Chair's Welcome
Welcome to the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (LAN). We are an active intellectual community of teachers, scholars, students, staff, and alumni all committed to the ideals of a 21st-century liberal arts education.
As you browse the various sections of our website, please take note of the many exciting things happening in the world of languages, literatures, and cultures at Illinois State University.
You will see, for instance, that our world-class faculty works hard at pushing the boundaries of knowledge in their respective fields of research and then brings these new developments into the classroom so that our students are constantly exposed to the cutting edge of linguistic, literary, cultural, and pedagogical expertise.
You will see that our students not only spend time in the classroom, but also travel the globe learning about the world’s cultures first-hand, often while engaging in service learning projects within their host countries.
You will see that our teacher education students receive an excellent foundation in the pedagogies of language teaching and language acquisition and then build on this foundation by participating in numerous teaching-related activities that take place well beyond the confines of Illinois State’s ivy-covered quad.
You will see that our graduate students are constantly expanding their intellectual horizons in a myriad of ways, from teaching basic language courses on campus to presenting their own original research at local and regional symposia to helping faculty with larger academic and professional projects.
And you will see that our alumni, while having moved on to new opportunities and new enterprises (often far, far away from Bloomington-Normal), still find time to provide advice and encouragement to current students.
If you are not already a member of the LAN community, I encourage you to give serious consideration to joining us by studying one (or more!) of the languages, literatures, and cultures that we teach. I promise you, it will change the way you think about the world.
Bruce R. Burningham
Chair and Professor