The Master’s program in Language and Literature is an initiative of the Department of Letters at the School of Philosophy, Language and Human Sciences (EFLCH) of the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP). Its establishment led to the expansion of the Language and Literature undergraduate program, which started in 2009, and is seen as a cornerstone of the department as well as of EFLCH in the University. For the department, the graduate program means straightening the ties both between the undergraduate activities and research and between UNIFESP and other universities, thus inserting faculty and the student body in the national and international scene.
The program is located in the city of Guarulhos, which hosts the EFLCH campus. Guarulhos is not only the second most populated city in the state of Sao Paulo, but also neighbors two important demographic and socioeconomic hubs: the state capital and its metropolitan area, on one side; and the South of Vale do Paraiba region, on the other. Furthermore, there is no other free-of-charge public graduate program in the field of Linguistic and Literary Studies.
HISTORY
In 1994, The São Paulo School of Medicine became a federal university. In 2007, the then UNIFESP joined a governmental program called The Restructuring and Expanding of Federal Universities (REUNI) created to restructure and expand the federal universities across the country. Since that year, the university diversified its courses and extended its campuses to the following locations: Guarulhos (home to ELFCH), Baixada Santista, Diadema, São José dos Campos and, more recently, Osasco.
The Guarulhos campus started its activities in 2007 with courses in Social Sciences, Philosophy, History and Education. In 2009, the History of Arts and Language and Literature courses started to be taught as well. Language and Literature has traditionally been seen as the pillar of knowledge in the Humanities. The Humanities have historically been placed as the foundation of the concept of university—a social space dedicated to the production and sharing of knowledge. The presence of the Humanities grants the University theoretical and philosophical support, since a critical reading and dealing with language phenomena gain status as an invaluable tool to approach the texts and documents investigated by all courses on campus.
The main concerns of a course in Linguistic and Literary Studies lay in reflecting upon linguistic and literary phenomena and the contribution these may bring to the development of a critical reader. However, the adoption of a broader approach in relation to other areas of knowledge confers on the course a multi and cross-disciplinary character, thus making it closer to the Arts, the Humanities, the Natural and Technological Sciences.
That is to say that graduate and undergraduate activities in Linguistic and Literary Studies, today, should face the challenge of giving students a sound education in a multi-faceted, multi- and cross-disciplinary, humanist social space dedicated to the reflection on, production and sharing of knowledge without precluding the degrees of specificity—which both the job market and the university demand—in the spheres of scientific-philosophic knowledge and contemporary society.
As such, the Language and Literature Department is not only part of the academic program of the School of Philosophy, Languages and Humanities, but also of the Federal University of São Paulo. UNIFESP offers a wide range of courses in different fields and areas and finds in Linguistic and Literary Studies a strategic area to consolidate and broaden its field of activities—as it has both identified and embraced causes such as the need to include several population layers and their sociolets to its academic spheres as well as the growing demand for the internationalization of university education and research.