Waïl Hassan, professor and head of the Department of Comparative & World Literature, has been elected second vice president of the Modern Language Association, the largest national scholarly organization in literary studies.

A community program called Le Cercle Francophone – meaning the French Speaking Circle – has seen growing success since it was started by Aurore Mroz and Florence Mathieu last fall.

A professor and a graduate teaching assistant from the School of Literatures, Cultures & Linguistics have been selected as recipients of the 2025 College of LAS teaching and advising awards.

The Humanities Research Institute at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has awarded its annual Faculty and Graduate Student Fellowships to seven faculty members and seven graduate students from the campus for the 2025–26 academic year. 

The University Library is helping professors develop open access textbooks that students can use free of charge through grant funding from the Illinois State Library and the provost’s office.

The National Herald, the paper of record for the Greek Diaspora community, recently highlighted the Department of Classics on the front page of their Greek Language Edition.

Four students are pursuing new opportunities this academic year, with the help of the Frances E. Smith Scheidel Scholarship.

Countless studies have been done on the importance of a quality education—but not everyone has the same access to those key learning spaces. Pamela Cappas-Toro (PhD, ’13, Spanish) is part of a team that’s trying to change that through the Utah Prison Education Project.

The School of Literatures, Cultures & Linguistics will be bringing an expert on intercultural communication to campus this spring as part of the Intercultural Competence Initiative.