Department Of Modern Languages And Cultural Studies

MLCS; Promoting multilingual proficiency & intercultural understanding. Preparing students for life & work in a global multicultural environment

MLCS occupies a central location on campus, in the historic Old Arts Building, appropriate to our centrality to the mission of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Alberta. Through our various graduate and undergraduate programs, we encourage and cultivate literary, linguistic and intercultural competences, academic achievement, critical thinking, and a broader understanding of the complex issues of our world. We are key to the internationalization of the curriculum at the University of Alberta and offer learning opportunities in diverse languages, literatures, and cultures.

MLCS faculty members have diverse and interdisciplinary research and teaching methods which go beyond the more traditional fields of national literatures, applied linguistics, and languages to embrace comparative literature, cultural studies, translation studies, folklore, religious studies, media studies and performance, gender and sexuality studies and more. We have faculty members with cross-appointments in Linguistics, Native Studies, the Canadian Literature Center, and the Kule Folklore Center. We frequently collaborate with colleagues in these and other units on campus to sponsor conferences, invite writers, and bring distinguished scholars to the University of Alberta campus.

We are a department committed to excellence in teaching and we are very proud of all our award-winning teachers. The last three years the Faculty of Arts Undergraduate Teaching Award (Early Achievement) has gone to MLCS faculty members: Dr. Micah True (2014), Dr. Carrie Smith-Prei (2013) and Dr. Ann De Leon (2012). The Provost’s Award for Early Achievement of Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching also went to Dr. Micah True in 2014 and to Dr. Carrie Smith-Prei in 2013. Also in 2013, Dr. Anna Gural-Migdal was awarded the Faculty of Arts Undergraduate Teaching Award for Excellence. Many of our graduate students and contract students have been recognized for their teaching excellence in the last few years as well, including Jennifer Boivin, Marine Gheno, Jasmin Hirshberg, Andrea Hayes, Sandra Gaviria-Buck, Alexandra Popescu, Evgeniya Tretiakova, Mathieu Martin-LeBlanc, Lars Richter, Valerio Borchiellini, and Jeff Longard.

Although the offices of the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies are in the Old Arts building, MLCS is truly all over the world. Our faculty members and graduate students come from across the globe; the research of our faculty members and students take them around the world, and our faculty-led study abroad programs provide students a chance to live and study in France, Italy, Russia, Spain, Ukraine and other great spots.

Links on the left-hand side of this page will take you to more information about our people, our undergraduate and graduate programs, our study abroad options, our on-going research projects, our journals, and more. Please browse our website, come by Arts 200 to visit and learn more about MLCS, or enroll in our terrific courses in order to find out where in the world studies in MLCS may take you!

Laura J. Beard
Chair
Department of Modern Languages & Cultural Studies
The University of Alberta