The student will experience a cultural encounter through literature. This full-year course is divided into six units, each unit featuring representative foreign language authors and samples of his/her work in translation, emphasizing the historical background and cultural highlights of that period, and capitalizing on available movies, theater or musical presentations, and/or art exhibits appropriate to that author, country and time period. Each unit will be taught in English by a different instructor. The department presents the literature in its cultural context from the following languages: Spanish (from Spain and Latin America), French, German, Italian, Russian and any other language where there is instructor expertise.