DEPARTMENT OF SPANISH & PORTUGUESE

Dr. Jacob C. Brown is an energetic, creative, and committed educator driven by a passion for social justice, community-building, and lifelong learning. Jacob applies his experience in teaching and research toward designing dynamic courses and lessons that are based on current scholarship in language and critical pedagogy.  

Equity, antiracism, and accessibility are the values that most shape his teaching. His main goals in the classroom are to spark students' curiosity, sharpen students’ critical thinking abilities, and foster students’ growth as interculturally competent communicators. These skills empower all students to become critically conscious citizens, engaged global professionals, and positive agents of change in their communities throughout their lives.  

Outside of the classroom, Jacob conducts research on teaching languages, literatures, and cultures. He has presented recent work at the AATSP, LASA, the SLP Professional Ted Talk Series, and TEACHx Northwestern; and he has given invited presentations at Notre Dame University, Vanderbilt University, and Rhodes College. His publications have appeared in ‘Hispania’ (forthcoming 2024), ‘The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latina and Latino Literature,’ Estudos de Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea,’ ‘Alambique,’ and ‘The Afro-Hispanic Review.’ 

He also collaborates with colleagues to invite professional development speakers and create active, engaging, and hands-on extracurricular activities for both the Spanish and Portuguese Language Programs. He is the co-coordinator of Portuguese cultural-academic events and serves on the Spanish Club, Professional Development, and CLI Language Outreach committees.  

Jacob’s qualifications are an M.A. and Ph.D. in Spanish and Portuguese with graduate certificates in College Teaching, Second Language Studies, and Latin American Studies from Vanderbilt University. At Vanderbilt, he defended his dissertation with honors in 2022, taught an original special topics course on Afro-Latin American literature in 2020-2021, was a Graduate Fellow at the Center for Languages in 2018-2019, and was awarded the E. Inman Fox Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2018. He also was awarded funding for dissertation research in Brazil and assisted a study abroad program on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. 

He began in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Northwestern University as a lecturer in 2022 and returned as an assistant professor of instruction in 2023. Jacob has taught Spanish 121-1, 121-2, and 115-2, and he enjoys mentoring students during student hours.