Home - UCLA European Languages & Transcultural Studies

Welcome to the Department of
European Languages & Transcultural Studies

The Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies is a new and innovative program that was established in 2020 and that brings together the former departments of French and Francophone Studies, Germanic Languages, Italian, and Scandinavian. The term “transcultural” in our name emphasizes our shared European roots, and our expanded focus on the perspectives of filmmakers, writers, and theorists from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and elsewhere, allows for a more pointed, rigorous, and comprehensive understanding of history and more accurate contextualization of the “European” experience in the world.

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Upcoming Events

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Research Activities
& Featured Courses

Podcast: “The Algorithm as Witness” (Todd Presner) -

ELTS welcomes two new faculty: Roberta Morosini and Vetri Nathan -

Professor David Kim receives 2024 Gold Shield Faculty Prize -

Raphaëlle Burns and Javier Patiño Loira earn fellowships to conduct research at I Tatti -

Ethics of the Algorithm: Digital Humanities and Holocaust Memory - Todd Presner

Laure Murat wins Medicis Prize for nonfiction -

Summer Travel Study in Berlin, Germany: “Diverse Berlin: Culture and Language in Context” – Magdalena Tarnawska Senel and Yasemin Yildiz -

Reading Racialization: Yadé Kara’s Selam Berlin - Yasemin Yildiz

Tales That Touch: Migration, Translation, and Temporality in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century German Literature and Culture - Yasemin Yildiz (co-editor)

Distinguished Teaching Award – ELTS French TA Onja Davidson -

Special issue of Lingua Romana dedicated to ELTS Professor Jean-Claude Carron -

Professor and Chair Todd Presner selected for the UCLA Faculty Mentoring Honorary Society -

L’Indécis au Précis publishes its second volume -

Italian 125: Italian through Opera - Robert Rushing

Professor James Massengale Awarded Medal by Swedish Embassy -

Professor Dominic Thomas awarded the prestigious Gutenberg Research Chair and Prize -

GERMAN 152: Conversation and Composition on Contemporary German Culture and Society I - Christopher Stevens

Professor Kalani Michell Honored with the 2022-23 UCLA Society of Hellman Fellows Award -

Transcultural
Perspectives

"Bien sûr, ce n'est pas la Seine, / Ce n'est pas le bois de Vincennes, / Mais c'est bien joli tout de même, / A Göttingen, à Göttingen…"

Barbara, Göttingen

"mein Körper kalt wie קפה בספל"

Jehuda Amichai, fragment 42, 1453

"TRANSLATION [...] An important word as it creates exchanges between the subconscious, emotions, rationality and cultures. / E.g., here you should feel the sensation of the sun and soft breeze touching gently your face translated through these few words."

Laure Prouvost, Legsicon

"quella lingua- per esprimere quanto mi era caro- nel mondo di ciò che siamo, non esiste."

Anna Maria Ortese, Il porto di Toledo. Ricordi della vita irreale

"I couldn't speak a word that was said / When hearing the language / I was so inclined / To hit a few words in my head / […] But here is the total I picked up to date / Dankeschön Bitteschön / Wiedersehen"

Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle, I Wish I Could Sprechen Sie Deutsch

"Borders? I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people."

Thor Heyerdahl, The Kon-Tiki Man

"trans* can be a name for expansive forms of difference, haptic relations to knowing, uncertain modes of being, and the disaggregation of identity politics predicated upon the separating out of many kinds of experience that actually blend together, intersect, and mix."

Jack Halberstam, Trans*

"Die europäische Welt war meine Welt, nicht weil ich mich zwang, sie zu mögen oder sie zu akzeptieren; sie war von Natur aus meiner Welt. Ich konnte sie nicht mehr entbehren, so wie ich nicht auf meine Gliedmaßen hätte verzichten können."

Frank Walter, Frank Walter: Eine Retrospektive

"Nos autem nunc oportet quam habemus rationem periclitari, cum inquirere intendamus de hiis in quibus nullius auctoritate fulcimur, hoc est de unius eiusdemque a principio ydiomatis variatione secuta."

Dante Alighieri, De vulgari eloquentia

"What I do see is a new voice coming out of Africa, speaking of African experience in a world-wide language."

Chinua Achebe, “The African Writer and the English Language”

"Transculturation is a dynamic whereby different cultural matrices impact reciprocally – though not from equal positions – on each other, not to produce a single syncretic culture but rather a heterogeneous ensemble."

George Yúdice, “We Are Not the World”

"…ce que je préfère c'est ni le doublage ni les sous-titres, c'est une espèce de commentaire dans la langue du pays, […] qui permet aux gens de suivre tout en se rendant compte que c'est un produit étranger..."

Jean-Luc Godard, Introduction à une véritable histoire du cinéma et de la télévision

"Als ich nach Europa kam, hatte ich eine brennende Frage in meiner Reisetasche: Werde ich zu einem anderen Menschen, wenn ich eine andere Sprache spreche?"

Yoko Tawada, “Schreiben im Netz der Sprachen”

"Si je n'ai pas Paris à portée de la main en ouvrant l'œil, j'ai envie de me rendormir."

Gaby in Pépé le Moko

"[Transcultural is] a critical perspective that sees cultures as relational webs and acknowledges the transitory, confluential, and mutually transforming nature of cultures."

Arianna Dagnino, “Global Mobility, Transcultural Literature, and Multiple Modes of Modernity”

"Believe that what is productive is not sedentary but nomadic."

Michel Foucault, Preface to Anti-Oedipus

"wenn es ein guter Tag ist, fühle ich mich bereichert und denke, daß ich Glück habe, an drei Kulturen teilhaben zu können, und wenn es ein schlechter Tag ist, fühle ich mich zwischen allen Stühlen sitzend und verstehe gar nichts."

Barbara Honigmann, “Damals, Dann, und Danach”

"Bisogna dunque abolire nella lingua tutto ciò che essa contiene in fatto d'immagini stereotipate, di metafore scolorite, e cioè quasi tutto."

F. T. Marinetti, “Il manifesto tecnico della letteratura futurista”

"When a German director like E.A. Dupont is based in England, and makes an Anglo-German coproduction simultaneously in English and German (Atlantic, 1929), can it usefully be called a British film?"

Andrew Higson, “The Limiting Imagination of National Cinema”

"Je n'ai qu'une langue, et ce n'est pas la mienne."

Jacques Derrida, Le monolinguisme de l’autre, ou, La prothèse d’origine

"Calling into question the value and significance of authenticity, heritage, and originality is, of course, basic to transcultural processes themselves."

Katharina Bieloch and Sharif Bitar, “Batman Goes Transnational”

"Wir also sehen vorweg 'Kultur' als Geisteskultur an, und wenn wir mit der amerikanischen Gestaltung des Lebens und den zivilisatorischen Formen in Amerika zu tun haben, dann haben wir eine gewisse Neigung dazu, eben jenes unselige Urteil, 'die haben ja keine Kultur,' auszusprechen"

Theodor W. Adorno, “Kultur und Culture”

Welcome to the Department of
European Languages & Transcultural Studies

Upcoming Events

Julefest Celebration

Dh and ELTS lecture by T.J. Demos (UCSC)

AATF SoCal Conference

Ethnographic Optic in 1960s French Cinema

Annual Graduate Conference

Research Activities
& Featured Courses

Podcast: “The Algorithm as Witness” (Todd Presner)
-

ELTS welcomes two new faculty: Roberta Morosini and Vetri Nathan
-

Professor David Kim receives 2024 Gold Shield Faculty Prize
-

Raphaëlle Burns and Javier Patiño Loira earn fellowships to conduct research at I Tatti
-

Ethics of the Algorithm: Digital Humanities and Holocaust Memory
- Todd Presner

Laure Murat wins Medicis Prize for nonfiction
-

Summer Travel Study in Berlin, Germany: “Diverse Berlin: Culture and Language in Context” – Magdalena Tarnawska Senel and Yasemin Yildiz
-

Reading Racialization: Yadé Kara’s Selam Berlin
- Yasemin Yildiz

Tales That Touch: Migration, Translation, and Temporality in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century German Literature and Culture
- Yasemin Yildiz (co-editor)

Distinguished Teaching Award – ELTS French TA Onja Davidson
-

Special issue of Lingua Romana dedicated to ELTS Professor Jean-Claude Carron
-

Professor and Chair Todd Presner selected for the UCLA Faculty Mentoring Honorary Society
-

L’Indécis au Précis publishes its second volume
-

Italian 125: Italian through Opera
- Robert Rushing

Professor James Massengale Awarded Medal by Swedish Embassy
-

Professor Dominic Thomas awarded the prestigious Gutenberg Research Chair and Prize
-

GERMAN 152: Conversation and Composition on Contemporary German Culture and Society I
- Christopher Stevens

Professor Kalani Michell Honored with the 2022-23 UCLA Society of Hellman Fellows Award
-

Transcultural
Perspectives

Welcome to the Department ofEuropean Languages & Transcultural Studies

Upcoming Events

Julefest Celebration

Dh and ELTS lecture by T.J. Demos (UCSC)

AATF SoCal Conference

Ethnographic Optic in 1960s French Cinema

Annual Graduate Conference

Research Activities& Featured Courses

Podcast: “The Algorithm as Witness” (Todd Presner) -

ELTS welcomes two new faculty: Roberta Morosini and Vetri Nathan -

Professor David Kim receives 2024 Gold Shield Faculty Prize -

Raphaëlle Burns and Javier Patiño Loira earn fellowships to conduct research at I Tatti -

Ethics of the Algorithm: Digital Humanities and Holocaust Memory - Todd Presner

Laure Murat wins Medicis Prize for nonfiction -

Summer Travel Study in Berlin, Germany: “Diverse Berlin: Culture and Language in Context” – Magdalena Tarnawska Senel and Yasemin Yildiz -

Reading Racialization: Yadé Kara’s Selam Berlin - Yasemin Yildiz

Tales That Touch: Migration, Translation, and Temporality in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century German Literature and Culture - Yasemin Yildiz (co-editor)

Distinguished Teaching Award – ELTS French TA Onja Davidson -

Special issue of Lingua Romana dedicated to ELTS Professor Jean-Claude Carron -

Professor and Chair Todd Presner selected for the UCLA Faculty Mentoring Honorary Society -

L’Indécis au Précis publishes its second volume -

Italian 125: Italian through Opera - Robert Rushing

Professor James Massengale Awarded Medal by Swedish Embassy -

Professor Dominic Thomas awarded the prestigious Gutenberg Research Chair and Prize -

GERMAN 152: Conversation and Composition on Contemporary German Culture and Society I - Christopher Stevens

Professor Kalani Michell Honored with the 2022-23 UCLA Society of Hellman Fellows Award -

TransculturalPerspectives

Welcome to the Department of
European Languages & Transcultural Studies

Research Activities
& Featured Courses

Podcast: “The Algorithm as Witness” (Todd Presner)
-

ELTS welcomes two new faculty: Roberta Morosini and Vetri Nathan
-

Professor David Kim receives 2024 Gold Shield Faculty Prize
-

Raphaëlle Burns and Javier Patiño Loira earn fellowships to conduct research at I Tatti
-

Ethics of the Algorithm: Digital Humanities and Holocaust Memory
- Todd Presner

Laure Murat wins Medicis Prize for nonfiction
-

Summer Travel Study in Berlin, Germany: “Diverse Berlin: Culture and Language in Context” – Magdalena Tarnawska Senel and Yasemin Yildiz
-

Reading Racialization: Yadé Kara’s Selam Berlin
- Yasemin Yildiz

Tales That Touch: Migration, Translation, and Temporality in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century German Literature and Culture
- Yasemin Yildiz (co-editor)

Distinguished Teaching Award – ELTS French TA Onja Davidson
-

Special issue of Lingua Romana dedicated to ELTS Professor Jean-Claude Carron
-

Professor and Chair Todd Presner selected for the UCLA Faculty Mentoring Honorary Society
-

L’Indécis au Précis publishes its second volume
-

Italian 125: Italian through Opera
- Robert Rushing

Professor James Massengale Awarded Medal by Swedish Embassy
-

Professor Dominic Thomas awarded the prestigious Gutenberg Research Chair and Prize
-

GERMAN 152: Conversation and Composition on Contemporary German Culture and Society I
- Christopher Stevens

Professor Kalani Michell Honored with the 2022-23 UCLA Society of Hellman Fellows Award
-

Transcultural
Perspectives