Spanish and Italian

This is an archived copy of the 2020-2021 catalog. To access the most recent version of the catalog, please visit http://e-catalog.sewanee.edu.

Websites: Spanish, Italian

The Department of Spanish and Italian offers a comprehensive program ranging from beginning to advanced courses in language, literature, and culture. Members of its faculty hail from the United States, Spain, and Latin America, speak with a variety of accents and dialectical variants, and conduct research in a broad range of geographical areas and time periods. The Department works closely with and contributes to other departments and interdisciplinary programs, such as International and Global Studies, Humanities, and Women's and Gender Studies.

Students will find opportunities to hear and speak Spanish and Italian outside the classroom: at the theme houses (see below), weekly Spanish table, monthly tertulia gatherings, and occasional events such as lectures and film screenings.

In the Italian program, language and culture are taught in a full-immersion, communicative classroom, where students can work toward gaining proficiency in reading, writing, speaking, and listening over as many as four semesters of study. The fourth semester, ITAL 301, combines an advanced grammar review with a focused introduction to Italian literature. Italian studies are excellent preparation for students wishing to study in Italy, as well as for students pursuing studies in literature, music, or art history. It is possible to satisfy the college’s general education requirement in a second language, or in the learning objective tagged as “comprehending cross-culturally” with ITAL 301.
Spanish Placement

Spanish Placement

Students wishing to take Spanish to fulfill the College's general education requirement must take the departmental placement examination. Those students who have never taken Spanish should consult with the department chair in order to register for SPAN 103. Students who have taken at least two years of Spanish in high school will be placed no lower than SPAN 113. Students may not enroll at a course level beneath that indicated by the placement examination without the permission of the department chair.
Theme Houses

Theme Houses

The residents of Casa de España y las Américas theme house live in a communal setting overseen by a graduate native speaker. The house sponsors various cultural and social activities. The Paschall House serves as the Casa Italiana, or the Italian House. Its mission is to promote the awareness and education of the Italian language and culture to students.

Language Laboratory

The E.L. Kellerman Language Resource Center provides an opportunity for students in the modern foreign languages to immerse themselves in the sounds and culture of their target language. The facility features a state of the art Sanako Lab 100 system for practice with listening and speaking; a Satellite TV with stations in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish; wireless Apple Macbooks which can be checked out; a Sympodium for multimedia displays; and a cozy reading and viewing lounge with a library of foreign language books, magazines, and videos. Students can also access subscriptions to web-based language learning programs for reinforcing what is being taught in class as well as for learning languages not currently taught at the University. There is also Rosetta Stone software for Arabic, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Irish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Thai, and Turkish. Faculty and students alike take advantage of the language center’s audio- and video-editing equipment and analog-to-digital-conversion facilities in preparing engaging presentations for class. The Language Resource Center is open Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., Fridays 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sundays 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.