The Postgraduate Program in the Spanish Language and Spanish and Spanish-American Literature (Programa de Pós-Graduação em Língua Espanhola e Literaturas Espanhola e Hispano-Americana, PPGLELEHA)

Bandeira EspanhaBandeira Brasil​​​​​​​​​​​​​

​​​​​​​The Postgraduate Program in the Spanish Language and Spanish and Spanish-American Literature (Programa de Pós-Graduação em Língua Espanhola e Literaturas Espanhola e Hispano-Americana, PPGLELEHA) was created in 1977 and at the time had four doctors as supervisors. The first courses began in 1978, and another doctor joined the group in 1980. The program started taking students for the doctoral degree in 1984 and the first dissertations were defended in 1985. At that time, given that all the supervisors were specialists in Spanish or Spanish-American Literature, the research conducted in the program concentrated primarily in these areas.

 

In 1986, the program was recognized and accredited by CAPES, whereupon it started to operate at the level of master's and doctoral degrees. From that moment on, it started to take candidates graduating from other Brazilian public universities and also from Hispanic-American countries.

 

Due to the lack of specialists in linguistic studies for Spanish, the Program was unable to develop this area for several years. The situation changed in 1999, when three doctors in Linguistics whose research works focused on the Spanish language joined the Program. Since then, lines of research and specific projects for the area in question have been created.

 

Translations of works of Spanish or Spanish-American literature—annotated and prefaced by literary studies—have been carried out in the program for several decades, especially at the master’s level. In the early 2000s, the lines of research in the Spanish language also began to accept student projects (at master's and doctoral levels) addressing translation issues with more of a focus on linguistics. The process of reinforcing and diversifying this research in the Program culminated in 2008 with the creation of an area dedicated to translation studies.

 

Thus, the Program reached its current configuration and is today the only one in Brazil oriented specifically toward the study of the languages, literatures and cultures of Spain and Latin America.

 

The PPGLELEHA is directed by the Coordinating Committee of the Program (Comissão de Coordenação do Programa, CCP), itself subordinate to the Postgraduate Committee (Comissão de Pós-Graduação, CPG) of the Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences (Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas, FFLCH) and the Pro-Rectory of the Postgraduate Program of the University of São Paulo (USP). The CCP consists of a Coordinator, a Deputy Coordinator, two program supervisors and a student representative.

 

With regard to its structure, the PPGLELEHA consists of two levels (master’s and doctoral) and four lines of research.