Cultural Studies and the Field of Spanish in the US Academy

ROBERT MCKEE IRWIN; MÓNICA SZURMUK

A Contracorriente: A Journal on Social History and LIterature in the Americas

North Carolina State University

Lugar: Raleigh, North Carolina; Año: 2009 vol. 6 p. 36 - 60

1548-7083

It is evident from a casual browse through the last ten years of Profession, the Modern Language Association (MLA)’s “journal of opinion about and for the modern language profession” in the United States, that the field of “foreign languages” has been undergoing some radical changes. We evaluate both the general “cultural turn” in literature programs in the US with regard to its ramifications for the field of Spanish, as well as the status that Spanish has tacitly assumed as the nation’s unofficial second language, linking the field’s resistance to change to its roots in the Spanish nationalist project of Hispanism. We advocate three specific reforms for the field of Spanish in the US: 1) a pronounced move from a literary to a cultural studies focus; 2) a displacement of Spain in departmental hierarchies, accompanied by an increased focus on Mexico (and Latin American in general); 3) a prominent role for US Latino culture. We conclude with a survey of PhD granting programs in Spanish in the US, pointing to areas in which change has been difficult to achieve, and to a handful of innovative curricular experiments at a few universities.