In the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures (RLL), undergraduates discover the literatures, cultures, and critical approaches of societies worldwide where French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Catalan are spoken. The heart of the concentration consists of courses about literature and society taught in French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Students learn to communicate accurately and effectively and equally importantly, they become more attuned listeners.
Deeply committed to interdisciplinary studies, the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard encourages graduate students to situate literature in the broad context of cultural productions, ranging from the canonical to alternative modes. Students pursue research topics in the French and Francophone, Italian, Portuguese and Luso-Brazilian, or Spanish and Latin American literary traditions, alone or in combination, leading to the Ph.D..