with a minor in French at Weinberg College, Dori-Taylor Carter has been involved with the Rainbow Alliance on campus, working to make the University a more hospitable place for LGBTQ+ students. Carter, who came to Northwestern from Los Angeles as a Posse Scholar, is also the recipient of a Mellon Mayes Undergraduate Fellowship.
Innovators in the Classroom and Beyond
Get to know some of our dedicated professors who are passionate about teaching and nurturing your success as a student.
Saul Morson on why "War and Peace" is the greatest novel ever written
The Lawrence B. Dumas Distinguished University Professor of Slavic Languages has been teaching Russian literature for 50 years. He considers books like War and Peace to be valuable tools for learning and practicing empathy.
Daniela Pozzi Pavan shares how students immerse themselves in language and culture
French and Italian Professor Daniela Pozzi Pavan highlights exciting experiences where students engage in language learning through interactive classes, cultural events, and study abroad opportunities.
Shaping the Future of Languages & Literatures
Cynthia Nazarian
French and Italian
Professor Nazarian explores figurations of violence in early modern French, English and Italian literature. Nazarian is the author of Love’s Wounds: Violence and the Politics of Poetry in Early Modern Europe (Cornell University Press, 2016), which investigates widespread metaphors of violence in early modern French, English, and Italian literature. Her second book project, Violent Sympathies: Literature, Sovereignty and the Hazards of Fellow Feeling brings together early modern literature and contemporary political theory to examine the challenges posed by sympathy for state authority and legitimacy.
Jorge Coronado
Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Professor Coronado specializes in Latin American and Andean literatures and cultures. His undergraduate courses range across the 19th and 20th centuries and draw from various disciplines and cultural practices, such as history, archaeology, anthropology, music, photography, and literature. His prize-winning research and academic initiatives have won funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and most recently the American Academy in Berlin, among others.
Dassia Posner
Slavic Languages and Literatures
Professor Posner’s project, The Kamerny Theatre: An Artistic History in Political Times focuses on an avant-garde theater founded by Ukranian-Jewish director Alexander Tairov which dissolved during Stalin’s purges (1914-1950). The work will be an archival study of the Theatre’s innovations and international influence in the artistic and political context of the Soviet Union.
Nick Winters
Classics
Professor Winters is a classicist and former physicist specializing in ancient mathematics and science. His dissertation, "Schools of Greek Mathematical Practice" (2020), proposed a major revision to the history of Greek mathematics, organizing ancient texts into networks of information transmission and methodology. He spent 2022-23 as a fellow at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens.
Outside the Classroom
Explore student clubs, internships, and campus resources.
Weinberg in the World Podcast
In Weinberg College's monthly podcast, Weinberg alumni share their career experiences. Listen to what they have to say about the study of languages and literatures.
Career Conversation with Kathryn Haydon '99: Speaker, Author, and Founder of Sparktivity
May 14, 2020
Kathryn Haydon graduated from Weinberg College in 1999 with a major in Spanish. After a long career in the education space, Kathryn is now an author and speaker who helps people develop creative thinking and problem-solving skills. We talk about how she picked her major, some of the surprising ways her major helped propel her career, and how we can still be creative during a very stressful time.
Career Conversation with Naomi Joyce Bang '81: Law School Professor and Human Rights Attorney
June 14, 2020
Naomi Joyce Bang graduated from Weinberg College in 1981 with a double major in Political Science and French. Joyce later became a human rights and human trafficking attorney as well as a law school professor. We talk about a Northwestern experience abroad that changed her path forever, some of her most interesting and impactful projects oversees, and her advice for students looking to pursue either law school or something different.
FRENCH 355-0-20
Sailor: Queer Agent of Empire?
About the Course
Sailors played a paradoxical role in France's empire. On the one hand, they were the agents of empire, spreading French civilization throughout the world. On the other, they were often drawn from the lower classes of society, and from Brittany, a region of France that was itself a kind of colonized space, where residents mostly spoke Breton rather than French. The sailor was also closely associated with supposedly asocial behaviors: criminality, same-sex sexuality, rampant non-monogamous heterosexuality, and interracial relationships. In this class, we will explore these paradoxes of the figure of the sailor in French literature and film of the 19th and 20th centuries, through the works of Jules Verne, Pierre Loti, Jean Epstein, Ousmane Sembène, and R. F. Fassbinder.
ITALIAN 351-0
Italian Film and Transnational Cinema
About the Course
In-depth exploration of key Italian filmmakers in the context of transnational cinema. Focus on relation between filmmakers (including Visconti/Renoir, Rossellini/Godard, and Antonioni/Wenders) and dynamics of cinematic style and cultural influence.
PORT 210-0-1
Icons, Legends, and Myths in Brazil
About the Course
Representations in graphic materials, documentaries, film, theater, folklore, narrative fiction, and popular music of historical, literary, and popular figures in the national imagination. Includes English or Portuguese discussion sections.
ASIAN AMER 216-0
Global Asians
About the Course
Survey of Asian diasporas in the U.S. and elsewhere in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, emphasizing causes of migration, process of settlement, relations with other ethnic groups, and construction of diasporic identities.
CLA 320
Greek and Roman History: Ancient Medicine
About the Course
We will study the theory and practice of Greek and Roman medicine, looking at ancient texts in translation, ancient artifacts and materials, and some modern scholarship. As a term project, students will learn to think as ancient physicians, diagnosing and prescribing treatments for patients from the Hippocratic case studies. During class discussion, we will engage critically with primary sources and examine the differences between ancient and modern science from a balanced historical perspective. We will also investigate the social, cultural, and economic forces that have affected the development of western medicine throughout its history.
ASIAN LC 322*
Video Games in/as Japanese Culture
About the Course
This course places video games in the context of Japanese cultural history from the 1990s to the present. It aims to furnish the historical and conceptual contexts necessary to interpret how games reflect upon the crises faced by Japan at the turn of the new millennium. The course centers on a series of dominant narrative paradigms and subcultural tropes—apocalyptic fantasy, world-type, survival, etc.—and asks how these are rendered in game form. While our focus is ultimately on games as a form of narrative, we aim also to understand how the active and interactive nature of the game medium shapes the meanings that these texts convey.