>Merri, Your question regarding foreign languages needed for graduate work in Art History is actually very important and an issue that I wish more programs were taking the time to reconsider. It depends first and foremost on your area of concentration (or at least it should). If your doing contemporary, maybe German would be more useful, Historical Modernism would be a tough call given the importance of both Germany (think of the Bauhaus, the Expressionists, Die Bruke, etc) and France (dada, surrealism, Duchamp, etc). What happens when you want to study non-western art though (see below)? Secondly consider the program. To the best of my knowledge, most M.A. programs require either German, French or Italian. They sometimes let someone studying a non-western art substitute an appropriate language. Some M.A. programs (Williams I know for certain) requires both German and French or Italian). Doctoral programs certainly require two languages and sometimes more as many schools will not let you substitute more appropriate languages for your area of study for those required, so some students end up having to learn 3, 4, or even 5 languages. Other schools are rethinking this requirement (rightly, I believe) and only require languages related to the student's are of specialization. Thus far, the UCAL Irvine is the only program that I have found that has taken this progressive approach. In an ideal world (and we all live in those right?) it is best to have a good handle on the languages that the program requires prior to beginning the program and getting past the translation requirement a.s.a.p. I love to study languages and even gain at least basic proficiency fairly easily, but language classes are a HUGE time suck for the grad. student. Good luck. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).