The Postgraduate Program in the Spanish Language and Spanish and Spanish-American Literature, since its inception in 1977, has had the mission of training highly qualified professionals in its areas of specialization, fostering the complementarity between teaching and research in this training process. After 48 years of existence, it remains the only postgraduate program in Brazil with a specific academic profile that integrates four specialties: Spanish Language, Translation and Comparative Studies, Spanish Literature, and Spanish-American Literature.
Considering Brazil's geopolitical location, this specificity constitutes a distinctive feature of the Program, of singular value within the national postgraduate education framework as far as it allows the establishment of epistemological perspectives open to dialogue between languages, literatures, and cultures historically developed in neighboring relationships (Spanish/Portuguese; Brazil/Hispanic America; Spain/Portugal). This proximity has been a fundamental factor in attracting Brazilian students interested in specializing in this field of study; an interest stimulated at times by regional public policies, such as the Mercosur agreements in the 1990s or the enactment of Law 11,161 in 2005, mandating the teaching of Spanish in Brazilian schools, which remains in effect in some states of the country.
Recognized and accredited by CAPES in 1986 to operate at the doctoral level, the Program has significantly contributed to train teachers and researchers of the undergraduate Spanish course (Spanish language and its literatures) coming from other higher education institutions in Brazil, as well as to train foreign researchers who have chosen to specialize in Hispanic studies within the Brazilian context. This national and international prominence of the Program is supported both by the training efforts undertaken by its faculty members over the years and by the excellence of its specialized scientific output. Throughout the Program's history, certain research areas stand out: studies on Latin American literary avant-gardes by Jorge Schwarz; research on Spanish picaresque literature by Mario González; studies on Hispanic-American Baroque by Irlemar Chiampi; research on Spanish post-war literature by Valeria de Marco; analyses of the literary works of Miguel de Cervantes by Maria Augusta da Costa Vieira; and studies on contrastive Spanish/Portuguese linguistics by Neide Maia González. These faculty members played a decisive role in the initial configuration of the Program's research lines, pioneering impactful scientific production that opened new fields of study in the country and sought to establish comparative perspectives with Brazilian linguistic, literary and cultural studies.
In addition to the aforementioned linguistic and literary studies, the Program expanded its scope in the early 2000s by creating a specific field for translation studies. Today, the Program includes 14 faculty members working within four research lines. Its commitment to continuous updating, addressing the epistemological changes in its fields of study as well as the political and cultural debates shaping the contemporary scene, guides the definition of various projects developed by the faculty within these research lines.
Over the years, the Program has consolidated a strategic position in Brazil's relationships with Latin American countries and Spain, whether through agreements with universities in various countries or through the integration of many of its graduates as faculty members and researchers in foreign institutions. However, the Program's national prominence has acquired undeniable relevance due to the integration of its graduates into other universities in the country, federal institute campuses, public and private schools, as well as various media outlets, cultural institutions, and the publishing market. This has fostered the expansion of dialogues with the Hispanic world while addressing the cultural heterogeneity inherent to this vast concept.