The 50th Anniversary of the Spanish Language and Literature Major (By Meng Shiguang)

The celebrations were hosted by Prof. Wang Jun, dean of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature. She recalled the developing process of the department during the past half century. In these 50 years, 29 grades of undergraduates, 19 grades of MA degree candidates, and 6 grades of PhD candidates have been cultivated. Now, most of these students have become experts, scholars, professors, generals, or diplomats in various fields. The Spanish Language and Literature have also built cooperative relationships with many universities in Spain as well as in Latin-American countries like Mexico, Cuba, Colombia, Peru, and Brazil to promote the international exchange and cooperation.

In the celebration, former teachers and students affectionately recalled the hardship in the earliest time of the Spanish Language and Literature as well as its development since then. Then, the 2008 undergraduates shared their recent life by exhibiting the photos taken during their exchange in the Salamanca University while the students of 2004 displayed their elaborate video.

Group photo

The history of PKU foreign language disciplines can be traced back to the Jingshi Tongwenguan established in 1862, which is 36 years earlier than the Imperial University of Peking. The origin of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature, which has been named in 2007, goes back to the Spanish language discipline which was establish in 1960 by the Department of Western Languages.