Hi all,

I have a question from a colleague. One of the departments at uleth wants to set up a whole new series of cultural courses focussing on the Spanish speaking world but distinct from their Spanish language offerings--similar to a classics vs Greek and Latin distinction. For a variety of bureaucratic reasons they need a new designation other than SPAN, which is used for courses in Spanish.

The decision within the department (most of whom are native Spanish speakers from Spain, Mexico, Argentina, and Uruguay) was to call this programme Hispanic studies (HPST). But a non-native speaker of Spanish has since warned the administration that Hispanic is a derogatory term and they have asked for a double check.

What do people on this list think? Is 'Hispanic studies' a poor choice of terminology? Is there a better term? We don't have anybody teaching Portuguese, and so want to emphasise that this is Spanish-speaking culture we are studying. We're not sure the term derogatory (or if it is, that it is derogatory anywhere other than the U.S.). But we certainly don't want to stand on any bombs.

Any advice.

-- 

Daniel Paul O'Donnell

Department of English

University of Lethbridge