Romance Languages and Literatures < University of California, Berkeley

Overview

The Romance Languages and Literatures (RLL) interdepartmental PhD program is a joint venture by the Departments of French, Italian Studies, and Spanish and Portuguese. It offers students a unique opportunity to work with distinguished faculty in all three departments as they take advantage of Berkeley's unmatched resources for comparative study of the literatures and linguistics of the Romance language family.

The program is a doctorate in three Romance languages and literatures taught in the Departments of French, Italian Studies, and Spanish and Portuguese, and prepared with emphasis in one of the languages (referred to as the “Primary” language).

While RLL is an independent program, students are normally affiliated with the department of their primary language, which is referred to as the “Host” department. Students may opt for either the Literature track or the Linguistics track.

The mission of the RLL program is: (1) To take a multilingual approach to language and literature; (2) To combine literary and philological/linguistic study; (3) To offer flexibility in the design of students’ programs: the unity of a common heritage and common evolution of the Romance family allows diversity in topics and approaches; and (4) To train Romance scholars of linguistics, literature, and culture who can take jobs in Romance-language departments, single-language departments, or Linguistics departments.