The Amherst Spanish Department offers courses in both the Spanish language and in Hispanic culture and literature. We study literature and culture from a modern critical perspective, without isolating it from its context. We teach most courses in Spanish.
Our majors study the Hispanic world throughout the centuries, through courses on Spain, Latin America, the Caribbean and Latinos in the United States.
Learn MoreThis certificate enhances our major and is overseen by the Five College Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies Council.
Learn MoreWe encourage majors to write a senior thesis on a topic related to Hispanic culture, literature, language or arts.
Learn MoreMajors strengthen their studies with stays in Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru and Spain.
Learn MoreStudents speak Spanish at the weekly Spanish Table in Valentine Dining Hall and in the Spanish House, where language assistants and other students live and speak Spanish together.
Learn MorePeer tutors help their fellow students learn the language.
Learn MoreSpanish majors at Amherst go on to careers in public policy, teaching, international relations, translation and nonprofit work, among many other fields.
Learn MoreSpanish is spoken in 20 different countries, as well as the United States, by over 450 million Spanish speakers. In all of our classes, you'll be practicing your Spanish and studying Spanish cultures from around the world.
Spanish faculty are located in Barrett Hall and Grosvenor House. For information on the locations of these buildings, please visit the Amherst campus map.
Through this course, students will incorporate their personal experience as SHLLs into their coursework. They will learn to analyze, read, discuss, write, and reflect on issues of language, culture, and identity.
This course will explore the art of storytelling through the genre of the short story in Spain and Latin America, focusing principally on the development of the short story from the nineteenth century to the present.
An in-depth, Talmudic exploration of the life, oeuvre, and influence of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, who redefined world literature and is arguably the most important Spanish-language writer after Cervantes.