In the anglophone world in particular, Modern Languages is a subject area at a crucial moment in its development. Within the academy, there is much discussion about the nature and status of the discipline of Modern Languages, driven in part, but not entirely, by current difficulties in student recruitment to degrees in languages in many universities. In this context, questions such as the following arise: how can the discipline of Modern Languages be defined in Higher Education? What sort of curriculum should it have? To what extent does it incorporate elements from disciplines such as film, creative arts, visual arts, linguistics, education, history and politics? How do languages relate to fields such as digital humanities or medical humanities? Through which language(s) should teaching take place? Which languages and cultures should be taught? If we opt for an inclusive definition of Modern Languages, how do the different areas cohere within a Modern Languages degree programme? In most university language departments, these debates take place in a highly constrained funding context which can impact powerfully on the responses to these questions.