{"id":117,"date":"2007-11-27T15:02:30","date_gmt":"2007-11-27T20:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wll\/?p=117"},"modified":"2011-01-05T15:03:02","modified_gmt":"2011-01-05T20:03:02","slug":"two-new-language-departments-replace-mfll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wll\/2007\/11\/27\/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 Romance Studies,  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 in the College of Arts  and Sciences 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 Systems. 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 (such as Arabic, Chinese, or  Persian), 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":2184,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2184"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions\/118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/wll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}