Introductory Spanish
For students with no knowledge of Spanish. Elements of Spanish grammar. Oral, written and reading practice. Selected readings, multimedia materials.
Lectures, computer/language lab, 4 hours per week.
Intermediate Spanish
Review of Spanish grammar. Composition and oral practice. Introduction to Spanish literature, cultural subjects and topics of current interest.
Lectures, seminar, computer/language lab, 4 hours per week.
Prerequisite: SPAN 1F00 or two or more years of high school Spanish or permission of the instructor.
Business Spanish
Introduction to commercial, industrial and technical Spanish. Practical writing skills for business in the Spanish-speaking world, with emphasis on Latin America.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: SPAN 1F00 or permission of the instructor.
Hispanic Culture
The creation of a new culture founded on indigenous, Iberian and African traditions; visual arts, architecture, literature and music; disparity between cultural identity and economic and political identity, utopian ideals, alienation through imitation, rediscovery of autochthonous cultural models.
Note: given in English. Course offered online.
Literary Genres and Essay Writing
Intensive language analysis, oral and written practice to develop writing styles and techniques. Exploration of periods of Hispanic cultures.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: SPAN 1F90 or permission of the instructor.
Latin American Culture
Survey of social history through text and images; pre-Columbian cultures; cultural hybridization and colonization to the present day.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Note: guided readings in English and Spanish.
Iberian Culture
Social, political and cultural history of Portugal and Spain through historical and literary texts, film and other visual arts.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Note: music and guided readings in English and Spanish.
Contemporary Hispanic Film
(also offered as FILM 2P82)
Spanish and Latin American representations of identity crises involving issues of nationality, ethnicity, gender and politics. Pastiche, parody and camp aesthetics, and the envisioning of new possibilities of solidarity leading to social transformations.
Lectures, 3 hours per week, plus weekly film lab.
Note: given in English. Knowledge of Spanish is not necessary. Spanish majors complete written assignments and exams in Spanish.
History in its Environment in a Spanish Region
(also offered as HIST 2V90-2V99)
Study of the history of a country or region in its own cultural and geographical context. Background preparation research preceding an intensive study period on location.
Restriction: permission of the Department.
Note: given in English. Students are responsible for travel, accommodation and other expenses.
2002-2003: Central American Issues
(also offered as HIST 2V91)
Topics may include indigenous cultures, collapse of the Central American Republic, Manifest Destiny, the Monroe Doctrine, revolution, Liberation Theology and plantation agriculture.
Note: given in English. Students are responsible for travel, accommodations and other expenses. For further details, see the History Department home page.
Caribbean Narratives
Major novels, popular music, painting and poetry. Afro-Caribbean poetry of Nicolás Guillén and paintings of Wilfredo Lam will be points of departure to discuss oral traditions and transculturation. Rewriting of the history, the neo-baroque and the representations of gender, ethnicity and class in the works of Carpentier, Sarduy, Rosario Ferré, Reinaldo Arenas and others.
Lectures, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: SPAN 2F00 or permission of the instructor.
Advanced Grammar and Communication
Syntactic analysis and principles involved. Concepts of semantics and style. Applications to advanced writing and oral practice of the Spanish language.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: SPAN 2F00 or permission of the instructor.
Iberian Narrative
Development of Spanish and Portuguese narrative from postwar social realism to the present. Authors may include Cela, Matute, Puértolas, Muñoz Molina, Montero and Saramago.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: SPAN 2F00 or permission of the instructor.
Contemporary Latin-American Narrative
Multidisciplinary approach (historical, sociological, psychological, mythical) to the study of texts from different cultures and genres Authors may include Borges, Cortázar, Rulfo, García Márquez, Peri Rossi, Lispector, Castellanos and Mastreta.
Lectures, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: SPAN 2F00 or permission of the instructor.
Modern Spanish Literature: Romanticism to Realism
Crises of national identity in poetry and narrative; literary theories dealing with genre, conventions of romanticism, naturalism, realism in context of Iberian culture. Authors may include Bécquer, Pardo Bazán, Pérez Galdós, Generation of 98.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: SPAN 2F00 or permission of the instructor.
Contemporary Chronicle and Testimonial Writing
Historiography, collective memory versus official history, relation of past to future, oral history and its transcription into testimonial literature. Texts may include the chronicles of Poniatowska, Monsiváis, Galeano, Zapatista Liberation Army.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: SPAN 2F00 or permission of the instructor.
Golden Age
Themes and trends in 16th- and 17th-century Spanish drama, prose and poetry; evolution of a national theatre, the picaresque, the birth of the modern novel. Film adaptations of key texts to aid comprehension and to consider performative culture.
Lectures, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: SPAN 2F00 or permission of the instructor.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in SPAN 3P92 and 3P93.
Twentieth-Century Latin American Revolution
(also offered as HIST 3P94)
The social, economic and intellectual roots of revolutions in Mexico, Bolivia, Guatemala, Cuba and Nicaragua. The seminal role of the Mexican Revolution.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Note: given in English.
Latin American Women's Perspectives
(also offered as WISE 4P01)
The cultural production of Latin American women and their impact on society; wide selection of media including testimonial writing, oral history, narrative, drama, poetry, visual arts, music. Innovations in popular and literary culture allowing women to rearticulate relationships of power. Authors may include Poniatowska, Kahlo, Menchú, Lispector, Novaro and Parra.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: SPAN 2F00 or WISE 1F90 or permission of the instructor.
Note: given in English. Spanish majors complete written assignments and exams in Spanish.
Translation: Applications
Lexical, morphological, syntactic and semantic interrelationships between source text and target text; application of translation methodologies to a variety of texts.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: MLLC 3P94.
2002-2003: Women in Hispanic Literature: Witches, Vampires and Virgins
Depiction of women as monstrous or deviant. Authors include Carmen Boullosa, Alejandra Pizarnik and Rosario Ferré. Feminist literary theory of alterity (otherness).
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: one SPAN credit numbered 3(alpha)00 or above.
Special Research Topics in Spanish Literature
Course content will vary, depending upon the interests of instructors and students.
Lectures, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisites: two SPAN credits numbered 3(alpha)00 or above.