Curious about studying Dutch and Spanish - BA (Hons)at UCL (University College London)? We've gathered all the key details—entry requirements, modules, fees, and more. Hear from real students by checking out reviews, or take the next step by booking an open day to explore it for yourself.
Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
UCL (University College London) - Bloomsbury Campus
Full Time
Sep 2027
4 Year
Our Dutch and Spanish degree offers huge scope for developing in-depth, comparative and intercultural approaches to the humanities. You will be able to choose from a wide range of modules including literature, linguistic traditions, history, sociology, philosophy, art, film or other aspects of the cultures associated with the language(s) you'll be learning. In years one, two and your final year, you will take language modules in Dutch and Spanish, as well as cultural modules, covering a range of topics that draw on literature and film, history and linguistics.You will spend your third year abroad, split between two countries where Dutch and Spanish are spoken. You will achieve the same linguistic competence regardless of whether you start a language from scratch or have previous knowledge of it.
This module belongs to Dutch. This is an intensive language module for beginners. Five hours per week are devoted to developing practical language skills alongside basic grammatical competence, to enable students to participate in a wide variety of language exchanges and transactions. By the end of the first year students should be able to communicate fluently in basic written and spoken Dutch, expressing ideas and feelings about non-specialist topics. Attention is paid to developing a critical language awareness. Two hours per week are set aside for self-study, over and above homework tasks and module assessments, in order to consolidate and complement classroom work.
This module belongs to Dutch. The module offers a broad survey of Low Countries History from the late Middle Ages to the eve of World War I. It aims to: develop a good understanding of the major topics of Dutch and Belgian history from the late Middle Ages to the early 20th century; introduce basic concepts and approaches in the study of history; and help you develop analytical, writing and presentation skills. Although mainly directed at students of Dutch, the module is also suited for all learners with an interest in this European neighbour region of the UK, whose early modern history was closely intertwined with that of Britain. No previous historical knowledge or competence in Dutch is required.
This module belongs to Dutch. This module introduces students to Dutch and Flemish literature through the analysis of four canonical works. We will situate those texts in their historical context and relate them to dominant literary movements and tendencies within Dutch literary history. To open these literary works to contemporary preoccupations and issues we will adapt a critical perspective that is informed by gender, masculinity and postcolonial studies. The course has thus the threefold aim to acquaint students with Dutch literary history, literary analysis and literary/critical theory.
This is a Spanish module. This is a post A-level first year Spanish language module, consolidating level B1 and exploring level B2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). By the end of the second term, students are expected to master complex structures of written and spoken Spanish. You should be able to communicate fluently in a variety of contexts and deal with most situations likely to arise when travelling in a Spanish-speaking country. The Grammar and Communicative Language Skills class provides a friendly atmosphere where you can practice and build up confidence in spoken and written Spanish. Different varieties of Spanish will be explored. The Translation classes equip you with the relevant competences to tackle translations from both Spanish into English (literary and non-fiction texts), and English into Spanish (audiovisual materials, including a video that you will produce yourself). You will be acquainted with key aspects of the Hispanic culture(s) across the globe, especially in the Additional Contents and Skills classes.
This is a Spanish module. This module will introduce students to the work of Spain?s most ambitious dramatists of the early twentieth century: Ram??ar?del Valle-Incl? Miguel de Unamuno, and Federico Garc?Lorca. These three writers were key figures in the flourishing of Spanish cultural life between the end of the nineteenth century and the outbreak of the Civil War in 1936, the year in which each of them died. Their dramatic works in particular fought against the stodgy, middle-class values that they believed were preventing the Spanish stage from becoming a focus of renewed artistic energy. Working chronologically, this module will examine how these three writers experimented with dramatic form, the possibilities of staging, and the capacity of theatre to challenge its audience to experience art in new ways.
This is a Spanish module. This module will provide an introduction to film analysis and to key aspects of the development of Spanish cinema. Topics examined will include: Surrealism, Melodrama, Film noir and the influence of Italian neo-realism, Postmodernism and the influence on film of the Spanish Civil War, the Franco Regiem, Censorship, the Transition to Democracy, and Postcolonialism.
This is a Spanish module.
This is a Spanish module. This module analyses a range of Latin American cultural forms (novel, short stories, visual material) which have the dialectic between the real and the unreal, the natural and the supernatural, at their core. We will analyse well-known canonical texts as well as less-known works and discuss the notions of Fantastic, Uncanny, Magical Realism and Real Maravilloso. Throughout the module, we will analyse how Latin American cultural production has tackled, through the uncanny and the unreal, issues of gender, politics, identity, nationhood, history, and experimented with narrative forms and genres.
This is a Spanish module. This course offers an introduction to key aspects of global Hispanic history and culture from the late medieval period to the 21st century, and acts as a foundation on which students will build throughout the rest of their degree. It exposes students to a wide variety of materials ? poetry, prose fiction, essay and film ? and explores different ways of making sense of them through historical contextualisation, close reading and critical analysis. Students gain a critical appreciation of the canon of Spanish and Latin American Studies, whilst also developing the tools to explore less canonical authors and works. In the seminars that accompany the lectures, we will focus on discussing the primary materials and develop key skills in reading and writing.
This module provides an introduction to some of the ways in which literary texts have explored the theme of migration from the late19th to the early 21st Century in Latin America. While in recent years migration north from Central and South America to the USA has garnered significant attention in international news media and cultural production alike, this module seeks to contextualise this contemporary crisis by examining key moments of mass migration in recent Latin American history through their literary representation. The movement of people across regional and national borders invariably involves linguistic displacement, and writers have long understood that literary texts have the power to shape public perceptions of migrant communities. Thus by analysing texts which examine historical migrations, students will learn about: some of the economic, political and social changes and conflicts which have led to periods of mass migration; the ways in which migrant communities reciprocally contribute to, accelerate, or produce economic, political, and social change; some of the varied literary styles and genres deployed in Latin America to represent culturally diverse migrant experiences; and the ways in which mass migration is closely linked to questions of indigeneity, race, social class, gender, and conflict in Latin America and that literary texts perpetuate or resist xenophobia, racism, and the negative perception of migrant communities.
This module belongs to Dutch. Topics cover current affairs, debates and cultural issues in the Low Countries. Language tasks in this course require a more sustained presentation of information and argumentation, in both speaking and writing. There are additional conversation sessions with a student language assistant. Students are expected to take increasing responsibility for identifying their own strengths and weaknesses and for taking remedial action as appropriate. Assessment: one unseen two-hour written examination (35%); one oral examination (30%); and continuous assessment including vocabulary and listening tests, essays and grammar assignments (35%).
This module belongs to Dutch. This is a module about political, social, cultural and economic change in the Benelux-countries from the inter-war period to the present. Among the themes covered are: the crisis of democracy in the 1930s; collaboration, resistance and accommodation during the German occupation of World War II; decolonisation; Dutch, Belgian and Luxembourgian post-war politics; the Cold War and European integration; development of the modern welfare state; cultural revolution and new social movements in the 1960s; linguistic and inter-communal tensions and federalisation of Belgium; immigration, the 'crisis of multiculturalism' and the recent rise of populism in the Netherlands.
This module belongs to Dutch. This module explores the theme of identity and community in the literature of the Netherlands and Flanders. We will look at fiction that deals with questions of belonging, power, diversity and mechanisms of in- and exclusion. The module will start from contemporary reflections on the loss of a sense of community within a context of globalization and will then return to the beginning of the 20th century. Our module will follow the course of history by discussing literary texts that correspond to modernism (and its utopias), to the disillusion after World War II and to postmodernism (and its unravelling of utopias). We will analyse processes of identification (gender, class, religion, politics, race) and the shifts in sense of time, space and belonging throughout the twentieth century.
This module belongs to Dutch. In this course we look at debates surrounding multiculturalism, identity, citizenship and immigration. We look at different interpretations of multiculturalism from philosophical, cultural and sociological perspectives and explore what visions of a good society they are based on. The course explores how these perspectives have been acted out across time and place, from the ?melting pot? idea in the US in the early 20th century to governmental policies encouraging immigrants to maintain their home language and culture. The focus will be on the changing policies and views on the multiculturalism debate in Europe, but this will be set in a global context. We also explore the notions of national identity which are evoked in the multiculturalism debate and look at government and media responses to this. The module also explores the backlash discourses around multiculturalism which has become more prominent in recent years and investigate some of the possible causes. Finally, we will consider feminist critiques of multiculturalism.
This is a Spanish module. This is a second-year Spanish language module consolidating your proficiency at level B2 and exploring level C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). In the Grammar and Communicative Skills classes you will expand your vocabulary and learn to use increasingly more sophisticated language in a variety of contexts and registers, as well as idioms, expressions and colloquialisms. Different varieties of Spanish will be explored. The Translation classes will help you enhance your translation competences already acquired in the previous year in order to tackle a wider variety of texts in both language directions.
This is a Spanish module. In this module we shall be reading and analysing the novel La Regenta (1884-85) by Leopoldo Alas. Writing under the penname ?Clar?, Alas was the most famous literary critic in Spain at the time he published La Regenta. He had gained a reputation as a scathing cultural commentator but La Regenta surprised many of his contemporaries for the sensitivity with which it depicted a troubled young woman?s search for happiness and a stable identity in a provincial Spanish city. Her name is Ana Ozores, a woman who endures a troubled childhood as the poor relation of an aristocratic family which has fallen on hard times. Still a young adult, she finds herself married to Don V?or Quintanar, an aged and impotent former judge, but increasingly torn between sexual desire for Don lvaro Mes? the local lothario, and a yearning to explore her spiritual life guided by her confessor, Ferm?de Pas. It is her struggle with the competing claims of duty, lust, and spirituality that forms the central thread of the novel.
This is a Spanish module. This module will introduce you to a range of works by a number of key women writers from the Southern Cone and the Andean region. The module will begin with a consideration of the principal issues at stake in approaching women?s writing in Latin America and then focus on specific case studies. We will examine a variety of genres including novel, short story, poetry and essay. We will introduce the historical contexts in which the works have been produced and consider themes such as gender, identity, family, nationhood, modernity and ?race? as well as questions of language and form. This module is taught in Spanish.
This is a Spanish module. This course focuses on the intellectual history of Latin America from the independence period to the 1950s. Topics for discussion include the development of national consciousness; the emergence of nationalism, the role of literature in the creation of Spanish-American identities, as will as issues dealing with poetics and literary expression. The course presents a critical examination of authors such as Alberdi, Sarmiento, Marti, Rodo, Gonzalez Prada, Mariategui, Vasconcelos, Borges, Ryes, Paz and Zea among others. This module is taught in Spanish.
This is a Spanish module. This module will introduce students to a broad range of periods and styles in Latin American cinema, and to concepts in film theory. It will explore thematic questions of nationhood, politics, gender and sexuality, as well as questions specific to cinematic and visual representation.
This is a Spanish module. This module concerns the extraordinary history of Spain in the twentieth century. Over the past hundred years, the country has fought a brutal civil war, and experienced among the most stable and enduring of European dictatorships; toyed with republicanism, before re-establishing itself as a monarchy; and undergone a democratic transition regarded as a model around the world, to then experience several decades of the ?Spanish miracle?, of rapid economic growth and growing soft power. Most recently, the country has seen the political and economic model established during the transition come under strain, through unresolved tensions over fundamental questions of governance and national identity. All of this, while undergoing social change of unprecedented rapidity, that has given the country much of its distinctive feel in recent times.
This is a Spanish module. This module will provide an introduction to the latest literary, political and social changes in contemporary Spain, introducing students to the question of the existence, or not, of a Spanish literature describable as women?s writing. By analysing works by Rosa Montero?s Cr??a del desamor, Dulce Chac?? La voz dormida, Luc?Etxebarria?s Cosmofobia and Najat El Hachmi?s El ltimo patriarca, we will consider the role that writing by women plays in written accounts of collective identities, in providing alternatives to traditional fictional gender stereotypes, in promoting a feminist awareness and in portraying new definitions of Spanishness.
This is a Spanish module. There has been a recent boom in Latin American fiction dealing with Nazism and the Second World War. This module seeks to address the question ?why are Latin American authors writing about Nazism now??. We shall focus on En busca de Klingsor by J. Volpi, Amphitryon by I. Padilla, Los informantes by J.G.V?uez, and El comienzo de la primavera by P. Pron as primary texts. Topics will include issues of space, place and literary ?postnationalism?, violence, dictatorship, peace and reconciliation, and the nature of the relationship between history, identity, reality and fiction.
Images have been of great importance to the interlinked drug wars of the Americas. These conflicts have been subject to extensive visualisation, whether in the form of uncensored media footage, crafted photographs and propaganda, or through the explosion of televisual and cinematic works dealing with drugs and the narcotics trade. Interweaving artistic, cinematic and televisual viewings with theoretical and historical readings, this module will examine the visual politics of the ?War on Drugs?, integrating case studies from Mexico, Colombia and the US. We will consider inter alia how portrayals of violence in the media drive militarisation; how ethical concerns influence aesthetic strategies; visual framings of grief and loss; the ways visual texts highlight the co-dependent relations between drugs, death, capital and the state; and how visual works explore alternative policies, as exemplified by The Wire?s ?Hamsterdam?.
Year abroad
Your third year is spent abroad. This will not only bring the language and culture you are studying to life, but also strengthen your resourcefulness and self-reliance. You will normally spend this year studying at a university in your chosen country (or countries if you are studying two languages), but alternatives, such as work placements, may be possible.
This is a Dutch module. The module aims for students to become critical intercultural users of Dutch in both spoken and written form. Students are prepared for the complexity of communication in a fast changing global and multicultural world. The course provides practice in language used in work and social situations by emphasising the contextual demands of audience, aim and genre in a wide range of communicative situations. Work in class and homework tasks concentrate on developing awareness of stylistics especially in relation to the contexts of situation and culture.
This is a Dutch module. This course will focus on the so-called millennial generation of writers in Dutch that has risen to prominence in the first two decades of the 21st century. We will analyze the main motives, forms and issues of their work, and ask if we can discern a particular ?structure of feeling? and sense to the literature of this generation. The discussion of this generation?s literature will be dealt with both diachronically (in relation to former literary tendencies) and synchronically (in relation to contemporary culture and society).
This is a Dutch module. The module focuses on key themes from Dutch and Belgian history since 1945 with emphasis on events that shaped identities in both countries. Four different topics are covered, dealing with such matters as cultural geography of the Low Countries, the aftermath of colonisation, political and economic culture and forms of public remembrance. Students from outside the Dutch Department are welcome. Some knowledge of Dutch is desirable but no prerequisite.
This is a Dutch module. A project written in Dutch or English on an approved topic in an area of Dutch Studies. This module offers final year or affiliate students the opportunity to study a topic in depth, that is not currently covered by other modules in the Department of Dutch.
This module is only available for Affiliate Dutch Language Assistant students from Utrecht University.
This is a Dutch module. An advanced translation course combining reflection on the translation process with regular exercises in translating from Dutch into English covering a variety of text types. Please note that MA students attend classes together with final-year BA students. All students learn to develop a translation strategy, analyse texts for translation and also published translations of literary texts. An important aim of the course is to encourage and assist students to develop their own approach to translation. Time is also devoted to improving practical skills such as revising and proofreading translations, and accessing a range of printed and online lexicographical and bibliographical resources.
This module is only available for Affiliate Dutch Language Assistant students from Utrecht University.
This is an advanced Spanish language module designed for finalists, consolidating level C1 and exploring level C2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). In the Grammar and Communicative Skills classes, you will consolidate your skills acquired in your Year Abroad. You will also improve your language proficiency by carrying out tasks at C2 level (the highest of CEFR levels). Therefore, you will be exposed and will have to use increasingly sophisticated language in a wider variety of contexts and registers. Different varieties of Spanish will be explored. The Translation classes will consolidate your translation competences already acquired in the previous years. You will be encouraged to make connections with your experience in the Year Abroad and broaden your knowledge of Hispanic culture(s).
This is a Spanish module. This module examines the development of Spanish film from the late 1990s onwards focusing on issues such as gender, migration, genre, national identity and the increasing globalisation of the Spanish film industry.
This is a Spanish module. This module will examine the changing ways in which the Spanish Civil War and subsequent dictatorship have been represented in the contemporary Spanish novelAlthough Spain's transition from Franco's thirty-six year dictatorship to democracy has been considered a success-story, underlying tension and resentment between the opposing sides of the country’s political divide remain. A country in which the defeated of the war were treated as second-class citizens and their dead comrades excluded from official commemoration of the victims clearly has some catching up to do when it comes to national reconciliation. Spain's novelists have reflected this situation through their works, questioning the national silence over the uncomfortable past during the transition to democracy and, in more recent times, joining the national debate on how best to acknowledge both sides of the fratricidal conflict.
This course will focus on the representation of children in film, with special attention to the kind of function the child fulfils in Latin American cinema. This will allow us to explore thematic questions of nationhood, politics, gender and sexuality, and the way childhood is used to envision the past and history, as well as the future and social change. We will also consider questions specific to cinematic and visual representation, such as whether, how and why filmmakers attempt to create a child?s view of the world through aesthetic means, and ethical questions arising around the representation of child suffering and death.
This is a Spanish module. The Peruvian writer, folklorist and ethnologist Jos?ar?Arguedas (1911-1969) is not only the most prominent representative of the neo-indigenist literary movement in the Andean region but also one of its most acute interpreters, particularly with respect to the cultural values and traditions of the Quechua communities of his native country. This course explores Arguedas?s vivid representation of the Andean world through a careful reading of some of his most important literary and ethnological works. From his early short stories and novels?in which he draws from his own personal experiences among the Indians of the southern sierra?to his insightful essays on the historical development of Andean mestizo culture and society, Arguedas captures the spirit of a people that have endured centuries of oppression and, at the same time, presents a challenging economic model for its social and political survival.
This advanced module considers how artists, filmmakers and writers from Latin America have experimented with institutional and popular Catholicism in response to periods of intense political and social upheaval. While the Catholic Church may appear to be monolithic and immutable, students will examine some of the ways in which Catholic aesthetics, theology, doctrine and social teaching have been appropriated, contested, distorted and revolutionized in twentieth- and twenty-first-century Latin American cultural production. By studying select works of poetry, prose, theatre, film and visual art, students will develop close-reading and analytical skills in order to explore the relationship between a range of divergent, hybrid Catholicisms and contemporary culture. To meet these requirements, students will study artistic engagements with some of the following topics: Afro-Caribbean syncretism and theories of transculturation; Andean Catholicisms and modernity; Liberation Theology and revolutionary movements; the Catholic Church and dictatorship; popular religiosity and the emergence of extreme narco-violence; Catholicism, sex and gender. Specific primary texts studied may vary from year to year. While all texts will be studied in an intellectual and sympathetic manner, students should note that certain texts may prove to be distressing, due to their violent content, and/or challenging to those of firm religious beliefs.
This is a Spanish module. Of the many complex civilisations to arise in the ancient Americas, three stand out: the Maya of Mexico and Guatemala, with a sophisticated art style and the only true writing system ever to develop in the Western Hemisphere; the Aztecs, the last ancient Mexican civilisation, known for their huge city-on-a-lake of Tenochtitlan and for the mass practice of human sacrifice; and the Incas of Peru, whose rigid state structure and many gold and silver treasures so amazed the Spanish conquistadors. This module studies the states, societies, religions and cultural practices of these peoples, drawing on both a rich corpus of primary sources and a vibrant historical literature.
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