The study of foreign languages in American universities is undergoing radical change. American university students are turning away from European national languages to embrace the global languages which they believe provide distinct advantages in a rapidly changing economy. At the same time, scholarship emphasizes languages in context—as part of the living fabric of human societies and cultures. This symposium brings together scholars of the major Western European languages—Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese—to discuss and debate the shifting position of national languages as an intellectual problem and the implications that these changes have had and will continue to have in American university classrooms.

Organizer: Karla Mallette, CES director and professor of Italian and Near Eastern Studies, U-M