A specialist in the field of Africana Studies, Maboula Soumahoro has conducted research and taught in the United States and France. Currently associate professor in the English Department of the University of Tours and resident at Villa Albertine in Atlanta, she is the author of Le Triangle et l’Hexagone, réflexions sur une identité noire (La Découverte, 2021), newly translated into English by Kaiama L. Glover as Black Is the Journey, Africana the Name (Polity, 2021).

Hispanic and Romance linguistics study language in all its aspects using scientific methods.  Research in the department covers the major areas of theoretical and applied linguistics in the Romance Languages including historical linguistics, language variation and change, phonetics & phonology, pragmatics, semantics, and syntax, as well as the study of Catalan, Galician, Quechua, and endangered Indigenous languages of the Americas. 

Image source: El País website

Media, visual culture, and performance studies examine visual and performing arts as well as cinematic, digital, and musical forms across languages and periods.  Research in the department interprets and compares these forms of cultural production as they relate to oral and print culture, concepts of identity, collective memory, global migration, cybernetics, and decolonization.

Photo source: Festival Nouvelles Vues Haïti taken from https://filmfreeway.com/festivalnouvellesvueshaiti

Literary Aesthetics & Poetics is the study of poetry, prose, dramatic works, and other genres of oral and written expression across languages to understand their structures, meanings, contexts, and reception over time.  Scholarship in the department examines and critically interprets poetry, short story and the novel, theater and film, treatises, histories, essays, letters and journalism through historical periods using philological methods as well as literary and cultural theory. 

Photo source: Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial taken from https://etniasdelmundo.com/bibliotecas/real-biblioteca-del-monasterio-de-san-lorenzo-de-el-escorial/

Transatlantic and Diaspora Studies examine and compare cultural production, movements, and criticism using theoretical frameworks that confront the colonial legacies of empire.  Research in the department investigates borders, race, ethnicity, class, human rights, national and transnational identities, and the plurality of intersecting languages and artistic practices in the Caribbean, Africa, the Americas, and Europe with focuses on Afro-Latin American, Latinx Studies, Indigenous Studies, and Women's Studies. 

Image by Lucy Nieto: taken from https://www.flickr.com/photos/lucynieto/

Latin American, Iberian, and Latinx Studies examine the cultural, political, and written traditions and movements of the Americas, the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa which have in common the Spanish language and the legacy of Spanish imperial expansion. Research in the department spans from the early modern and colonial periods to modernisms, postmodernism, and present day trends, including focuses on book history, embodiment, environmental ethics, human rights, memory, migration, print, digital, and visual culture.

Photo source: José Vasconcelos Library taken from https://imgur.com/gallery/Axudi

Italian studies are central to the development of European cultures, written traditions, and artistic movements, beginning with the significance of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio and their legacies in the Mediterranean world.  Research expertise in the department spans Italian literary genres, periods, art, and cinema to the present day with focuses on contemporary Italy, aesthetics and poetics, women writers, pedagogy, embodiment, and the philosophy of education.

Photo source: Libreria Bocca in Milan taken from https://www.iviaggididante.com/2018/08/le-librerie-di-milano-da-visitare.html

Francophone Studies examines the cultures and literatures of the French-speaking countries and regions of Europe, the Caribbean, Africa, and the Americas.  Research in the department includes study of the Medieval and Renaissance periods of France and the Mediterranean world through the cultural movements of the 17th-19th centuries, to modern and contemporary literature, film, and performance, with focuses on philology, poetics, translation, visual culture, Islam, and French, Caribbean, and West African cultural production. 

Photo source: National Library of France taken from www.artnet.com/artists/ahmet-ertug/the-oval-room-reading-room-of-the-national

Brazilian and Lusophone Studies examine the cultures and literatures of Portuguese-speaking peoples from regions that include the countries of Brazil, Portugal, Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Príncipe.  Research in the department interprets narratives, poetry, theater, and film of the Lusophone world with focuses on national and social identities, Indigenous cultural production, immigrant experiences, cross-cultural dialogues, gender, and memory studies. 

Photo source: National Library of Brazil taken from https://bluesyemre.com/the-national-library-of-brazil-rio-de-janeiro/