Welcome

Since knowledge of languages is the key to understanding culture(s), we like to think of ourselves as one of the true multicultural and interdisciplinary entities on campus. A wide range of disciplines and languages – ancient and modern and from various parts of the world – are based in our department: Arabic, Chinese, German, Greek (Modern as well as Ancient), Hebrew, Japanese, Latin, Russian, and Swahili at various levels of proficiency are all taught in our department. Major and Minor programs of study are available for some of these languages. A promising new Major and Minor program in Comparative Literature combines the best that language and literature study has to offer. Our interdisciplinary program in Jewish Studies is also being expanded. If you are interested in the specific requirements of Major and Minor programs for a particular language, you should consult the faculty advisor responsible for that area. Don't hesitate to drop by, whether it be to discuss the Major and Minor, career opportunities, or just to chat. In addition to our language offerings, we also teach literature courses in translation, which are listed in the Bulletin as either Literature in Translation (LIT) or Comparative Literature (CLIT). Among these are several core courses in which literature is taught outside the narrow range of one particular culture or national tradition, such as "Romanticism" and "The Oedipus Theme in Western Literature."

WHY STUDY LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE?

Even we were not immune to the cliche that languages are the key to culture! And yet how often is this truism forgotten or taken for granted. Each language represents a distinct worldview, possessed of a unique inner logic that makes it beautiful and renders many of the thoughts expressed in it unreproduceable in another tongue. There's no perfect, one-to-one "match" between words from different languages, even if they do refer to the same thing: if there were, we would all be speaking the same tongue. Needless to say, such a world would be a pretty boring place. Bearing that in mind, one quickly realizes that a knowledge of language(s) (including one's own) is the same as a respect for culture(s). Not surprisingly, the study of literature in the original language represents not only a fuller understanding of a particular author, but also of the culture which she or he came from. In so many of our professions and in the ethnic kaleidoscope that is our world today, nothing could be more effective and practical than a knowledge of several languages. Many professions are already built on languages other than English; certainly this is true of law (Latin) and medicine (Latin and Greek). The relevance of language study has become increasingly important in education and business, a fact that has not been lost to us at this University. Hofstra's Zarb School of Business has been aggressively developing its International Business division, and the Comparative Literature department is working closely with the School's faculty in integrating the study of languages into the teaching of business skills. We have also taught and advised students from the School of Education, particularly those interested in making the teaching of cultures an integral part of their professional profiles.

If you are interested in taking classes in any of our languages and have taken them before, or are a heritage speaker, you must take a placement exam before enrolling in any class. For general information on Language placement exams, please contact Mustapha Masrour of the Language Learning Center, or look at this link: language placement exams.

Please call or visit our offices for more information about the various courses and majors in Comparative Literature and Languages.