Center for the Study of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures

Goucher College is dedicated to a liberal arts education that prepares students within a broad, humane perspective for a life of inquiry, creativity, and critical and analytical thinking. The Center for the Study of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures greatly contributes to this mission by providing the keys to understanding other linguistic and cultural codes as well as academically sound and innovative models for study abroad. Our international faculty engages students in the study of compelling transnational issues through the analysis of international and transnational cultural texts and media. Within the Center for the Study of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, study abroad is an experiential component of the major and minor curricula, carefully integrated within the college’s liberal arts tradition. Foreign language study is especially valued for its ability to promote Goucher’s commitment to “an expanding sense of community - a community where discourse is valued and practiced.” While all language study helps students become more aware of other perspectives and the singularity of their own, foreign language study in particular helps to make Goucher a place where “each community member contributes to, and in turn, is enriched by … the communities of the world.” Finally, the intercultural and linguistic skills mastered by language students are extremely valuable in helping Goucher graduates realize the ideals stated in the college’s Diversity Statement: to “carry these values into the world at large; to promote tolerance, inclusiveness, democratic values, and learning across differences everywhere; and to help shape the local and global discourse about diversity and multiculturalism and their evolving relationship with the broadest possible educational enterprise.”

The overall goal of the Center for the Study of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures has been, and continues to be the strengthening of the liberal arts undergraduate curriculum at Goucher College through programs of broad scope and high quality as well as a variety of interdisciplinary course offerings in areas as diverse as film, literature, culture, anthropology, theater, Holocaust studies, folklore, socio-linguistics, ecology. Foreign language proficiency grants privileged access to the nuances of original texts in these fields as well as accounts of current events and history.