Based at the foothills of Colorado's Rocky Mountains, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Colorado Boulder is a space where a passion for the cultures and languages of the Hispanic and Portuguese-speaking worlds, critical inquiry, professional development, intercultural understanding, and community diversity are the basis of our graduate programs.
Grounded in Colorado’s multilingual communities and a global perspective that illuminates the past so as to best understand the present, we offer a set of appealing graduate tracks including M.A.s in Peninsular and Latin American Literature, Hispanic Linguistics, Spanish and Portuguese Studies, and Spanish Teaching; and PhDs in Peninsular and Latin American Literature and Medieval and Early Modern Hispanic Literatures. All our programs prepare students with a solid foundation in the linguistics, literatures, and cultures of the Hispanic and Portuguese-speaking worlds and a flexible set of skills for careers in education, the cultural sector, government, and industry.
The Department of Spanish and Portuguese also hosts a series of academic and community events that include exhibitions at the Art Museum, the annual Hispanic Heritage Month celebration, movie screenings, creative workshops, and guest lectures.
Interdisciplinary programs
With roots in the expanded Hispanic and Portuguese-speaking worlds, our course offerings are heavily interdisciplinary and combine literary, cultural, and linguistic studies with topics and methodologies such as digital culture and intermediality, law and literature, decolonization, indigenous studies, usage-based approaches to language, raciolinguistics, and second and heritage language acquisition.
Our programs allow students to further their interdisciplinary endeavors even more through access to graduate certificates such as Women and Gender Studies, Digital Humanities, Culture, Language and Social Practice Program, and Critical Theory. Similarly, we closely collaborate with the Latin American and Latinx Studies Center, bringing our students into contact with experts in other scholarly fields concerned with the Hispanic world.
Training, leadership, and professional development
As members of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, M.A. and PhD students acquire a valuable set of professional skills. First and foremost, as college level instructors, our graduate students are in charge of teaching a Spanish language course every semester. Similarly, all Spring students organize and lead a graduate conference that brings renowned scholars and, often, an international group of participants to campus. Recruitment is another area where graduate students learn professional skills and serve as ambassadors at campus fairs and events.
Our internal graduate colloquium provides a forum for students to get feedback from department members on their work in progress. Ad hoc graduate workshops prepare students to publish their work, attend conferences, and do job interviews. In addition to training and mentorship, graduate students have access to funding opportunities to present their research at academic conferences and engage in professional development activities.
Funding and grants
All graduate students are eligible for graduate teaching assistantships. These appointments include a monthly stipend (August-April), tuition remission, and cover all student health insurance premiums. Competitive grants and fellowships from the Department and other offices on campus help defray the costs of summer research, conference participation, and other travel and research expenses.
Our graduate faculty
The faculty at the Department of Spanish and Portuguese are all leaders in their fields and actively publish innovative and authoritative books and journal articles. They also mentor graduate students in a plethora of fields and methodological approaches. On the linguistics track, our faculty specialize in usage-based approaches to phonology and morphosyntax, language variation and change, Galician linguistics, the Spanish of New Mexico, second and heritage language development and education, identity, and critical pedagogies. On the literature and culture tracks, our faculty are experts in colonial Spanish American literature, 20th-21st Century Spanish American literature, Latinx studies, Latin American digital literature and culture, Medieval and Early Modern Iberian literatures and cultures, 19th-20th Century Spanish and Catalan literatures and cultures, modern and contemporary literature and art of the Portuguese-speaking world, gender studies, critical indigenous studies, law and humanities, publishing, and digital humanities.
Our Graduate Students
The graduate student community is bright, inclusive, and welcoming. Our students come from the United States and all over the Hispanic and Portuguese-speaking world. This human cultural mosaic offers the perfect setting for collective learning, solidarity in teaching, and concerted scholarly work.
Students’ testimonials
The Department of Spanish and Portuguese at CU Boulder gave me chances I never would’ve had in Portugal - academically, financially, and personally. Here, I felt welcomed, supported, and even a little braver. It’s where I can finally grow to be the scholar I want, and have fun doing it. (Ana Isabel)
As an international graduate student, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese became more than an academic space; it became a community. In this context, I feel welcomed, seen, and understood by my colleagues and professors. I genuinely value the support that inspires me on my path to becoming the scholar I envision.
(Rocío Gavira)
My journey in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at CU Boulder has been an open door to explore creative work like poetry. Here, I have also been part of a supportive community that dialogues with the cultural and linguistic matters I formally study in my courses. I think the richest part of my experience has to do with how the environment set by peers and professors informs and expands my research inquiries.
(Ana Llanos)
During my first year of the PhD program in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at CU Boulder, I felt immediately welcomed by the community of graduate students and professors. Not once did I feel afraid to ask questions, reach out for support in teaching or studying, or even just while socializing. I am proud to be a part of this graduate community.
(Sophia Valdez)
Interested in joining us?
We admit select cohorts of domestic and international students every year. Applications open in the Fall and close in December. For more information, visit https://www.colorado.edu/spanishportuguese/apply or contact the Associate Chair for Graduate Studies, Prof. Ortega at spangrad@colorado.edu
We look forward to hearing from you!
