Our faculty explore the intersections between language and culture, power, technology, and the environment — often in collaboration with writers, artists, scientists, and communities. From local communities in Worcester to island nations in the Pacific, their work illuminates how language and culture reflect and reshape the world around us.
Building on this breadth of expertise, students join faculty mentors in exploring how language shapes and reflects the world — through collaborative research, community projects, and creative practice.
Areas of focus
Environmental humanities
Faculty are pioneering teaching and research that integrates climate, literature, film, visual arts, and justice. Through the lens of the environmental humanities, they ask how writers and filmmakers respond to rising seas or vanishing mangrove forests — and how equity-driven thinking can help communities imagine more sustainable futures.
Digital humanities
Language, Literature, and Culture faculty bring together fields such as critical race studies and Afro-Latin American studies with digital humanities to investigate the biases built into technology — and celebrate the ways marginalized communities reclaim agency.
Language and identity
Our scholars examine how identities are created and expressed in various cultures, how race and gender shape cultural production, and how literature, music, food and film give voice to the marginalized and express contemporary life.
Student work
Whether they’re producing a podcast, translating community healthcare information, or pursuing independent projects, students have many opportunities to explore their own unique research interests.
Voces Blatines
A class of Language, Literature, and Culture students produced a Spanish-language podcast about their experiences learning from and researching Afro-Latinx cultures in Worcester, Massachusetts.
