The Department of Iberian and Latin American Cultures at Stanford University offers courses focused on the languages, literatures, and cultures of the Iberian Peninsula, Latin America, and Latina/o populations in the United States. The Department balances an emphasis on literary studies with a more diverse, humanistic set of approaches to cultural and social issues.

Our faculty is made up of world-renowned scholars in fields as diverse as contemporary Catalan literature, twentieth-century Spanish poetry, Chicana/o culture and literature, nineteenth-century Spanish fiction, contemporary Latin American literatures, Luso-Brazilian literature, and medieval/early modern Iberian literatures.

The Department actively nurtures cooperative relationships with other departments and programs at Stanford, especially within the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages. This approach facilitates related intellectual inquiry in areas such as anthropology, philosophy, history, linguistics, Mediterranean studies, medieval and early modern studies, European and Latin American politics, performance, feminist studies, and film studies.

The Department is committed to three main educational goals: (1) to provide students with a contextualized knowledge of the literatures and cultures of the Iberian Peninsula from the medieval period to the present, of the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking communities of Latin America, and of the Spanish-speaking communities of the United States; (2) to prepare undergraduate students for advanced study in those areas and/or in a range of professional fields; and (3) to provide doctoral students with advanced training as research scholars and teachers, in preparation for careers as university professors or in related roles. In all of these areas, the faculty of the Department is committed to providing students with a high level of mentoring and support.

The Department regularly organizes conferences and talks by guest speakers. It also regularly hosts visiting faculty, including the Ginebre Serra visiting chair in Catalan Studies. Courses are open to all interested students. The Department awards BA, MA, and PhD degrees to eligible candidates. For more information, please contact us at ilac@stanford.edu