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Welcome to the Department of European Languages and Literatures, which offers instruction in the languages, literatures, and cultures of the French-, German-, Greek-, Italian-, and Russian-speaking worlds. In addition to elementary and intermediate courses that provide students with the basic skills of the particular language, the Department also offers a wide range of more specialized elective courses in advanced language skills (including translation), literature, film, and other cultural areas. The Department has also recently inaugurated of four courses devoted to cross-cultural subjects in European studies.

The Department of European Languages and Literatures offers a major and minor in French, German, Italian, and Russian, and a minor in Modern Greek. The Graduate Programs in French and Italian offer Master of Arts or a Master of Science in Education degrees in those two languages. The Department also works closely with the Division of Education to insure that those students interested in pursuing a career teaching French, German and/or Italian at the secondary-education level will be thoroughly prepared for their profession. The Department faculty includes a staff of dedicated full-time teachers as well as a very committed staff of Adjunct Lecturers. The European Languages staff is thoroughly committed to scholarship, and has produced numerous books and articles in a wide variety of areas. Members of our staff also regularly participate in conferences and colloquia throughout the world. Many of our faculty members also actively participate in various doctoral programs at the City University of New York's Graduate Center in Manhattan.

In addition to taking courses in the Department, students have the opportunity to earn college credit by taking advantage of one of Queens College's several study-abroad programs. Interested students may seek tuition, scholarships, and internships from a variety of sources. The Department also offers small annual awards to deserving students, along with several graduation awards, among them the Robert W. Hartle Award for Excellence in a Romance Language, the Sheila Endler-Landau Memorial Prize and the Norman H. Paul Awards in French, the Literary Society Foundation Prize in German, and the Italian Prize for students of that language. Many of these prizes were made possible through the generosity of alumni, friends, and former staff members, such as Robert Hartle and Norman Paul, of the Department. The Department also has Honor Society chapters in French, German, Italian, and Russian.

Mission Statement

The mission of Queens College is to prepare students to become leaders in a global society.  It is therefore important to teach them the critical thinking skills necessary to understand a world that increasingly provides for interaction between people of different languages and cultures.  The college achieves this mission by offering a rigorous education under the guidance of faculty who excel in teaching and research.  Our graduates are trained to think critically and explore the diverse cultures of Queens County as well as those of the world beyond.  The faculty members of the Department of European Languages and Literatures play a key role in helping the college to meet its goals.  Through training in the literatures and cultures of Europe, we teach our students to better understand some of the people they will come in contact with in a global society. The languages we teach were spoken by generations of immigrants to America, and they are all still spoken in Queens today—by families that have maintained ties to the languages of their forebears and by recent immigrants.

The Department of European Languages and Literatures trains its students in the acquisition of French, German, Italian, Modern Greek and Russian, from elementary to advanced levels of proficiency.  It provides students with cultural literacy across some of the major European civilizations, through a range of courses in culture, cinema, literature and linguistics.  Our courses foster critical thinking in our students that they apply to civilizations they study.  The Department offers baccalaureate degrees in four languages and advanced degrees (MA/MS in Education) in French and Italian, helping prepare those who go on to teach in secondary schools or pursue the doctoral degree in those areas.  Through our summer-, semester-, and year-abroad programs, we offer students the opportunity to put the skills they have learned in the classroom into practice in the real world.  Our programs provide students the training they need to excel in a world where people of different cultures and languages interact with far more frequency and ease than ever before.