{"id":2835,"date":"2007-11-07T17:09:35","date_gmt":"2007-11-07T21:09:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/rs\/?p=2835"},"modified":"2011-08-22T22:46:26","modified_gmt":"2011-08-23T02:46:26","slug":"two-new-language-departments-replace-mfll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/rs\/2007\/11\/07\/two-new-language-departments-replace-mfll\/","title":{"rendered":"Two New Language Departments Replace MFLL"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Boston University\u2019s language programs were given a new  face,  and an injection of new energy, last spring when the Board of  Trustees approved  the creation of two new departments, Romance Studies  (RS) and Modern Languages  and Comparative Literature (MLCL), to replace  the Department of Modern Foreign  Languages and Literatures (MFLL). The  change takes effect this fall.<\/p>\n<p>The  Department of Romance  Studies, comprising programs in French, Italian, Spanish,  and  Portuguese, as well as in linguistics, will be chaired by Christopher   Maurer, a professor of Spanish and the former MFLL chair. The Department  of  Modern Languages and Comparative Literature will devote itself to  programs in  German, Russian Near Eastern (Arabic, Hebrew, Persian,  Turkish), and East Asian  (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) language and  literatures, as well as a new program  in comparative literature, on  which the department will collaborate closely  with RS, English, and  Classical Studies. It will be chaired by William Waters,  an associate  professor of German.<\/p>\n<p>The change,  which creates the first new  departments at CAS\/GRS since the establishment of  the Department of  International Relations in the early 1990s, brings the total  number of  academic departments at Arts and Sciences to twenty-five, including  the  graduate-only department of Cognitive and Neural Studies. At a time  when  other universities are reducing departments, the move bucks a  trend, and it  resonates meaningfully with BU\u2019s overall commitment to  preparing global  citizens.<\/p>\n<p>The new  administrative structure  represents a broadening of the reach of language  programs at BU, and an  acknowledgement that the former MFLL, with annual  enrollments of about  9,000, had outgrown its viability as an omnibus language  department.  The change will allow for a heightened sense of intellectual  purpose,  open new avenues of teaching and research, and address academic   concerns that have had to be sidelined due to the size and complexity of  the  former MFLL. It will also create a more favorable environment for  languages of  growing strategic importance (i.e., Arabic, Chinese,  Japanese), and build more  robust programs in comparative literature,  film studies, and translation  studies.<\/p>\n<p>The  outcome, Professors  Maurer and Waters say, will be better representation and  enhanced  leadership for language and literature at BU, just at a time when   language and culture studies are more important than ever.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Boston University\u2019s language programs were given a new face, and an injection of new energy, last spring when the Board of Trustees approved the creation of two new departments, Romance Studies (RS) and Modern Languages and Comparative Literature (MLCL), to replace the Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures (MFLL). The change takes effect this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4316,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16403],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/rs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2835"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/rs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/rs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/rs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/rs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2835"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/rs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3054,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/rs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2835\/revisions\/3054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/rs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/rs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/rs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}