Welcome to Modern Languages and Literatures!

Critical to personal and professional success in today’s world is knowledge of international languages and cultures. A major or minor in Modern Languages and Literatures at Lehigh provides excellent preparation for any professional career in today’s global community. Our faculty members are both internationally active scholars and enthusiastic teachers who are committed to making each student’s experience unique.

Our department offers training in eight languages, courses in literature, culture, and film, as well as basic courses in international communication. Students can major or minor in ChineseFrench, GermanJapanese and Spanish, and minor in Russian. We also teach Arabic and Hebrew. We strongly encourage all our majors and minors to take advantage of the many study abroad opportunities that Lehigh offers.

Increasingly, our  language, literature, and culture courses are core courses in interdisciplinary Area Studies programs. These courses, taught either in the target language or in English, form the foundation of a number of established and newly emerging programs, such as Asian Studies, Latin American Studies, Jewish Studies, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Global Studies.

If you would like specific information regarding placement or declaring a major or minor in a language, please contact the following:

From the Minds of Our Faculty:

Made in Censorship, written by Thomas Chen - Click Here

A Decolonizing Ear: Documentary Film Disrupts the Archive, written by Olivia Landry - Click here

Dice and Gods on the Silk Road, written by Brandon Dotson, Constance A. Cook, and Zhao Lu - Click Here

Prostitutes, Hostesses, and Actresses at the Edge of the Japanese Empire: Fragmenting History, written by Nobuko Yamasaki - Click Here

Spotlight

Catch a glimpse of the Chinese 012 students enjoying the last day of class for Spring 2023 with some 2D and 3d paper cutouts!