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2025-2026 Maya Brin Residency Vladimir Paperny

Vladimir Paperny is the 2025 Maya Brin Resident at the University of Maryland.

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Register for Winter term online classes

Gain ground and earn UMD credits through this convenient 3-week session. January 2-22nd. Courses offered include CINE, GERS, HEBR and SPAN

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Bad Bunny as Scholarly Subject?

UMD course explores Puerto Rico’s soundscape of protest and poetics.

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Prospective Student Event: Arts, Humanities & You

Join us October 19 to learn about our academic programs.

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Douglass Center Announces 2025-26 Public Engagement Fellows

Projects address issues of migration, community building and climate action.

Read More about Douglass Center Announces 2025-26 Public Engagement Fellows

Welcome to the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Maryland, College Park.

We invite you to learn more about our languages and programs, our undergraduate and graduate degrees and our special programs like the Language House Living-Learning Program, the Language Partner Program, the Persian Flagship Program, Project GO and the Summer Language Institutes.

About Us

Undergraduate Programs

Undergraduate Programs

The School is a transdisciplinary teaching and research unit. Our students, faculty, and staff investigate and engage with the linguistic, cultural, cinematic, and literary worlds of speakers of ArabicChinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, JapaneseKorean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish, as well as Cinema and Media Studies.


Graduate Programs

Graduate Programs

The School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures offers three Ph.D. programs, four M.A. programs and an advanced graduate certificate in Second Language Acquisition. Our students pursue successful careers in academia, the government, secondary education and the private sector.

Graduate Programs

Faculty and Staff

Faculty and Staff

Search our directory to learn about our faculty and staff.

Directory

Alumni

Alumni

Stay connected with SLLC as an alum by sharing news of your accomplishments, joining our newsletter, attending events and giving back.

 

 


Learn More About SLLC

Avocado Dreams Remaking Salvadoran Life and Art in the Washington, D.C. Metro Area

Ana Patricia Rodríguez latest book, "Avocado Dreams Remaking Salvadoran Life and Art in the Washington, D.C. Metro Area," has just been published by The University of Arizona Press.

Spanish and Portuguese

Author/Lead: Ana Patricia Rodríguez
Dates:
Avocado Dreams

For more than four generations, Salvadorans have made themselves at home in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and have transformed the region, contributing their labor, ingenuity, and culture to the making of a thriving but highly neglected and overlooked community.

In Avocado Dreams, Ana Patricia Rodríguez draws from her own positionality as a Salvadoran transplant to examine the construction of the unique Salvadoran cultural imaginary made in the greater D.C. area. Through a careful reading of the creative works of local writers, performers, artists, and artivists, Rodríguez demonstrates how the people have remade themselves in relation to the cultural, ethnoracial, and sociolinguistic diversity of the area. She discusses how Salvadoran people have developed unique, intergenerational Salvadoreñidades, manifested in particular speech and symbolic acts, ethnoracial embodiments, and local identity formations in relation to the diverse communities, most notably Black Washingtonians, who co-inhabit the region.

This timely and relevant work not only enriches our understanding of Salvadoran diasporic experiences but also contributes significantly to broader discussions on migration, identity, and cultural production in the United States.
 

Puppetry Networks of the Island of Naoshima

This article was awarded the Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei Prize for Japanese Theatre Scholarship.

Japanese

Contributor(s): Jyana S. Browne
Dates:

Jyana S. Browne has been awarded the Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei Prize for Japanese Theatre Scholarship for her article “Puppetry Networks of the Island of Naoshima” in Theatre Research International 49, no. 2 (2024).

Presented annually by the Association for Asian Performance (AAP), this prize recognizes an early career scholar for an outstanding article, chapter, or essay on Japanese theatre or performance published in English during the calendar year. The award is designed to promote and encourage the study of Japanese theatre and performance, honoring emerging voices who advance the field.

Realisms in Japan’s Eighteenth-Century Puppet Theatre

This chapter was awarded the Nancy Staub Publication Award.

Japanese

Author/Lead: Jyana S. Browne
Dates:

Jyana S. Browne has been awarded the Nancy Staub Publication Award for her book chapter “Realisms in Japan’s Eighteenth-Century Puppet Theatre” in Realisms in East Asian Performing Arts (University of Michigan Press, 2023).

The award, given annually by UNIMA-USA (the North American Center of Union Internationale de la Marionnette), recognizes outstanding scholarship in puppetry arts. Named in honor of Nancy Lohman Staub—an original member of UNIMA-USA known for her leadership, writing, and contributions to the Center for Puppetry Arts Museum in Atlanta—the award celebrates scholarship that deepens understanding of puppetry worldwide.

Land Acknowledgement

Every community owes its existence and strength to the generations before them, around the world, who contributed their hopes, dreams, and energy into making the history that led to this moment.

Truth and acknowledgement are critical in building mutual respect and connections across all barriers of heritage and difference.

So, we acknowledge the truth that is often buried: We are on the ancestral lands of the Piscataway People, who are the ancestral stewards of this sacred land. It is their historical responsibility to advocate for the four-legged, the winged, those that crawl and those that swim. They remind us that clean air and pristine waterways are essential to all life.

This Land Acknowledgement is a vocal reminder for each of us as two-leggeds to ensure our physical environment is in better condition than what we inherited, for the health and prosperity of future generations.

Office of Diversity and Inclusion