History of the Department
The establishment of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures coincided with the founding of the University of Chicago (1890). Its name and early organization reflected the philological search for the origins and development of languages and literatures that predominated during the nineteenth century.
The leadership of the Department was initially entrusted to the Hispanist, William I. Knapp, who was also charged with the recruitment of faculty. When he left the University, Karl Pietsch became Chair. Under his leadership, the Department acquired a three-level teaching structure: Junior College specialized in language acquisition, a Senior College trained students in literature courses and allowed them to take advanced courses on the third, graduate level. Several professors appointed in the early twentieth century were to rise to prominence later: Thomas A. Jenkins (a French medievalist), Clarence E. Parmenter, a University of Chicago PhD (who introduced descriptive and corrective phonetics), Carlos Castillo (author of the best-selling Spanish-English dictionary), Edwin P. Dargan (in French Literature), William A. Nitze (medieval French), and Ernest H. Wilkins (a world-renown Petrarch scholar). Professor Nitze became Head of the Department in 1909 and served until 1941.
Since the Department ran on the four-quarter system, the summers provided an opportunity to bring in outstanding visiting scholars. Thus, Lucien Foulet was appointed in 1905, Gilbert Chinard in 1912, and Louis Cons in 1922 (all three French specialists). Walther von Wartburg (1888-1971), a highly distinguished French lexicographer at the Universities of Leipzig and Basle, spent several Summer quarters in the Department during the 1930s. He taught, among other subjects, a course on the "Fragmentation of Romance Territory." This popular course was given in German and resulted in an important study published under the same title.
An innovative French professor, Pierre Robert Vigneron was first appointed in 1924. Intellectually he represented a "French" reaction against the overly philological and developmental approach. He introduced not only the University of Chicago, but also the American academy in general to his pioneering system of explication de texte: a close reading of the text, "all the text and nothing but the text." As a corrective to overwhelmingly historical methods, explication de texte would influence what later became known as the Chicago School of criticism. Following Parmenter's chairmanship (1941-1951), Vigneron was appointed Chair until his retirement in 1954.
Parmenter, doubtless under the advice of Nitze, had the good fortune of appointing the hispanist Joan Coromines in 1946. Coromines was a brilliant philologist, lexicographer, and a specialist in Catalan. During his twenty years in the Department, he carried out a number of highly influential studies, including the first etymological dictionary of the Spanish language. Coromines offered courses not only in the area of Castilian language and literature, but also Catalan, Provençal, and Old French. During this period, a number of other outstanding professors briefly taught in the Department, including Aldo Scaglione (Italian Renaissance) and Wallace Fawlie (Modern French Literature), among others.
Bernard Weinberg, Professor of French and Italian, was later appointed Chair of the Department by the Division of Humanities. Weinberg had mastered the methods of his former Chicago teachers: He had studied philology under Nitze, and the technique of explication de texte under Vigneron. He productively applied the former to Italian Renaissance works, and the latter to French poetry, while at the same time rebuilding the Department. Among the professors appointed during his chairmanship were Paolo Cherchi (medieval Italian and Spanish), Peter Dembowski (medieval French), George Haley (Spanish Golden Age), and Bruce Morrissette (modern French). He also brought in the imminent Spanish scholar and novelist, Francisco Ayala. This period was also marked by the presence of another renown Spanish literary scholar and novelist, Ricardo Gullón, who served in the Department as a "permanent" visiting professor during the 1970s.
During the last 25 years, scholars have been appointed who are now the intellectual leaders of the Department, and highly regarded experts in their field: Philippe Desan, Francoise Meltzer, Robert Morrissey, Larry Norman, and Thomas Pavel in French; Frederick de Armas, Rene de Costa, Agnes Lugo Ortiz, and Mario Santana in Spanish; and Armando Maggi, Elissa Weaver, and Rebecca West in Italian. Recent developments include the Department's increased involvement in the College's programs abroad in France, Spain, and Italy, leading to the creation of the University of Chicago Paris Center (completed in 2003); the creation of a Workshop on Western Mediterranean Culture; and the development of Portuguese and Catalan programs supported by an annual visiting professor from the University of Lisbon, and the establishment of the Joan Coromines Chair in Catalan Studies. In the past decade, four faculty members have been appointed Chair of the Department: Thomas Pavel, Rebecca West, Elissa Weaver, and Frederick de Armas. Others have held the post of Master of the College, including Philippe Desan, Larry Norman, and Mario Santana. Together with a committed junior faculty, leaders of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures continue to build on the distinguished tradition of Albert Nitze, Robert Vigneron, Bernard Weinberg, Joan Coromines, and Ricardo Gullón.
In addition, new areas of intellectual pursuit are being strengthened and developed. We now offer a full range of graduate-level courses in colonial, nineteenth, and twentieth-century Latin American literature, as well as literary theory, film, and gender issues. Our program also includes a range of classes in Portuguese and Catalan language and literature. As part of our overall commitment to interdisciplinarity and faculty collaboration, we have recently established a section dedicated to Renaissance and Early Modern literature that will expand links with related departments and centers across campus.