A new foreign languages class studying English translations of foreign literature with a focus on specific authors or writing styles may be offered as early as the Spring 2004 semester.

The class, FLE 4405, was approved by the Council of Academic Affairs Thursday by a unanimous vote. Foreign Languages Chair Stephen Canfield said it was originally scheduled for Spring 2004, but the passing of Spanish professor, the late Dr. Luis Clay-Mendez, has altered those plans.

“The goal is to appeal to a wider audience,” Canfield said.

Canfield used a concentration on German fairy tales to describe the course to the council. If an instructor chose German fairy tales as a class topic, the course would only focus on those type of novels. Previously, the Foreign Languages Department would have offered a broader class topic.

Instead of German fairy tales, the students would learn about German literature in the 18th and 19th centuries, Canfield said.

“But we wouldn’t cover just one book, but one aspect,” Canfield said.

The course’s topic will change each semester depending on what faculty member can teach it. Canfield said the Foreign Languages Department will also weigh student interest before deciding on the theme.

Canfield doubts more than one translation course will be offered each semester because of a lack of demand, but that number could change if interest increases.

“Faculty in a lot of cases are willing to do this course,” Canfield says, “but a great deal of preparation is needed. And, to be honest, most of us don’t read (the literature) in English translation; we read it in the foreign language.”

The class, which has no prerequisite for entry, will fulfill a requirement for foreign languages majors as one of three courses taught in English, yet still pertain to their major. Students studying foreign languages at Eastern can concentrate on French, German or Spanish.

At Western Illinois University, the state public university Eastern sometimes gauges itself against because of its similar enrollment and resources, the languages department does not offer classes dealing with English translations.

Morris Vos, the Western foreign languages chair, said such courses are offered in other departments such as sociology, history and political science, but that their mission “would be first of all in the use and the development of the target language.”

“We have considered other missions and other emphases, so that we have thought about the possibility of offering topics relating to our field, but delivered in English,” Vos said. “And in the past we have offered some courses in ‘literature in translation,’ but those courses at WIU are offered in other departments, not our own.”

Administration editor Tim Martin can be reached at [email protected]