Spanish (SPAN)
SPAN 0011 Intensive Basic Spanish 6 Credits
This course aims to develop students' ability to communicate in Spanish in everyday, practical situations -- whether in the U.S. or abroad -- and to help them acquire the skills necessary to understand oral and written texts, as well as to write in Spanish with a satisfactory level of accuracy. To reach these goals, students will focus on three key components: vocabulary development, language awareness, and active practice/participation. Different aspects of Hispanic culture will be introduced through readings and videos. Grading criteria include lexical breadth, grammatical accuracy, reading and listening comprehension skills, and basic knowledge of Spanish-speaking regions.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment limited to students in a Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree.
SPAN 0022 Intensive Intermediate Spanish 6 Credits
Prerequisite: SPAN 0011 or placement exam. Requires completion of intro level coursework. Designed for highly motivated students who seek daily contact with the language, this course further develops students' ability to communicate satisfactorily in Spanish in everyday situations and to help them acquire skills necessary for effective speaking and writing in Spanish. Taking readings, documentaries and films as point of departure, the cultural component of the course grows significantly to include current issues encompassing the economy, politics, and culture of the Spanish-speaking areas on both sides of the Atlantic. Some seats in this class are reserved.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 1000 Beginning Spanish 3 Credits
This course is for students who have no prior high school knowledge of Spanish. Students will fulfill their needs to 1) develop their ability to communicate satisfactorily in Spanish in everyday practical situations that may occur either here in the U.S or abroad, 2) to acquire some of the skills necessary for effective reading in Spanish, and 3) to write Spanish with a satisfactory level of accuracy. Students will be exposed to aspects of Hispanic culture via videos and written texts. Three key components that will assist students to attain these three goals are vocabulary, language awareness, and practice/participation.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Mutual exclusion: SPAN 003, SPAN 1001
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 1001 Introductory Spanish I 3 Credits
This course is for students with some prior high school knowledge of Spanish. Students will fulfill their needs to 1) develop their ability to communicate satisfactorily in Spanish in everyday practical situations that may occur either here in the U.S or abroad, 2) to acquire some of the skills necessary for effective reading in Spanish, and 3) to write Spanish with a satisfactory level of accuracy. Students will be exposed to aspects of Hispanic culture via videos and written texts. Three key components that will assist students to attain these three goals are vocabulary, language awareness, and practice/participation.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Mutual exclusion: SPAN 1000, SPAN 001
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 1002 Introductory Spanish II 3 Credits
This course is a continuation of SPAN 001/003 in which students will further fulfill their needs to 1) develop their ability to communicate satisfactorily in Spanish in everyday practical situations that may occur either here in the U.S or abroad, 2) to acquire some of the skills necessary for effective reading in Spanish, and 3) to write Spanish with a satisfactory level of accuracy. Students will be exposed to aspects of Hispanic culture via videos and written texts. Three key components that will assist students to attain these three goals are vocabulary, language awareness, and practice/participation.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 1003 Intro to Basque 3 Credits
Basque/Euskera is one of the few non-Indo-European languages that survive in Europe. Spoken in the north of Spain and south of France, it is one of the four official languages in Spain. The course offers the student an introduction to the structure and vocabulary of the Basque language within a communicative framework that incorporates culturally rich content. No previous knowledge of a Romance language is required.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 1004 Catalan for Speaks Romance Lan 3 Credits
This is a communicatively oriented course designed with two goals in mind: 1) to help the student understand Catalonia and Catalan culture and their role in Spain and Europe; 2) to provide the tools to facilitate the student's learning of Catalan language, with an emphasis on oral communication and reading skills. Basic knowledge of a Romance language is required. For more information please visit: http://cataladegeorgetown.wordpress.com/
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 1005 Spanish for Speakers Rom Lang 3 Credits
This course provides an accelerated introduction to Spanish grammar and conversation for native or proficient speakers of French, covering in one semester what is normally covered in the two-semester sequence of Introductory Spanish I and II. Upon successful completion of all requirements, students will be prepared to enroll in Intermediate Spanish I (SPAN 021) or Intensive Intermediate Spanish (SPAN 032). Attention will be focused on speaking, listening, reading, and writing, and readings, music, videos, and films will be used to introduce students to the history, culture, and contemporary life of various Spanish-speaking countries. Additionally, students will have the opportunity to interact with the students enrolled in French for Spanish Speakers (FREN-009), which will allow students in both classes additional practice with the language, complementing what is learned in class and at home.
The course will be presented in Spanish and aimed towards students with advanced French skills and little-to-no previous experience with the Spanish language. Full working proficiency in French is, therefore, a necessary prerequisite, as the method of instruction, in-class activities, and required texts will often rely on French as a pivot language in order to promote specific learning paths for easier access to Spanish grammar and vocabulary. By exploring the similarities and differences between the two languages, the course is designed to allow bilingual students to take full advantage of their prior language experience, reinforcing their knowledge of French while working towards rapid proficiency in Spanish as a third language.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 1006 PSLI Intensive Spanish I 4 Credits
Along with SPAN 1200 and SPAN 1500, this course was originally developed for Patuxent students and assumes a certain level of motivation to learn languages. In this introductory course, students will fulfill their needs to 1) develop their ability to communicate satisfactorily in Spanish in everyday practical situations that may occur either here in the U.S or abroad, 2) to acquire some of the skills necessary for effective reading in Spanish, and 3) to write Spanish with a satisfactory level of accuracy. Students will be exposed to aspects of Hispanic culture via videos and written texts. Three key components that will assist students to attain these three goals are vocabulary, language awareness, and practice/participation.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment limited to students in a Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree.
SPAN 1007 Introduction to Quechua 3 Credits
Quechua, also known as Runasimi, is the most widely spoken indigenous language family in Abya Yala. The diverse varieties of Quechua are spoken largely in and around the central Andes mountains, including Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile. In this course, students will gain an introduction to the structure and the vocabulary of Quechua. The course is conversation-centered, prioritizing speaking and listening. We will also take time to understand Quechua's social, historical, and cultural context. Materials will be in Quechua and Spanish. Films will be in Spanish and/or Quechua with Spanish subtitles. This class will be conducted in Spanish.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 1011 Intensive Basic Spanish 6 Credits
Along with Intensive Intermediate Spanish, this course was originally developed for FLL students and therefore assumes a certain level of motivation to learn languages. The course aims to develop students' ability to communicate in Spanish and to help them acquire the skills necessary to understand oral and written texts. Different aspects of Hispanic culture will be introduced in reading passages and videos. Grading criteria are based on lexical breadth, grammatical accuracy, reading and listening comprehension skills, and a basic knowledge of Spanish-speaking areas.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 1020 Int Span For Public Health I 3 Credits
This is a low- to mid-intermediate Spanish course that will teach the vocabulary
and structures necessary to be conversant in topics related to Public Health in
Spanish. The grammar content is similar to a regular Intermediate I course, the
only difference lies in the vocabulary that we will be mastering. Public health is the
science that promotes and helps to protect the health of people and communities.
Alongside with expanding the grammar learned in previous courses and with a
highly conversational approach, participants will learn about different health
problems that affect our society. Doing readings about these problems, listening to
mini-lectures on these topics, watching videos on these topics, translating posters
and brochures, doing research on what initiatives the Center for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) suggests, we will learn what health problems affect which
groups, what the basic symptoms are and we will discuss methods of prevention
and treatment at the individual as well as at the community level. We will also
have an overview of the Public Health Systems in some Latin American countries.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 1021 Int Span For Public Health II 3 Credits
TBA
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 1127 CALL - Adv. Span./Public Prof 3 Credits
Advanced Spanish for the Public Professions - CALL
This course is designed for students at the Advanced 1 Level to further develop Spanish fluency in the areas of oral comprehension, reading, writing, and speaking as preparation for work in the fields of international affairs, public policy, government, and law. This course will use a combination of classroom, cultural, and experiential learning opportunities in DC (such as excursions to museums, embassies, and cultural and political centers throughout Washington) to improve students’ accuracy and effective communication in Spanish through exposure to daily, practical situations relevant to the broader field of public service. The primary components of the course will be vocabulary, language awareness, and student participation, along with the incorporation of film, art, and current events to aid in the development of students’ understanding of the histories and cultures of the Spanish-speaking world. As part of the course, students will have the opportunity to engage with recent Georgetown graduates currently working in the State Department as well as for think tanks, non-profits, and international consulting firms. This course will meet at Georgetown’s Downtown Campus (the Capitol Applied Learning Labs) and is open to both Main Campus and CALL students. Following this semester-long course, should students wish to continue Spanish study on the Main Campus, a placement test will be required to determine the level.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment limited to students with the Capitol Applied Learning Lab attribute.
SPAN 1200 PSLI Intensive Spanish II 4 Credits
This introductory-to-intermediate course is a continuation of SPAN 1006 in which students will further fulfill their needs to 1) develop their ability to communicate satisfactorily in Spanish in everyday practical situations that may occur either here in the U.S or abroad, 2) to acquire some of the skills necessary for effective reading in Spanish, and 3) to write Spanish with a satisfactory level of accuracy. Students will be exposed to aspects of Hispanic culture via videos and written texts. Three key components that will assist students to attain these three goals are vocabulary, language awareness, and practice/participation.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment limited to students in a Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree.
SPAN 1500 PSLI Intensive Spanish III 4 Credits
This intermediate course is a continuation of SPAN 1200 in which students will reinforce their knowledge of the first two PSLI Intensive Spanish Levels and further develop their ability to 1) communicate satisfactorily in Spanish in everyday practical situations that may occur either here in the U.S or abroad, 2) continue acquiring some of the skills necessary for effective reading in Spanish, and 3) write Spanish with a satisfactory level of accuracy. Students will be exposed to aspects of Hispanic culture and literature via movies and written texts. Three key components that will assist students to attain these three goals are vocabulary, language awareness, and practice/participation.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment limited to students in a Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree.
SPAN 1512 Intermediate Catalan 3 Credits
This course is the continuation of Intro. to Catalan. It is a communicatively oriented course designed with two goals in mind: 1) to provide the tools to facilitate the student's learning of Catalan language, with an emphasis on oral communication and reading skills; 2) to help the student understand Catalonia and Catalan culture and their role in Spain and Europe. Basic knowledge of Catalan language is required and a good knowledge of a Romance language is strongly recomended
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 1521 Intermediate Spanish I 3 Credits
In this intermediate course, students will reinforce their knowledge of the first year courses and further develop their ability to 1) communicate satisfactorily in Spanish in everyday practical situations that may occur either here in the U.S or abroad, 2) continue acquiring some of the skills necessary for effective reading in Spanish, and 3) write Spanish with a satisfactory level of accuracy. Students will be exposed to aspects of Hispanic culture and literature via movies and written texts. Three key components that will assist students to attain these three goals are vocabulary, language awareness, and practice/participation. Some seats in this class are reserved.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 1522 Intermediate Spanish II 3 Credits
This course is a continuation of SPAN 021 that further develops students’ ability to 1) communicate satisfactorily in Spanish in everyday practical situations that may occur either here in the U.S or abroad, 2) continue acquiring some of the skills necessary for effective reading in Spanish, and 3) write Spanish with a satisfactory level of accuracy. Students will be exposed to aspects of Hispanic culture and literature via movies and written texts. Three key components that will assist students to attain these three goals are vocabulary, language awareness, and practice/participation.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 1525 Intrm Span: Spkrs Romance Lan 3 Credits
This course is designed for students who have a high intermediate or advanced knowledge of French, Italian, Portuguese or another Romance language and want to study a fast track to take Advanced Spanish the following semester. Students must have mastered the structure of the present tense and imperatives in Spanish. Course will start developing skills in the past, future and subjunctive tenses. Course will give students extensive practice in oral Spanish while developing vocabulary for everyday situations.
Prerequisite: SPAN 009, Introductory Spanish II or equivalent, or permission by the instructor.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 1526 MULTILEVEL for the CALL I 3 Credits
This language course is designed for students with beginning or intermediate knowledge to enhance Spanish skills in the areas of oral comprehension, reading, writing and speaking within the pre-professional contexts they plan to pursue beyond college. This course will use a combination of classroom, cultural and experiential learning opportunities in DC (such as excursions to restaurants, theaters, embassies etc.) to improve students’ accuracy and effective communication in Spanish through exposure to daily, practical situations. This course will also allow students to develop Spanish-language practice with emphasis on their proposed professions which will include, but not be limited to, fields such as public policy, government, law, economics and international affairs. The primary components of the course will be vocabulary, language awareness and student participation, along with the incorporation of film, music and cultural studies. Following this semester-long course, should students wish to continue Spanish study on the Main Campus, a placement test will be required to determine level.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment limited to students with the Capitol Applied Learning Lab attribute.
SPAN 1532 Intensive Intermediate Spanish 6 Credits
Continuing from Intensive Basic Spanish, and designed for highly motivated students who seek daily contact with the language, this course is designed to further develop students' ability to communicate satisfactorily in Spanish in everyday situations and to help you acquire skills necessary for effective speaking and writing in Spanish. A second goal is to develop your cross-cultural competence and awareness, i.e., your ability to critically understand, analyze, and reflect on a broad spectrum of narratives (biographies, news, interviews and reports, historical narratives, music) in written and visual forms (television news, newspaper articles, interviews and reports, and cinema) with Spanish as the primary communication tool. Class time is devoted to active and constant communication with your classmates and the instructor. Prior to every class meeting, you are expected to complete independent work, either to consolidate the knowledge and linguistic skills developed during class time or to prepare for in-class discussions. Independent work includes active reading and listening to multimedia materials as well as a number of computer-based assignments; in the classroom, personal computer/cell phone use is reduced to a minimum. Our third goal is to promote awareness of questions of normativity and deviance, stigma and power, and specifically how Spanish-speaking communities grapple with physical and mental differences. This course counts towards the minor in Disability Studies. Assessment: three written tests, one cumulative final exam, compositions, oral exams, and daily tasks.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 1535 Intermed SPAN:Health Sciences 3 Credits
This is a mid- to high-intermediate course that will teach the vocabulary and structures necessary to be conversant in topics related to Public Health in Spanish. The grammar content is similar to an Intermediate II course, the only difference lies in the vocabulary that we will be mastering. Public health is the science that promotes and helps to protect the health of people and communities. Alongside with expanding the grammar learned in previous courses and with a highly conversational approach, participants will learn about different health problems that affect our society. Doing readings about these problems, listening to mini-lectures on these topics, watching videos on these topics, translating posters and brochures, doing research on what initiatives the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests, we will learn what health problems affect which groups, what the basic symptoms are and we will discuss methods of prevention and treatment at the individual as well as at the community level. Some topics to be discussed are Flu, Diabetes, Disabilities, Coronavirus, Alcohol, Sexually transmitted diseases, Cancer, etc. We will also have an overview of the Public Health Systems in some Latin American countries.
Prerequisite: Intermediate I or equivalent, or permission by the instructor.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Mutual exclusion: SPAN 202, SPAN 2202
SPAN 2001 Adv Span: Transatlantic I 0-3 Credits
The sequence of SFS advanced Spanish courses (101,102) and their intensive equivalent (110) are content-based language courses, meaning that language learning and intellectual growth go hand in hand. The sequence of courses is built around four themes, namely ‘The Construction of a Modern Society’, ‘Race and Gender’, ‘Identity’ and ‘Going Global: Transnational Units and Migration’; it provides the student with the tools to critically approach the cultures of the Spanish-speaking regions on both sides of the Atlantic. These are learner-centered courses where students build both their knowledge of subject matter and their language proficiency through oral and written discussions of primary sources, including but not limited to accounts of historical memory, journal articles, reports from international organizations, photography and film. The course further advances language proficiency in all four skills: speaking, listening, writing, and reading in a range of genres and styles, including description, argumentation and narration. Grammar and lexicon presented in these courses are chosen to facilitate discussions of the events and figures that shape these regions today. Special attention is placed on basic linguistic structures such as copula verbs and prepositions as well as advanced target forms such as past tense distinctions, relative clauses, and passive constructions. Assessment is continuous and includes debates, long and short presentations, short papers, short and long exams, and a learner’s portfolio. The courses follow a flipped classroom design and the student’s portfolio works as the link between out-of-classroom preparation for in-classroom active seminars.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Arab Studies, Arab Studies, Arab Studies, Arab Studies, Asian Studies, Asian Studies, Asian Studies, Asian Studies, Culture Politics, Culture Politics, Culture Politics, Culture Politics, Foreign Service, Foreign Service, Foreign Service, Foreign Service, German and European Studies, German and European Studies, German and European Studies, German and European Studies, Global Human Development, Global Human Development, Global Human Development, Global Human Development, International Economics, International Economics, International Economics, International Economics, International History, International History, International History, International History, International Affairs, International Affairs, International Affairs, International Affairs, Int'l Political Economy, Int'l Political Economy, Int'l Political Economy, Int'l Political Economy, International Politics, International Politics, International Politics, International Politics, Latin American Studies, Latin American Studies, Latin American Studies, Latin American Studies, Regional Comparative Studies, Regional Comparative Studies, Regional Comparative Studies, Regional Comparative Studies, Russian East European Stud, Russian East European Stud, Russian East European Stud, Russian East European Stud, Security Studies, Security Studies, Security Studies, Security Studies, Science, Tech, Int'l Affairs, Science, Tech, Int'l Affairs, Science, Tech, Int'l Affairs or Science, Tech, Int'l Affairs.
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 2002 Adv Span: Transatlantic II 3 Credits
The sequence of SFS advanced Spanish courses (101,102) and their intensive equivalent (110) are content-based language courses, meaning that language learning and intellectual growth go hand in hand. The sequence of courses is built around four themes, namely ‘The Construction of a Modern Society’, ‘Race and Gender’, ‘Identity’ and ‘Going Global: Transnational Units and Migration’; it provides the student with the tools to critically approach the cultures of the Spanish-speaking regions on both sides of the Atlantic. These are learner-centered courses where students build both their knowledge of subject matter and their language proficiency through oral and written discussions of primary sources, including but not limited to accounts of historical memory, journal articles, reports from international organizations, photography and film. The course further advances language proficiency in all four skills: speaking, listening, writing, and reading in a range of genres and styles, including description, argumentation and narration. Grammar and lexicon presented in these courses are chosen to facilitate discussions of the events and figures that shape these regions today. Special attention is placed on basic linguistic structures such as copula verbs and prepositions as well as advanced target forms such as past tense distinctions, relative clauses, and passive constructions. Assessment is continuous and includes debates, long and short presentations, short papers, short and long exams, and a learner’s portfolio. The courses follow a flipped classroom design and the student’s portfolio works as the link between out-of-classroom preparation for in-classroom active seminars.
Level: Graduate, Juris Doctor, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Mutual exclusion: SPAN 2011, SPAN 110
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Arab Studies, Arab Studies, Arab Studies, Arab Studies, Asian Studies, Asian Studies, Asian Studies, Asian Studies, Culture Politics, Culture Politics, Culture Politics, Culture Politics, Eurasian, Russian, E Euro Stud, Eurasian, Russian, E Euro Stud, Eurasian, Russian, E Euro Stud, Eurasian, Russian, E Euro Stud, Foreign Service, Foreign Service, Foreign Service, Foreign Service, Global Business, Global Business, Global Business, Global Business, German and European Studies, German and European Studies, German and European Studies, German and European Studies, Global Human Development, Global Human Development, Global Human Development, Global Human Development, International Economics, International Economics, International Economics, International Economics, International History, International History, International History, International History, International Affairs, International Affairs, International Affairs, International Affairs, Int'l Political Economy, Int'l Political Economy, Int'l Political Economy, Int'l Political Economy, International Politics, International Politics, International Politics, International Politics, Latin American Studies, Latin American Studies, Latin American Studies, Latin American Studies, Regional Comparative Studies, Regional Comparative Studies, Regional Comparative Studies, Regional Comparative Studies, Security Studies, Security Studies, Security Studies, Security Studies, Science, Tech, Int'l Affairs, Science, Tech, Int'l Affairs, Science, Tech, Int'l Affairs or Science, Tech, Int'l Affairs.
SPAN 2003 Advanced Spanish I 3 Credits
At this advanced level, students will review and expand the basic structures of Spanish with special emphasis on more difficult grammatical aspects, develop more formal vocabulary, and further improve both oral and written skills. Students will broaden their understanding of several aspects of Hispanic culture and literature via movies and written texts. Four key components that will assist students to attain these goals are grammar, vocabulary, language awareness, and practice/participation.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Mutual exclusion: SPAN 110, SPAN 2011
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
Enrollment limited to students in the College of Arts Sciences, McDonough School of Business or Sch. of Nursing Health Stud. colleges.
SPAN 2004 Advanced Spanish II 3 Credits
Students will continue to review and expand the basic structures of Spanish with special emphasis on more difficult grammatical aspects not covered in SPAN 103, develop more formal vocabulary, and further improve both oral and written skills. Students will broaden their understanding of several aspects of Hispanic culture and literature via movies and written texts. Four key components that will assist students to attain these goals are grammar, vocabulary, language awareness, and practice/participation.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Mutual exclusion: SPAN 110, SPAN 2011
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
Students in the School of Foreign Service college may not enroll.
SPAN 2011 Intensive Adv: Transatlantic 6 Credits
Prerequisite: SPAN 032 or SPAN 022. Equivalent to [101+102] or [103+104].
SPAN 110 is a content-based language course, meaning that language learning and intellectual growth go hand in hand. The course is built around four themes, namely ‘The Construction of a Modern Society’, ‘Race and Gender’, ‘Identity’ and ‘Going Global: Transnational Units and Migration’. It provides the student with the tools to critically approach the cultures of the Spanish-speaking regions on both sides of the Atlantic; i.e., Spain, Latin America, and US Latino. These are learner-centered courses where students build both their knowledge of subject matter and their language proficiency through oral and written discussions of primary sources, including but not limited to accounts of historical memory, journal articles, reports from international organizations, photography and film. The course further advances language proficiency in all four skills: speaking, listening, writing, and reading in a range of genres and styles, including description, argumentation and narration. Grammar and lexicon presented in these courses are chosen to facilitate discussions of the events and figures that shape these regions today. Special attention is placed on basic linguistic structures such as copula verbs and prepositions as well as advanced target forms such uses of preterit and imperfect for narration purposes, past subjunctive, adverbial and conditional clauses, and comparative constructions. Assessment is continuous and includes debates, long and short presentations, short papers, short and long exams, and a learner’s portfolio. The course follows a flipped classroom design and the student’s portfolio works as the link between out-of-classroom preparation for in-classroom active seminars. Like Intensive Basic and Intermediate courses, Intensive Advanced is recommended for motivated students who want to learn fast to matriculate in a Spanish-Speaking institution, for those considering a Spanish major or minor, SFS students preparing for the Oral Proficiency Exam, and for International Business students. This is an ideal course for those students who simply love the language and the cultures who speak it and want daily contact with them.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 2012 Intensive Advanced Spanish I 5 Credits
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 2013 Intensive Advanced Spanish II 5 Credits
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 2105 Adv Spanish:Heritage Speakers 3 Credits
SPAN-199 is the first part of the SPAN-199/SPAN-204 two-semester course designed for students who have learned Spanish at home or in informal contexts, and have completed high school or formal education in English . The main goal for this course is the development of the student's bilingual range to achieve communicative, linguistic and sociolinguistic competence in speaking, listening, reading and writing academic Spanish. Special emphasis will be given to the development of writing skills appropriate for academic and professional situations. A multi-faceted approach to the language will help the student gain a solid grasp of the Spanish language and all of its varieties and awareness of the diversity of the Hispanic communities both here in the US as well as in the Spanish-speaking world. Students may complete both or only one course.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 2126 MULTI Intermed II and Advanced 3 Credits
This language course is designed for students with intermediate or advanced knowledge to enhance Spanish skills in the areas of oral comprehension, reading, writing and speaking within the pre-professional contexts they plan to pursue beyond college. This course will use a combination of classroom, cultural and experiential learning opportunities in DC (such as excursions to restaurants, theaters, embassies etc.) to improve students’ accuracy and effective communication in Spanish through exposure to daily, practical situations. This course will also allow students to develop Spanish-language practice with emphasis on their proposed professions which will include, but not be limited to, fields such as public policy, government, law, economics and international affairs. The primary components of the course will be vocabulary, language awareness and student participation, along with the incorporation of film, music and cultural studies. Following this semester-long course, should students wish to continue Spanish study on the Main Campus, a placement test will be required to determine level.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment limited to students with the Capitol Applied Learning Lab attribute.
SPAN 2151 Grammar Review 3 Credits
The purpose of this course is to reinforce and improve the skills stressed in the Basic Advanced language sequence. It is designed for SFS students who need additional practice in preparation for the Oral Proficiency Test, and for students who wish to reinforce their skills and and increase their vocabulary before moving onto Spanish linguistics and literature courses. Heritage language learners interested in exposure to formal approaches to Spanish would also find this course beneficial.
The course consists of oral presentations, discussions, compositions and readings as well as a review of the most important grammatical concepts required to communicate successfully. There is no textbook required for this course.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 2161 Transatlantic Visions Capstone 3 Credits
This course develops speaking and listening skills through discussion of the interdisciplinary study of Hispanic cultures and civilizations as manifested through historical, literary, and everyday discourses of culture (film, television, journalism). The course addresses key changes occurred during the 20th century in Spain, Latin America, and the U.S., and it is designed for students who have a fair command of Spanish grammar and have completed advanced 2. The overall goals are to achieve greater fluency in a variety of contexts and to learn to express oneself with greater ease and accuracy. Consistent oral participation in the course is essential. The course will round out the linguistic and thematic preparation needed to take the SFS Oral Proficiency Exam in Spanish. Open to SFS students, others require instructor's permission.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Arab Studies, Arab Studies, Arab Studies, Arab Studies, Asian Studies, Asian Studies, Asian Studies, Asian Studies, Culture Politics, Culture Politics, Culture Politics, Culture Politics, Eurasian, Russian, E Euro Stud, Eurasian, Russian, E Euro Stud, Eurasian, Russian, E Euro Stud, Eurasian, Russian, E Euro Stud, Foreign Service, Foreign Service, Foreign Service, Foreign Service, Global Business, Global Business, Global Business, Global Business, German and European Studies, German and European Studies, German and European Studies, German and European Studies, Global Human Development, Global Human Development, Global Human Development, Global Human Development, International Economics, International Economics, International Economics, International Economics, International History, International History, International History, International History, International Affairs, International Affairs, International Affairs, International Affairs, Int'l Political Economy, Int'l Political Economy, Int'l Political Economy, Int'l Political Economy, International Politics, International Politics, International Politics, International Politics, Latin American Studies, Latin American Studies, Latin American Studies, Latin American Studies, Regional Comparative Studies, Regional Comparative Studies, Regional Comparative Studies, Regional Comparative Studies, Security Studies, Security Studies, Security Studies, Security Studies, Science, Tech, Int'l Affairs, Science, Tech, Int'l Affairs, Science, Tech, Int'l Affairs or Science, Tech, Int'l Affairs.
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 2202 Adv Span Health Sciences 3 Credits
SPAN 2002, 2004, or 2011 with a grade of B+ or higher, or approval by Dr. Cornejo. This course aims to give students of Spanish a solid foundation in medical-related vocabulary, basic medical and cultural concepts, and intensive situational practice that will prepare them to function competently in the Spanish-speaking medical field today. No previous knowledge of medicine is required.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 2203 Adv Spanish:Heritage Speakers 3 Credits
SPAN 203: SPANISH FOR HERITAGE SPEAKERS OF SPANISH I This 2-semester* course (SPAN 203-204) has been designed for heritage speakers of Spanish, that is, for students who have learned Spanish at home or in informal contexts, and who have completed high school or formal education in English (or other language). The main goal for this course is the development of the student's bilingual range to achieve communicative, linguistic and sociolinguistic competence in speaking, listening, reading and writing academic Spanish. Special emphasis will be given to the development of writing skills appropriate for academic and professional situations. A multi-faceted approach to the language will help the student gain a solid grasp of the Spanish language and all of its varieties and awareness of the diversity of the Hispanic communities both here in the US as well as in the Spanish-speaking world. *Students may complete both or only one course.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 2204 Adv Span:Heritage Speakers II 3 Credits
This course is a continuation of SPAN 203*, designed for heritage speakers of Spanish, that is, for students who have learned Spanish at home or in informal contexts, and who have completed high school or formal education in English (or other language). The goal for this course is to continue the development of the student's bilingual range to achieve communicative, linguistic and sociolinguistic competence in speaking, listening, reading and writing Spanish. Special emphasis will be given to complex grammar, appropriate vocabulary for formal registers, and academic writing. Students’ work involves reading, composing, writing and proof reading different type of essays on topics related to students’ cultural background, the Spanish speaking world, and Spanish for academic proposes. A multi-faceted approach to the language will help the student gain a solid grasp of the Spanish language and all of its varieties and awareness of the diversity of the Hispanic communities both here in the US as well as in the Spanish-speaking world.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Mutual exclusion: SPAN 384, SPAN 4184
SPAN 2205 Topics: 3 Credits
This course focuses on the presence of Spanish and its speakers in what currently constitutes the United States of America. It presents and discusses issues related to historical, sociopolitical and linguistic aspects of the use of Spanish in the US, and their impact on the individual and the American society. The course introduces concepts revolving around language ideologies, attitudes and identities; language use; language contact; bilingualism and code-switching; heritage speakers; and language shift and maintenance. It focuses on the Latinx communities of the US from the point of view of dialectal and sociolectal distribution while critically reflecting on topics like European settlement, migration, and other relevant, current social issues affecting US-based Spanish-speaking individuals. Furthermore, the course will examine the role of Spanish in education, as well as the future of Spanish in the US.
Level: Undergraduate
Course attribute:
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 2209 Advanced Spanish for Business 3 Credits
SPANISH 209: ADVANCED SPANISH FOR BUSINESS This course aims to give the advanced students of Spanish a solid foundation in business vocabulary, basic business and cultural concepts, and intensive situational practice that will prepare them to function competently in today's Spanish-speaking business environment. No previous knowledge of business is required. This course serves as preparatory course to obtain the Cámara de Comercio de Madrid´s Certificado Básico de Español de los Negocios and for the Instituto Cervantes´s Diploma de Español Lengua Extranjera (DELE) level B2. Prerequisites: (i) Advanced Spanish II with a minimum grade of B+ or Instructor's Permission (ii) Highly Recommended: B-1 level following the Common European Framework of Reference for Foreign Languages (CEFR). 1
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 2800 Other Spains 3 Credits
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3000 Gateway to Culture 3 Credits
Prerequisite: SPAN 102, SPAN 104, SPAN 110, or placement exam. This is a course designed to prepare the student, through a process of production, correction, and revision, for upper level courses that require appropriate academic writing skills. The topics covered vary each semester. A: an overview of the modern history, society, and culture of Spain. Topics include the development of a national identity and its shortcomings, the transition between dictatorship and democracy, social and family structures, the political system, Spain in the European Union, the situation of women, visual arts and media. B: An overview of Latin American history and contemporary culture. Topics of discussion include race and identity, evolving family structures, women and society, religion, education, politics and current events.
Level: Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Equivalent to SPAN 200
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 3174 Culture of Post Dictatorship 3 Credits
This course will examine literature and film addressing the legacy of the last South American military dictatorships, especially focusing on Argentina (1976-1983) and Chile (1973-1990). In addition to reading and listening to the victims’ testimonies, we will learn about the memory battles still afflicting the region through the work of second and third-generation writers and filmmakers. The course will chart the emergence of new narratives referred to as “the literature of the children,” written by the generation who grew up during the height of these dictatorial regimes. Students will interrogate important concepts of post-dictatorship cultural production, such as postmemory and transitional justice. Our inquiries will take us to the Trial of the Juntas in Argentina and the problematic democratic transition in Chile, culminating in discussions about neoliberalism as a political and socioeconomic order. During the semester, we will pay close attention to the issue of form, asking how works that mix literature and art, or films that combine documentary and drama, lay bare the difficulties of representing violent political crimes such as torture and disappearance.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3192 Teaching Spanish 3 Credits
If you are considering Teach for America, teaching Spanish in a private school, or working in a bilingual school, Teaching Spanish is the course for you. The course is divided into two parts, one devoted to the fundamental concepts of second language learning and teaching and a second that applies these concepts to the teaching of L2 reading, listening, speaking, and writing, as well as to testing. Topics include an introduction to cognitive theories of language learning; a brief history of teaching approaches, methods, and related techniques; and principles of communicative language teaching and task-based language instruction. We will devote special attention to the role of explicit instruction and input in language development; classroom interaction; and materials preparation. New this year, the course incorporates units on Critical Language Teaching and devotes extra attention to heritage language learners and situating language learning and teaching in the broader social context. Students will be assessed through participation in a blog, presentations, reports of classroom observations, and the development of teaching and assessment materials. The course is designed to assume the students’ active participation.
The course fulfills one of the linguistics requirements for the Spanish major, the College social science requirement, and counts towards the minor in education.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3210 Intro to Span Linguistics 3 Credits
What do speakers of Spanish know, on a largely unconscious level, when they speak Spanish? This course offers an introduction to linguistics based on data from Spanish. We study the sound system of Spanish, the structure of its words, and how its sentences are formed and interpreted. We also consider how Spanish has changed over time and how it differs depending on where it is spoken.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 3237 Cultural Hist Span Painting 3 Credits
In this course, we will study works by the most famous painters in the history of Spanish art: El Greco, Velázquez, Goya, Picasso, Dalí, Miró, among others, as well as contemporary painters such as López García and Barceló. But our objective will be to go beyond knowledge of the peculiarities or style of each artist. We will seek to relate the images represented in the paintings to Spanish culture of the various periods, identify their prevailing values and ideas, and discover what the painters have to teach us about Spain and its contributions to Western civilization.
No previous study of art history required.
Level: Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3240 Creative Writing 3 Credits
This course, meant for Spanish speakers or students with an almost native language level, will focus on short story fiction writing. The class has three parts: an exploration of all the different elements of short story writing, technical writing exercises to increase the understanding of short story writing, and workshops devoted to students' original short stories. By the end of the course each student will have at least one finished short story.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3241 SPAIN: Lit Culture I 3 Credits
Spanish 241 is an introduction to Spanish literature from the twelfth through the seventeenth centuries and an introduction to the study of pre-modern literatures and cultures.
Level: Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 3242 SPAIN: Lit Culture II 3 Credits
This class will cover texts that are considered Spanish “classics” written from the 18th century to the 20th century, along with some 21st-century texts. The main aim of the course is to read and discuss these texts, bearing in mind the question posed by Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset: “Can we live today based on the legacy of our classics?” In this regard, the course seeks to make the modern literature of Spain relevant to students’ lives. Because literature is generated in “cultural periods,” and produced in different genres, we will cover poetry, drama, novels, and essays associated with the Enlightenment, Romanticism, Realism, the Avant-Garde, and the Post-Modern period. By the end of the class, students will be more skilled readers of literature and capable of producing insightful interpretations, not only of the selected texts, but of literature in general. Students will be expected to make class presentations, write a mid-term paper and a final paper.
Level: Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 3246 Catalan Culture/Society 3 Credits
This course examines the representation of Catalan society in politics, visual arts, music, and folklore. By exploring a series of cultural movements and manifestations (e.g., Catalan modernism and surrealism, rumba and havaneres), the course studies how the history, politics, and traditions of the Catalan-speaking regions interweave the current political events (the pro-independence movement and the language policy) and the construction of culture. We will explore contemporary realities, such as colonization, gentrification, race and queer representations, migration, and national identity before and after Franco’s dictatorship in Catalonia. Readings are in Spanish and English; films are in Spanish or/and Catalan with Spanish subtitles. This class will be conducted in Spanish.
Level: Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3247 Spanish Short Story 3 Credits
This course studies the short story in modern Spain, including works by authors writing from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds within the country. In addition to examining narrative strategies through close readings of the texts, we will consider how literature negotiates what it means to be “Spanish” in different historical periods and geographical regions. All work will be in Spanish.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3261 LAT AMER: Lit Culture I 3 Credits
This course will focus on the origins of Latin American culture by exploring primary sources from the periods of European contact, conquest and colonization. We will concentrate on the writings of Spanish and indigenous authors who helped to shape colonial and post-colonial societies, examining everything from histories, autobiographies, and chronicles to epic poems, plays, drawings, and even opera. Classroom time will focus on the analysis and discussion of these materials. In our discussions, we will consider the similarities and differences between Spanish and indigenous accounts of pre-Hispanic empires and their conquests by Spain. We will also explore how and why both Spanish and indigenous writers invoke, adapt, and critique the traditions of Greece, Rome, and early Christianity. What do they gain—and what do they risk—in making these comparisons? Finally, we will draw parallels between the history of Latin America and the present, focusing on how these important writings and indigenous traditions continue to shape Latin American culture and society.
Level: Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 3262 LAT AMER: Lit Culture II 3 Credits
In this course we will read texts by many of the best-known Latin American authors, starting with late 19th century (Martí, Darío, Agustini) to the present day. Our aim will be to read and appreciate literature and to learn about the ethnic, racial, and cultural heterogeneity of Latin America. Some of the topics covered will be: the Spanish-American War of 1898, the vanguards, relations between literature and visual arts, sociocultural movements such as indigenism, negrismo, the question of women as writers and cultural actors, and the Latino presence in the US.
Requirements: midterm and final exams, short papers, frequent writings on BB.
Level: Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 3265 Intro to Anthro (in Spanish) 3 Credits
This course introduces students to the contemporary practice of Cultural Anthropology, focusing on scholarship produced on and in Latin America. The students will address Cultural Anthropology as an analytical framework to examine assumptions about culture and identity, differences and similarities, change and tradition. They will explore common ways in which anthropologists carry out Ethnography and field work in contemporary contexts of globalization, trans-nationality of power, local agencies, violence and conflict, and persistent social injustice and inequality.
Based on this framework, the course will provide students with the tools to analyze the tensions between nation-state and cultural, ethnic and racial diversity in Latin America by reading renowned anthropologist as Garcia Canclini, intellectuals working on the convergence between Anthropology and critical theory as Victor Vich, and native intellectuals working in collaboration with anthropologist as in the case of the works of The Guambiano History Committee. The course will be taught in Spanish with some readings in English.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3266 Latin Amer Contemp Short Story 3 Credits
A survey of Spanish American short fiction by male and female writers from the 1940s through the 2000s. The course focuses on the development of different literary strategies and their relation to specific historical, political, and social contexts. It also explores the dialogue or struggle with a dominant male tradition of writing through which women authors have shaped their particular literary and social concerns. Among writers to be studied are Borges, Cortázar, Donoso, García Márquez; Bryce Echenique, Ferré, Garro, Peri Rossi, and Valenzuela.
Level: Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3267 Lit Society in Lat Amer 3 Credits
This course addresses the cultural politics of Latin America, taking a deep dive into some of the biggest social issues of the contemporary period. Possible approaches may include queer theory, gender studies, ecocriticism, critical race theory, Marxisms, indigenism, national identities and globalization. The course will vary from semester to semester, foregrounding one or several of these subjects. Students will engage with literature, film, visual arts, and other cultural productions that reflect modern developments in one or more Latin American societies.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 3268 Latin American Film 3 Credits
This course provides an overview of the significant National Cinemas of Spanish American countries in the hemisphere, including Brazil. Within the overarching framework of society and culture, specific topics such as representation, adaptation, ideological constructs, docudrama and cinematographic techniques as markers of meaning serve to sharpen the close-film analysis as well as a micro/macro-examination of contemporary Latin America, Mexico and Cuba.
Level: Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3269 Symp: Spanish 3 or 6 Credits
This course will examine poetry from late 19th century to the present day in Latin America. Starting with Jose Marti and Ruben Dario, we will examine the personal, artistic, social, and political factors that influenced poets. Some of the poets read include: Marti, Dario, Agustini, Huidobro, Girondo, Neruda, Vallejo, Storni, Mistral, Paz, and a selection of contemporary poets.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3270 Latin Amer Women Writers 3 Credits
En este curso se estudiará la literatura latinoamericana escrita por mujeres a través de la lectura analítica y la discusión crítica de varios textos (narrativa, poesía, ensayos), a partir de un enfoque en la auto-representación de la mujer. Se reflexionará sobre temas como la sexualidad, la identidad, la construcción cultural de género, la supervivencia en una sociedad patriarcal, entre otros. Se estudiará a una variedad de autoras representativas de distintos países para establecer los puntos de contacto entre los textos producidos por escritoras mujeres y su contexto histórico, político y social, que llevará a reflexionar, a su vez, sobre cuestiones de raza, clase, nacionalidad y etnicidad.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3273 Peoples/Cultures of Lat Amer 3 Credits
This course analyzes different aspects of Latin American peoples and
their culture since colonial times to present day in order to
understand the variety and complexity that has forged the cultural
dimension of the region. We will also tackle aspects related to
ethnicity and cultural conflict and will try to explore how these
different aspects have defined todays Latin American societies.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3275 Ecuador:Cult/Hist/Politics 1 Credit
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3277 Migrat Mobil: Global Hispano 3 Credits
This course considers film, literature, performance, music, and visual culture from across the Spanish-speaking world that treat questions of migration and human mobility. Taking a comparative and transdisciplinary approach, students will be invited to consider how these creative works establish points of divergence and continuity relative to the following guiding questions: What does it mean to migrate, to be the child of migrants, or to form part of a given diaspora? How might we define the supposed ‘migrant subject’? What forms of mobility and immobility, broadly defined, accompany distinct experiences of migration, broadly defined? What is the role of cultural production and specific creative forms—film, literature, performance, etc. —in articulating, and even theorizing, the ‘answers’ to any one of these questions? Students can expect to encounter materials from Latin America, Spain, the United States, and Spanish-speaking Africa and Asia.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3278 Literature Culture of Andes 3 Credits
This course introduces students to twentieth- and twenty-first-century Andean literature, film, and cultural production, with an emphasis on questions of indigeneity, migration, and place-based identities. Course materials move across the highlands of Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru in the form of novels, short stories, poetry, film, rap, photography, architecture, and visual art. Central to our in-class discussions will be the following question: What does it mean to be “Andean”? How does Andean cultural production uphold, construct, and/or deconstruct notions of “Andeanness”? How do questions of indigeneity, migration, and geographic situatedness inform renderings of the Andes, past and present? How might cultural production support or contest a sense of regional, trans-Andean identity? Students will also participate in various Quechua-language workshops aimed at exposing them to the Andes’s most widely spoken Indigenous language.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3279 Indigenous Literatures-LATAM 3 Credits
This course introduces students to twentieth- and twenty-first-century Indigenous literatures from across Latin America. Over the course of the semester, we will engage with a variety of primary and secondary materials that prompt us to consider the following questions: What is ‘Indigenous literature’? What does it mean to write as an ‘Indigenous author’? How might Indigenous authors engage literature to contest stereotyped notions of indigeneity and Indigenous authorship? What ideological and political projects do these literatures put forth? How do Indigenous authors engage various literary forms and genres to develop these projects? Given the wide range of materials with which we will engage, our work will be highly comparative, with students asked to make connections and identify tensions across and between literary works and the national contexts within which they were produced.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3280 Other Spains 3 Credits
Other Spains. Reading/Watching Spanish National Identity from the Margins The end of the Franco dictatorship (1975), and the new democracy in Spain open the door to the expression of perspectives and voices on the cultural scene, that were traditionally pushed to the margins. In this course we will study those expressions that were considered ‘Other’ and that now provide a complex picture of what constitutes Spanish identity in the 21 st Century. Through the analysis of different materials (literature, film, comic books, plastic art) we will explore how these groups (Roma, immigrants, racialized communities) have constructed and negotiated their position within the dominant discourse. This course aims to widen the understanding of Spain as a diverse, multifaceted space in construction in which national identity is being questioned. Despite far from this being a balanced dialogue, there is a polyphonic conversation on the Spanish culture scene, and students will be exposed to them. Learning Goals Improve students’ academic oral and written skills in Spanish Develop a critical look when approaching cultural products, texts, etc. Cultivate analytical skills Give students an understanding of Spain as a heterogenous nation Foster an interest in underrepresented voices and perspectives Promote diversity
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3282 Gender SexualityResist LatAm 3 Credits
Gender, Sexuality, and Resistance in Latin America
This course considers Latin American literature, film, art, performance, and protest that address questions of gender and sexuality. Over the course of the semester, we will study how creators from across the hemisphere engage literature and the arts as a means of deconstructing, contesting, and reframing dominant narratives and discourses surrounding gender and sexuality. We will also pay close attention to how these same creators engage with and respond to their respective socio-political contexts, particularly as it relates to legislative matters that uniquely impact women and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. Possible topics of discussion include but are not limited to: Latin American feminisms and feminist traditions, critical masculinities, intersectionality and intersectional feminisms, gender-based violence, forced sterilization and obstetric violence, femicide, LGBTQIA+ rights movements, and gender-based discrimination and inequities.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3285 Food Culture: Lat Amer/Intrm 3 Credits
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3286 Rep. Empire in Atlantic World 3 Credits
In this course, we will explore the cultural production of the Atlantic as an imagined and material space throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries. We will also consider how that production has reverberated in the last few decades in discussions of historical memory and national identity. Comparing the seafaring adventure tales that produced a Romantic image of swashbuckling pirates and sailors for European and elite criollo audiences in the Americas to narratives produced by enslaved people and cimarrones, among other topics, we will explore the geographical and political tensions that arise out of the stories people tell of themselves and their communities. The primary historical focus will be on the late colonial relationship between Spain and Cuba, but we will also consider the long relationship between the Spanish and British empires more broadly, as well as the cross-cultural anti-slavery movements that grew up alongside them. Readings and films will be in Spanish and English. All discussion and writing will be in Spanish.
Level: Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3287 Patagonia: Culture 3 Credits
Full title: Patagonia: Culture at the End of the World
In this course, “Patagonia: Culture at the End of the World,” we will study the history of the region comprising southern Argentina and Chile as well as the Mapuche Indigenous territory known as Wallmapu. Our readings will range from Charles Darwin’s Journal of the Beagle Expedition to the scientific work of nineteenth-century explorers and naturalists, short stories about the Selk’nam Indigenous (canoeing) peoples, and films about the Indigenous genocide on both sides of the Andes. Throughout the semester, we will ask how and why this region, often called “the southernmost tip of the world,” occupies a central part in the history of life on Earth. We will study Patagonia as the site of prehistoric extinctions, the home of escaped Nazi criminals, and the space of European exploration and Indigenous resistance. We will follow characters and historical figures such as British naturalists, Galician anarchists, Romanian gold miners, Russian revolutionaries, Scottish Indian hunters, and Indigenous storytellers who store the memory of disappearing languages and natures.
Level: Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3288 Nature/Culture in LA Interm 3 Credits
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3289 Extractivism in LATAM Culture 3 Credits
This course will study cultural production that depicts how multinational corporations have exploited workers and landscapes across Latin America. We will read novels, short stories, and poems about mining, oil extraction, and the plantation economy (bananas, coffee, sugar, yerba mate) from the early twentieth century to the present. Some of the historical events we will cover include the rubber boom in the Amazon rainforest, the various massacres of workers from the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita Brands International), and mining tragedies in Chile and Peru. Throughout the course, we will explore how the myth of El Dorado – the promise of an Amazonian city of gold – shaped the modern idea of Latin America as an exporter of raw materials and how this fantasy of endless wealth continues to underpin extractivism in our era of human-induced climate change. Finally, we will examine post-extractive imaginaries through the work of Indigenous cultural producers who conceive other ways of relating with the land via practices such as degrowth and communitarian living.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3292 Book of Good Love/Intro MVST 3 Credits
Phonetics is the systematic study of the speech sounds that occur in human language. This course offers a comprehensive introduction to the fundamental principles of phonetic analysis, with attention to how Spanish sounds are produced, the patterns into which they fall, and the changes they undergo in different environments. Throughout the course, contrasts between the Spanish and English sound systems will be pointed out in order to make students aware of differences and help them improve their own pronunciation. The course will conclude with an introduction to Spanish suprasegmentals (syllable, stress, and intonation) and to major differences between Peninsular and American dialects.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3294 Race, Gender, Ethncity in LA 3 Credits
This class will focus on the manner in which the concept of racial mixing, or 'mezcla racial', played a fundamental role during the nation-building process in Latin America during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as it reduced groups of people- blacks and indigenous among others- to one single group, thus ignoring racial diversity. Thereafter we will analyze how this idea was contested by contemporary voices whose narratives acknowledged greater racial difference and subjectivity. Throughout the semester we will have the opportunity to discuss a diverse selection of texts, including novels, essays, and anthropological works, in addition to movies and music. This class will be taught in Spanish.
Level: Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3296 Caribbean Culture 3 Credits
This course will examine different aspects of contemporary Caribbean culture through the lens of Cuba. We will analyze a wide selection of texts from literary, cinematic, musical, and media sources to explore questions of identity and transnationalism.
Race, class and gender construction will form central elements of the course. We will examine testimonies such as Biografía de un cimarrón, films like Habana Blues (2005), and music by various generations of artists.
Students will be required to do the following: 1) a weekly blog, 2) 3 short essays (one on literature, one on film, and one on music or another genre, 3) an oral presentation.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3297 Sex Sexuality Cont Sp. Lit 3 Credits
One of the key aspects of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship was the expectation that men and women in Spain would conform to traditional gender roles. Women, for instance, were frequently reductively categorized as either pious mothers or sinful whores. After Franco’s death, then, sex became a primary way for Spanish citizens to experiment with freedom. Focusing primarily on literature and film produced after 1975, this course explores the relationship between sex, sexuality, and a changing society. We will consider not only the emphasis on these topics in women’s literature, but also the ways in which gay, lesbian, and transgendered representations, particularly in film, transgress the normative Spanish culture. We will ask questions like: What does it mean to “write the body” in contemporary Spanish literature? And how does our “reading” about bodies contrast with seeing them in film? We will study novels such as El mismo mar de todos los veranos (Esther Tusquets), Recóndita armonía (Marina Mayoral), and Julia (Ana María Moix); short stories by writers like Quim Monzó (Uf, dijo él); and films of the “Movida” movement in Madrid by Pedro Almodóvar (Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios and La Ley del Deseo), as well as the cult classic Arrebato by Iván Zulueta. All readings, written assignment, and discussion will be in Spanish.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3298 Lit,Film,Music Human Rights 3 Credits
In this course, students will analyze literature, music, film and other arts that represent human rights abuses in Latin America. Students will consider, therefore, the verbal, musical and visual imaging of various forms of human brutality, including torture, homicide, war, genocide, massacres, sexual violence, and corporal mutilation. Students will also examine canonical documents of human rights from the U.S. and French revolutions through today, plus critical and theoretical texts that conceptualize human rights per se. Different phases of the course will focus on Argentina, Chile, Colombia, indigenous societies in Latin America, and other hemispheric spaces. Students will also discuss Latin American intersections of the arts and human rights that are connected to institutions, ideas and individuals rooted in Washington, D.C. If students in the course would like to study additional arts involving human rights from a particular place in Latin America or about a particular Latin American topic, class space will be made available for those further foci and the syllabus will be amended accordingly during the semester.
This course will be taught at both the 3000 level and the 4000 level. Students who take it at the 3000 level will have shorter assignments than those who take it at the 4000 level.
In addition to undertaking conventional oral and written assignments, students will participate four times during the semester with an organization or group dedicated to human rights, and write informal reflection papers on how those experiences relate to course readings. Students will also visit three Washington museums dedicated to human rights.
By the end of the semester, students will have deepened their knowledge of Latin America and furthered their abilities to discuss and debate the principal questions of human rights as refracted through the arts.
This course will be taught in Spanish.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3299 Living Learning in Spanish 1 Credit
This course allows students who are part of the Spanish Learning Living Community to explore Latin American and Spanish culture away from classroom. The course will hosts speakers and faculty in the Spanish Floor and will engage students in cultural events both on and off campus. Students will post their experiences in the Spanish LLC blog and will develop a final project.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Pass/Fail Default
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 3310 Reparation in the Colony 3 Credits
This course will examine 16th-century legislative and grassroots efforts to force Spanish conquistadores and encomenderos to make restitution to Indigenous individuals and communities for the illegitimate theft of their lives, land, and labor. We will read laws and policy proposals, lawsuits, wills, complaints to the Crown, missionary manuals, and treatises on distributive justice in order to understand how these efforts arose and why they ultimately failed. In their final projects, students will trace connections between this 16th-century movement and contemporary legislative and grassroots movements for reparations for Black and Indigenous people across the Americas.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3312 Morphology:Latin to Mod Span 3 Credits
In this course we will explore the history of the Spanish language, from Classical Latin to modern Spanish. Our objectives will be:
(a) get a reading knowledge of basic Latin through fun and short mythology texts
(b) understand and explain the main sound changes from Latin to old Spanish
(c) explore how those changes affected the verbal system, thus explaining all the regularities as well as many of the irregularities of modern Spanish
(d) compare the evolution of Spanish with that of Portuguese, Italian or French (depending on what languages the students in the class know)
(e) work through some old Spanish texts and be able to explain the evolution of words from Latin and then to the modern form
(f) in order to improve the level of competence in Spanish, we will have intensive practice with tests from the Diploma de español lengua extranjera (DELE), getting ample practice in all four skills (reading, writing, understanding, speaking) in the language.
Level: Undergraduate
Prerequisites: (SPAN 210 or SPAN 3210)
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3314 Bilingualism: Mind and Context 3 Credits
The course covers external factors as they relate to bilingualism, including language policy and bilingual education as well as internal, cognitive factors and the relationship between both. Readings focus on individual and societal bilingualism in Latin America, Spain, and the US. The course fulfills one of the two linguistics requirements for the major and the College Social Science requirement. ***This course counts towards the Social Sciences requirement in the College.*** Course Goals: 1.Identify common patterns and differences among Spanish bilingual speech communities in the US, Latin America, and Spain. 2.Understand the external conditions, including language policy and bilingual education, that determine the development of individual bilingualism. 3.Understand the relationship between cognitive development and cognition and the individual’s ability to speak two languages. 4.Critical thinking, Research Methods: Develop students’ abilities to critically review the literature in the area, generate a hypothesis, and design an empirical study to test said hypothesis. 5.Language Skills: Develop students’ academic Spanish, both oral and written, with special attention to the development of descriptive and argumentative abilities and manuscript preparation following APA guidelines. Topics covered: Bilingualism in Latin America, Spain, and the US Language Policy: Language revival and reversal Bilingual education: Types & effectiveness (1) Bilingual Education, multiculturalism and antiracism Cognitive theories of bilingualism Individual variables: level of bilingualism, biliteracy, and aptitude The cognitive neuropsychology of bilingualism Multilingualism: Learning a third language and beyond Texts & Readings: Textbooks: Montrul, S. (2013). El bilingüismo en el mundo hispanohablante. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. A collection of book chapters and articles will be available in pdf format on Blackboard.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 3319 Spanish Phonetics 3 Credits
Phonetics is the systematic study of the speech sounds that occur in human language. This course offers a comprehensive introduction to the fundamental principles of phonetic analysis, with attention to how Spanish sounds are produced, the patterns into which they fall, and the changes they undergo in different environments. Throughout the course, contrasts between the Spanish and English sound systems will be pointed out in order to make students aware of differences and help them improve their own pronunciation. The course will conclude with an introduction to Spanish suprasegmentals (syllable, stress, and intonation) and to major differences between Peninsular and American dialects.
**This course counts toward the social science requirement as a linguistic course.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 3320 Advanced Spanish Pronunciation 3 Credits
This course is designed for learners of Spanish who want to develop a more natural, fluent accent. We will focus on different features of pronunciation that tend to be challenging for learners, such as prosody, vowel sounds, and certain consonant sounds (e.g., the Spanish rhotics /r/ and /rr/, approximant consonants /β/, /ð/, and /ɣ/). This class will center on real-life communication while also helping students develop the perceptive skills necessary to accurately produce the sounds of Spanish during spontaneous discourse. Students will also learn to use phonetic tools, like the International Phonetic Alphabet and acoustic analysis, to support self-evaluation and continued improvement beyond the classroom.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3330 Luso-Brazilian Cinema:Spanish 3 Credits
A survey of Brazilian Cinema with emphasis on cultural context and artistic expression of films studied. The course will begin with the innovative Cinema Novo period of the 1950s and end with the resurgence of Brazilian filmmaking in the 1990s. Topics include “Third World Cinema”, post-colonialism and expressions of national identity; representation, film adaptation, constructions of gender, concepts of good and evil, race, popular culture, as well as aesthetics and film structure and the role of the audience. Several feature-length films are studied in their entirety, with several additional films introduced and considered through clips. The course is conducted in Spanish.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3333 Research Practicum Span Ling 1-3 Credits
Provides students with an opportunity to engage deeply with a research project on Spanish Linguistics over the course of a semester. Students will choose one from among a list of available projects in progress and will work on it with a graduate student mentor throughout the semester on a weekly basis. The projects can be performed in the classroom, on computers, or in the field; topics will vary. Class meetings include presentations by students and by guest speakers, and additional training on research methods. The course can be taken for 1, 2, or 3 credits up to three times to a limit of 3 credits total.
Level: Undergraduate
Prerequisites: SPAN 3000 or SPAN 3120
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3335 Love,Madness Danger:Span Lit 3 Credits
Through film and works of different literary genres, this course will explore critical frontiers of the mind, the emotions, and culture. For instance, the boundaries between madness and sanity, and between and authenticity and performance will be studied through selected excerpts from Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quijote and Werner Herzog’s 2005 film Grizzly Man. Historical, cultural, and anthropological themes will be explored when we analyze the culture of the borderlands between the Christian and the Muslim worlds in medieval Spain. Other boundaries such as those between love/hate, jealousy/envy, reality/dreams, and male/female will also be studied.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3336 Modern Spain 3 Credits
In this course we will read a variety of historical, sociological, and literary texts covering the history and cultural manifestations of Spain during the 19th and 20th centuries. Considerable attention will also be paid to the visual arts--especially painting and film.
Level: Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 3338 The making of the Gypsy 3 Credits
Roma are the largest minority in Europe, with almost 12 million people who identify themselves with this ethnic group. Yet, very little is known about this diverse community, and the scarce knowledge is mediated by images and information that build on and perpetuate prejudices and stereotypes. In order to separate the pejorative portrait from the voices of the Roma, we will be using the term Gypsy to tackle the imagined figure, while we will employ Roma to refer to the real people with experiences and struggles.
This course will examine the construction of the Gypsy as the embodiment of the Other in different European cultural productions, but mainly focusing on Spain and Italy. Through the close reading and analysis of different texts (academic articles, theatre plays, films, poems, news) we will attempt to understand the creation and impact of the imaginary Gypsy, as the foundation of Antigypsyism. Simultaneously, we will explore the responses from the Roma community. Our perspective will not only observe Roma as objects of representation, but as authors, directors, and activists, as agents of change.
This course will examine the construction of the Gypsy as the embodiment of the Other in different European cultural productions, but mainly focusing on Spain and Italy. Through the close reading and analysis of different texts (academic articles, theatre plays, films, poems, news) we will attempt to understand the creation and impact of the imaginary Gypsy, as the foundation of Antigypsyism. Simultaneously, we will explore the responses from the Roma community. Our perspective will not only observe Roma as objects of representation, but as authors, directors, and activists, as agents of change.
Level: Undergraduate
Corequisites: SABR 0011
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3339 Religion/Pol/Ethics in Spain 3 Credits
From the coexistence of the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish religions in the Middle Ages, to the subsequent radical defense of Catholicism, to the contemporary trend toward secularization, the history of Spain is fraught with tensions among religion, politics, and ethics. Is freedom of thought possible in societies where religion permeates public life? Should the state suppress religious influence? Does this imply loss of moral values? These questions continue to create conflict among nations and cultures today. In this course, we will approach those issues through analysis and discussion of texts by the greatest Spanish thinkers.
Level: Undergraduate
Prerequisites: (SPAN 200 or SPAN 200X)
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3340 Creative Writing 3 Credits
This course, meant for Spanish speakers or students with an almost native language level, will focus on short story fiction writing. The class has three parts: an exploration of all the different elements of short story writing, technical writing exercises to increase the understanding of short story writing, and workshops devoted to students' original short stories. By the end of the course each student will have at least one finished short story.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 3341 Hispanic Cinema 3 Credits
This course examines how a number of important Spanish films since the 1940s to the present--from Raza (1941) to El laberinto del fauno (2006)—have dealt with issues of national identity. Against Raza’s background (the template for a Francoist kitsch that envisioned a new, fascist Spain emerging from the civil war), this course will focus on the various attempts by directors such as Nieves Conde, García Berlanga, Buñuel, Martin Patino, Erice, Almodóvar, De la Iglesia, and Del Toro, among others, to oppose this Francoist kitsch first embodied by Raza.
Level: Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Graduate level students may not enroll.
SPAN 3350 Oral Proficiency 3 Credits
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3360 US Latinx Hist, Lit Culture 3 Credits
This is an online course. The Spanish language and cultural content course provides students with the tools to critically approach the cultures of the Spanish-speaking regions from a transatlantic perspective. My U.S. Latinx literature course offers an introduction to major themes and debates shaping U.S. Latinx communities. We explore representations of identity and difference through literary theories and cultural studies approaches. We will draw knowledge from diverse cultural texts such as literature, popular music, folklore, journalism, media, visual culture, and performance arts. Students will develop cultural competency, as well as critical thinking skills, with the aim to establish connections between a student’s own culture and the Spanish speaking world. These courses may be offered entirely in English or Spanish.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3582 Food Culture: Hispanic World 3 Credits
Food and Culture in the Hispanic World (Undergraduate Research Course).
This undergraduate research course examines Latino foodscapes in Washington, D.C. as sites of cultural expression, identity, and community formation. Through a multidisciplinary approach, students explore narrative and visual representations of Hispanic culinary traditions alongside hands-on research in local communities. The course integrates literary and cultural analysis with qualitative research methods such as fieldwork, interviews, and archival inquiry. Conducted in Spanish using a Content and Language Integrated (CLI) methodology, students engage with authentic materials and complete a capstone research project focused on Latino food cultures in Washington, D.C. Topics include migration, sustainability, cultural heritage, and the social construction of taste.
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3941 Tutorial: Spanish 2 or 3 Credits
description pending
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 3942 Tutorial: Spanish 3 Credits
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4000 Senior Honors Thesis 3 Credits
This course is for undergraduate honors students writing Spanish Thesis. Students enrolled in this course meet during their senior spring semester to discuss the research they are conducting, to learn about the projects that other students are carrying out, and to share ideas and research techniques. Students work on set assignments that lead to the completion of their thesis (proposal, annotated bibliography, drafts, oral presentations etc.). Each stage of the thesis is to be prepared in consultation with and approval of the thesis advisor, presented in class, and submitted to the advisor and the professor of the pro-seminar.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4149 Women Writers 1400-1700 3 Credits
In this course, we will study women writers of memoir, lyric and mystical poetry, theological treatises, fiction, and drama in the Spanish-speaking world from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries. In this course, students will engage with the creative work of women whose voices were left out of the literary and historical canon until all too recently and the ethical stakes of canon formation is an issue that will undergird our readings. This course is transatlantic in its scope and will include authors from the Iberian Peninsula as well as from Colonial Latin America. Students will write short weekly ungraded response papers (500 words), lead class discussions, and develop an original research project about one author or genre and their historical, cultural, and literary contexts. The class will culminate in a group project: a dramatic reading of a play (or plays, depending on the size of the class) by Juana Inés de la Cruz. The dramatic readings will be open to the public and be of particular interest to Spanish, Spanish and Portuguese Studies, Global and Comparative Literature and Women’s and Gender Studies undergraduate majors, as well as to graduate students in the Spanish Literature and Cultural Studies doctoral program. (Taught in Spanish)
Level: Undergraduate
Course attribute: SFS/CULP Humanities
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4150 Spanish Women Writers 3 Credits
En este curso estudiaremos una serie de novelas y cuentos escritos por autoras españolas que reflejan los cambios radicales y rápidos de la política y la sociedad españolas a lo largo del siglo XX y en las primeras décadas del XXI. Nuestro trabajo se enfocará en cómo las autoras seleccionadas han representado la subjetividad y la experiencia del ser dentro de los contextos sociales e históricos que son el trasfondo de la producción literaria y también los contextos que las autoras mismas escogen para ambientar sus obras: el régimen autoritario de Franco (1939-1975), la transición a la democracia (1975-78), las últimas décadas del siglo XX, y el presente. Algunas de las obras estudiadas ya son canónicas, siendo o no populares en su día. Otras han tenido éxito en el mercado popular de los últimos años. Además, a través del estudio de textos en los cuales las experiencias vitales de mujeres llegan a ser productos del consumo, exploraremos las conexiones entre género literario y género sexual. Una serie de lecturas paralelas presentará el desarrollo de la crítica feminista, a la cual responden y contribuyen las autoras estudiadas.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4151 Graphic Novels of LATAM 3 Credits
This seminar will examine a series of graphic novels from various Latin American countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico, with an eye to comprehending how the combination of images and verbal texts inquire into social issues. Students must be able to understand spoken Spanish and read it, but non-Spanish majors will be permitted to speak and write in English. Open to undergraduate and master's students.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4154 LAT AMER: Cinematic Realism 3 Credits
The relationship between Latin American cultural production and its reality is one of the most emphasized aspects of any discipline that seeks to understand the region. That is also the case of Latin American cinema. This course will focus on cinematic realism in the region and aims to probe the issue of realism from the 1950s to the present. At the start, we will examine classic theoretical debates concerning realism (including naturalism and surrealism), and will proceed discussing the importance of the Neorealist and Cinéma verité aesthetics of the 1950s in “The New Latin American Cinema” in the 1950-70s (“Cinema Novo,” “Tercer cine,” “Cine imperfecto”), as well study Latin American documentaries and the return to the real or the hyperreal in contemporary cinematic production. Some questions that will guide this course are: What is the real? How do we experience the perceptual reality in film? What are the effects that realistic films have on the viewers? What are the issues of representation in cinematic realism? Realist theories will include writings of John Grierson, György Lukács, Siegfried Kracauer, Sergei M. Eisenstein Bertold Brecht, André Bazin, Fernando Birri, Glauber Rocha, Octavio Getino and Fernando Solanas, Julio García Espinoza, Jorge Sanjinés, among others. Typical films might include !Qué viva México! (Sergei Eisenstein, 1979, Los olvidados (Luis Buñuel, 1950), Araya (Margot Benacerraf, 1959) , Vidas sects (Nélson Pereira dos Santos, 1963), Deus e o diabo na terra do sol (Gláuber Rocha, 1964), La hora de los hornos (Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, Argentina, 1968), La batalla de Chile (Patricio Guzmán, Chile, 1975-79), Iracema (Jorge Bodanksy, 1974), Pixote (Héctor Babenco, 1981), Cidade de Deus (Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, 2000), Amores perros (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2000), Roma (Alfonso Cuarón, 2018), among others.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4155 Exploring the Borderlands 3 Credits
In this course, we will examine the concept of the “frontier” from a variety of perspectives —philosophical, psychological, historical, political, and anthropological. We will approach the frontier as a zone of interaction between peoples and cultures, as a geographical and poetic boundary, as a source of inspiration for national identities and institutions, and even as a zone of violence. We will address the following specific frontiers: literature and philosophy, madness and sanity, human and post-human, and the transatlantic frontier between Europe and the Americas. In addition, we will explore “frames” as a type of frontier that shapes the interpretation of what lies inside as well as of what remains outside. We will read literary texts from Spain and Latin America such as Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quijote de la Mancha (selected chapters from part I); Pedro Calderón de la Barca, La vida es sueño; Mariano José de Larra, Artículos de costumbres; José Ortega y Gasset, Meditación del marco; Xavier Rubert de Ventós, El laberinto de la Hispanidad; and Carlos Fuentes, La frontera de cristal. The class will include films such as The Mission (Roland Joffé, 1986), Lone Star (John Sayles, 1996) and Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog, 2005).
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4158 Food Culture: Lat Amer/Adv 3 Credits
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4160 Don Quijote 3 Credits
In this course we will study Don Quixote, one of the very first modern novels, in the artistic and historical contexts of early modern Spain including: imperialism, changing modes of spirituality, the expulsion of Jews and Moriscos, the rise of urban society, the expansion of print culture, and new genres of leisure reading. In addition, we will explore the ways in which Don Quixote has been used as a cultural touchstone up until present. In this light, we will also consider how a text becomes—and remains—a canonical masterpiece, and the role of such “masterworks” in cultural and historical memory. This course will be conducted in English; students may read Don Quixote in Spanish or in translation (in English) and students may write papers in Spanish or English.
This course counts toward the Spanish major and minor and meets the HALC requirement.
This course is open to undergraduates and graduate students.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4166 Latin American Theater 3 Credits
This course offers an overview of contemporary Spanish American theater from the 1930s until the present. Our focus will be on evolving societal concerns as depicted by Spanish America’s foremost playwrights. We will begin with El gesticulador, Rodolfo Usigli’s biting exposé of Mexican corruption in post-Revolutionary Mexico, a play considered so provocative that it was banned by the government. We will go on to examine other portrayals of Latin American society that highlight themes of continuing relevance: poverty, discrimination, violence, sexual inequality, and AIDs. René Marqués brings to the stage the plight of rural Puerto Ricans who migrate to seek a better life. Other plays reflect the social turmoil of mid-century, for example, José Triana’s dramatic fantasy on repression and rebellion and Egon Wolff’s depiction of the complacency of Chile’s upper middle class and its inevitable consequences. Manuel Puig sets his Beso de la mujer araña against the backdrop of military repression in Argentina, a theme also explored by Aída Bornik. Several plays deal with sexuality, homosexuality and changing roles of women (Puig, Chocrón, Bortnik, Ott, Berman). Jorge Díaz’s Cepillo de dientes explores problems of incommunication in societies dominated by technology. Mario Vargas Llosa examines the creative process in his portrayal of a young writer struggling to produce his first book, while Isaac Chocrón brings a Jewish perspective to his portrayal of a man coming to terms with AIDS, death and faith. Mario Bencastro’s play, La encrucijada, is a portrayal of modern existential crisis.
We will examine these plays not only as written texts, but as playable scripts, exploring possible implications for staging. Students will read articles on performance theory and spectator response theory. Whenever possible, we will watch live plays, videotaped performances, and film adaptations.
Each student will write six short essays and a term paper.
Readings:
1. Rodolfo Usigli (México) El gesticulador
2. René Marqués (Puerto Rico) La carreta
3. José Triana (Cuba) La noche de los asesinos
4. Egon Wolff (Chile) Los invasores
5. Jorge Díaz (Chile) El cepillo de dientes
6. Manuel Puig (Argentina) El beso de la mujer araña
7. Aída Bortnik (Argentina) Primaveras
8. Gustavo Ott (Venezuela) Divorciadas, evangélica y vegetarianas
9. Isaac Chocrón (Venezuela) Escrito y sellado
10. Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru) La señorita de Tacna
11. Sabina Berman (México) Entre Villa y una mujer desnuda
12. Mario Bencastro (El Salvador) La encrucijada
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4173 Peoples/Cultures of Lat Amer 3 Credits
This course analyzes different aspects of Latin American peoples and
their culture since colonial times to present day in order to
understand the variety and complexity that has forged the cultural
dimension of the region. We will also tackle aspects related to
ethnicity and cultural conflict and will try to explore how these
different aspects have defined todays Latin American societies.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4175 Lat Amer Historical Novel 3 Credits
The traditional Latinamerican historical novel dates from the nineteenth century, yet during the last third of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first centuries there has been a great production of novels whose subject matter is historical. These new historical novels revaluate not only the historical past but also propose a new historical construction, which enriches the interepretative posibilities of the Latin American reality. In this course we read and analyse eight novels that exemplify three moments of Latin Amerian history: 1. Discovery, conquest and colonization, 2. Independence and the formation of the nation, and 3. Twentieth century issues and problems.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4176 Modern Lat. Amer. Novel 3 Credits
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4179 Garcia Marquez and Bolano 3 Credits
This course will focus on two vast novels that are landmarks of modern Latin American literature, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez and 2666 by Roberto Bolaño. Short stories and other brief texts by and about the authors will also be considered. Students should arrive ready and willing to do a great deal of reading in Spanish. Active and regular participation in classroom discussions will also be expected. Writing assignments will include three papers of varying lengths. The course will be taught in Spanish.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4180 CBL: Spanish in the Community 4 Credits
This is a community-based learning (CBL) course conducted in Spanish that focuses on the dynamic interaction between language, society and identity among the Latinx communities in the U.S. This 4-credit course requires 20+ hours of community-based work with a local, community-based partner organization in addition to preparation for and attendance to two weekly class sessions. Community work contributes to course credit with the Registrar's Office, but students will schedule their own time with their partner organizations, according to their needs. Topics include: migration, labor and U.S. national identity; access to education; bilingualism, language ideologies, language contact and language shift in the United States.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4181 US Latino Lit 3 Credits
This course is a survey of Latino literature in English, Spanish, Spanglish, and other hybrid forms written primarily throughout the last century. Because Latino is a general term that refers to Latin Americans or descendents of Latin Americans living within the United States, we consider a heterogeneous range of works by artists who distinguish themselves as Chicanos, Dominican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Nuyoricans, or Cuban-Americans. We will pay close attention to aesthetic techniques that engage diverse identities grounded in the challenges of colonization, migration and “crossings,” labor practices, precarious juridical statuses, racialization, and the imposition of US hegemonic cultural, economic, and political models.
While primary texts include novels, short stories, essays, plays, and poetry by writers such as Luis Rafael Sánchez, Julia Álvarez, and Gloria Anzaldúa, we will also consider auditory, visual, and performance works by activists and artists, Yolanda López, Coco Fusco, and Guillermo Gómez Peña, among others. This course includes conversations with contemporary Latino writers as well as visits to performance venues in DC
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4183 Cont. Lat. Am. Novel 3 Credits
Contemporary Latin American Novels
Este curso explora una variedad de novelas latinoamericanas de los últimos 20 años, con el concepto de “novelas latinoamericanas” definido de manera amplia y globalizada. A lo largo del semestre los estudiantes van a desarrollar sus conocimientos de ficciones recientes mientras que exploran una gama de aproximaciones críticas y teóricas. También van a considerar cuestiones como los desafíos que se les presentan a novelistas contemporáneos que escriben después de los textos más influyentes del “Boom”; las posibilidades y los propósitos de periodizar el momento actual o cualquier momento por clasificaciones literarias; el papel del mercado internacional en la popularidad de ciertos autores y textos; y las construcciones de género y nación en novelas que buscan audiencias globalizadas. El curso tiene la forma de un seminario y por tanto es requisito que los estudiantes preparen las lecturas (y habrá muchísimas páginas que leer) con anticipación y que participen activamente en las conversaciones. El curso se enseña en español. Las novelas que se van a leer incluyen 2666 de Roberto Bolaño (más de 1100 páginas), Distancia de rescate de Samanta Schweblin, La albina del dinero de Trifonia Melibea Obono (una novela africana escrita en español), y Lost Children Archive de Valeria Luiselli.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4184 Adv Span:Heritage Speakers II 3 Credits
This course is a continuation of SPAN 203*, designed for heritage speakers of Spanish, that is, for students who have learned Spanish at home or in informal contexts, and who have completed high school or formal education in English (or other language). The goal for this course is to continue the development of the student's bilingual range to achieve communicative, linguistic and sociolinguistic competence in speaking, listening, reading and writing Spanish. Special emphasis will be given to complex grammar, appropriate vocabulary for formal registers, and academic writing. Students’ work involves reading, composing, writing and proof reading different type of essays on topics related to students’ cultural background, the Spanish speaking world, and Spanish for academic proposes. A multi-faceted approach to the language will help the student gain a solid grasp of the Spanish language and all of its varieties and awareness of the diversity of the Hispanic communities both here in the US as well as in the Spanish-speaking world. *Students may complete both or only one course. Prerequisites: Prerequisites: SPAN 203, or permission of instructor.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4185 Caribbean Lit, Film Music 3 Credits
Este curso se enfoca en la poesía, prosa, cine, música, artes visuales, y teatro del Caribe hispanófono. Los textos estudiados provienen de Cuba, la República Dominicana, Puerto Rico, y las costas continentales del Caribe. A lo largo del semestre se van a analizar los detalles y rasgos llamativos de cada texto en sí y cómo se tratan de cuestiones culturales más amplias y profundas. La mayoría de los textos son de los siglos XX y XXI pero no todos, puesto que un objetivo principal del curso es el ofrecerles a los estudiantes varias entradas posibles en el tiempo y el espacio al Caribe hispanófono. Por la misma razón se incluirán textos en inglés y Spanglish al lado de los en español. La meta general del curso es que los estudiantes desarrollen un conocimiento diverso de las expresiones artísticas caribeñas de tierras hispanohablantes y que mejoren sus destrezas críticas para poder discutirlas.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4186 Native Peoples of the Americas 3 Credits
How do ethnographers write about Native people in an era of indigenous organizing and the appearance of a layer of Native intellectuals who are themselves able to write ethnography? This course will look at the ethnography of the indigenous peoples of North America, Mesoamerica, and South America, paying special attention to how non-Native and Native scholars write about these populations. The course will also explore Native films and will involve visits to the National Museum of the American Indian, which has a series of permanent community-curated exhibits.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4187 Medieval Spanish Cinema 3 Credits
Since the very beginnings of film, the Middle Ages have been a setting for exploring many of the deep concerns of modernity. Nation, ethnicity, gender, spirituality, and the nature of historical truth are among such concerns that are put into play in representations of the so-called dark ages. This course will study how film (on big and small screens) is one of the primary ways in which we learn how to picture the past. However, it also studies how films set in the distant past are always the products of their own immediate sociopolitical contexts and reflect desires projected on to the past. The course focuses on twentieth and twenty-first century films made in and about Spain and the historical and literary documents from which they take inspiration. Through these films and readings, the class will explore the construction and remediation of key moments in Spain’s pre-modern history.
Medieval Cinema has emerged in recent years as a distinct field of inquiry. We will be focusing on Spain, but will consider medieval movies from other traditions as well. The methods and concepts you will learn can be applied to other periods and film industries.
Taught in Spanish
Film and Television:
El Cid (1961)
El libro de buen amor I (1974)
El libro de buen amor 2 (1976)
Celestina (1997)
Juana la Loca (2001)
El Cid, La leyenda (2006)
Isabel (2012)
El ministerio del tiempo (2015-16)
La reina de España (2016)
Required Texts (Do not get kindle editions, hardcopies are required in class)
1. The Poem of the Cid: Dual Language Edition, Penguin Books ISBN 978-0140444469
2. Rojas, Fernando de. Celestina. Madrid, Cátedra. 978-8437607009
3. Ruiz, Juan. Libro de buen amor. Madrid, Cátedra. 978-8437610115
All other readings will be provided.
Student Work:
· Weekly blog posts
· Midterm essay
· Oral Presentations
· Final Research Paper
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4188 Argentn:Immig/Mass Cult/Tango 3 Credits
El período 1880-1930 es uno de los más importantes de la historia argentina. La declaración de la ciudad de Buenos Aires como Capital Federal en 1880 culmina el proceso de organización nacional. En este año comienza un gran proceso inmigratorio que produce no sólo el crecimiento de esta ciudad sino también la creación de una numerosa clase media. En el año 1930 tiene lugar el fin de ese proceso como así también el primer golpe militar con el cual se abre un nuevo período. En este curso trazaremos, mediante la lectura de una serie de textos fundamentales, el proceso traumático de crecimiento y modernización que culminará, en el terreno cultural, con el triunfo del tango como música típica de la ciudad de Buenos Aires.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4190 The Boom and Beyond 3 Credits
One Hundred Years of Solitude is the most popular, famous, and influential novel of all time from Latin America. In this course students will have the opportunity to study it closely amid other fictions by the remarkable array of novel and short story writers who emerged in Latin America between the late 1950s and early 1970s. This phenomenon, known as the Boom, includes multiple winners of the Nobel Prize and changed the course of world literature. In addition to exploring the details of each featured text in depth, students will dissect related critical concepts such as “magical realism” and the idea of a “Boom” per se. Alongside literature from the Boom, students will also read and discuss other texts that emerged in and against its wake, including testimonial non-fiction, films, scholarly commentary, and literature from the so-called Post-Boom. Throughout the course, literary and filmic approaches to questions of national and regional identity, gender and sexuality, and various forms of human brutality, will be discussed. Literature to be read will include Aura by Carlos Fuentes, Cien años de soledad by Gabriel García Márquez, El beso de la mujer araña by Manuel Puig, Querido Diego, te abraza Quiela by Elena Poniatowska, ‘Si me permiten hablar…’ Testimonio de Domitila una mujer de las minas de Bolivia by Domitila Barrios de Chungara and Moema Viezzer, and Eva Luna by Isabel Allende. Films will include Big Fish, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Como agua para chocolate, and El laberinto del fauno. The general goal of the course is that students develop a diverse knowledge of the literary expressions of the Boom and its aftermath, and that they practice and improve their critical thinking skills while analyzing those texts. The course will be taught in Spanish and as a seminar in which high levels of student participation will be expected. Requirements include oral presentations, essays, and a love of great literature.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4191 Lit Culture: Mex. Border 3 Credits
The USA-Mexican border is often in the news because of its violence, the drug cartels and undocumented migration. This forges representations of conflict and distress in our imagery of the region. However, shaped by an energetic population and a dynamic economy, the border has its own cultural pace fed by genuine and unique projects. While analyzing the impact of the border upon fiction-writing, poetry and art, this course aims at rescuing the creativity and the innovative outlook that the region offers.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: SFS/CULP Humanities
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4193 Catalan Art History:Advanced 3 Credits
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4194 Race/Gender/Ethn in Lat Amer 3 Credits
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4195 Translation As A Way Out 3 Credits
This course aims to introduce students to the methodologies and techniques necessary to succeed in non-specialized translation. The course is essentially practical, although some theoretical contents necessary to succeed in translation are also introduced. The course focuses on a number of useful techniques ad resources that are considered as translation tools.
Throughout the semester we will look at translation from two different perspectives: both as a communication tool that allows societies to add new ideas to the collective imaginary, and as a tool that minoritized cultures rely on to gain visibility and to disseminate their cultural products, thus the title of the course, Translation as a Way out.
This course is taught in Spanish and satisfies the HALC and Diversity-Domestic requirements. It has the HALC, Humanities: Arts, Literatures, and Cultures attribute.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4196 CBL Language, Race, Nation 4 Credits
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4197 Race Ethnicity in Latin Amer 3 Credits
This course will explore the ways that “race” and ethnicity are expressed and contested socially and politically in contemporary Latin America, focusing on: the nature of race in various Latin American settings, the participation of ethnic minorities in the regional and national arenas, and the various discourses that they employ in their dialogue with the dominant society. The course will move across various disciplines, including especially anthropology and history. Taught entirely in English.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4198 Lit,Film,Music Human Rights 3 Credits
In this course, students will analyze literature, music, film and other arts that represent human rights abuses in Latin America. Students will consider, therefore, the verbal, musical and visual imaging of various forms of human brutality, including torture, homicide, war, genocide, massacres, sexual violence, and corporal mutilation. Students will also examine canonical documents of human rights from the U.S. and French revolutions through today, plus critical and theoretical texts that conceptualize human rights per se. Different phases of the course will focus on Argentina, Chile, Colombia, indigenous societies in Latin America, and other hemispheric spaces. Students will also discuss Latin American intersections of the arts and human rights that are connected to institutions, ideas and individuals rooted in Washington, D.C. If students in the course would like to study additional arts involving human rights from a particular place in Latin America or about a particular Latin American topic, class space will be made available for those further foci and the syllabus will be amended accordingly during the semester.
This course will be taught at both the 3000 level and the 4000 level. Students who take it at the 3000 level will have shorter assignments than those who take it at the 4000 level.
In addition to undertaking conventional oral and written assignments, students will participate four times during the semester with an organization or group dedicated to human rights, and write informal reflection papers on how those experiences relate to course readings. Students will also visit three Washington museums dedicated to human rights.
By the end of the semester, students will have deepened their knowledge of Latin America and furthered their abilities to discuss and debate the principal questions of human rights as refracted through the arts.
This course will be taught in Spanish.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4199 Lat AM Boom (In English) 3 Credits
From the late 1950s through the early 1970s, a remarkable array of fiction writers emerged in Latin America with novels and short stories that changed the course of world literature. This phenomenon, known as the Boom, includes multiple winners of the Nobel Prize and continues to impact literary production around the world today. This course offers students the opportunity to read major works of the Boom in translation into the language of their choice or in the original Spanish. All classroom discussions will be in English. Papers can be written in English, Spanish, Portuguese or French. Along with exploring the details of each text in depth, students will dissect and question critical concepts often applied to this era of literary production, such as “magic realism” and the idea of a “Boom” per se. Texts will include Aura by Carlos Fuentes, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, Captain Pantoja and the Special Service by Mario Vargas Llosa, Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig, and various short fictions by Miguel Ángel Asturias, Jorge Luis Borges, Alejo Carpentier, Juan Rulfo, and Julio Cortázar. The course will be taught as a seminar, so high levels of student participation will be expected. Requirements will include two oral presentations, three essays, and a field trip.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4307 Indigenous Subjects in Colony 3 Credits
The Spanish invasion and colonization of America generated a centuries-long negotiation about capacities and rights: of the invaders, of the original inhabitants, and of all human beings. In this course, we will explore the debates around the political status of Amerindian people under Spanish colonial rule that unfolded in various Spanish- and Indigenous-created historical, religious, and legal materials from the 16th and 17th centuries. In examining accounts of the most polemical events and practices of the period, we will attempt to understand how the Empire sought to incorporate non-citizens and non-state actors into the Spanish polity. In their final projects, students will connect an early modern concept or perspective with contemporary political, journalistic, or popular discourse on migration or displacement in the Americas.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4389 Adv. Span for Business II 3 Credits
This course aims to give the advanced students of Spanish a solid foundation in business vocabulary, basic business and cultural concepts, and intensive situational practice that will prepare them to function competently in today's Spanish-speaking world. No previous knowledge of business is required. Although this course is the second part for Advanced Spanish for Business, students need not have taken the first part as topics covered each semester are different.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4410 AI: Power Society 3 Credits
La inteligencia artificial está transformando profundamente la manera en que estudiamos, trabajamos, consumimos información, participamos en la política y entendemos el mundo. Desde los modelos generativos y las redes sociales algorítmicas hasta los sistemas de vigilancia, los deepfakes y las armas autónomas, la IA ya influye en decisiones que afectan la vida cotidiana, las instituciones democráticas y las dinámicas globales de poder. En un contexto marcado por profundas desigualdades sociales, económicas y tecnológicas, estas transformaciones plantean preguntas urgentes sobre justicia, derechos, democracia, trabajo, conocimiento y gobernanza. La relación entre la inteligencia artificial y la sociedad es ambivalente. Por un lado, las tecnologías de IA pueden contribuir al avance científico, mejorar servicios públicos, fortalecer respuestas humanitarias y ampliar el acceso a la salud, la educación y la información. Por otro, también pueden reproducir y profundizar desigualdades existentes, reforzar discriminaciones raciales y de género, expandir prácticas de vigilancia, precarizar el trabajo, intensificar la desinformación y concentrar aún más el poder económico y tecnológico en manos de un pequeño número de empresas y Estados. Este curso examina críticamente la inteligencia artificial desde una perspectiva sociotécnica y interdisciplinaria. A lo largo del semestre, los estudiantes explorarán cómo la IA impacta diferentes dimensiones de la vida contemporánea, incluyendo las redes sociales y la cultura digital, el trabajo, la educación, la salud, la democracia, la desinformación, las desigualdades de género, los derechos humanos, el medio ambiente y la seguridad internacional. El curso también analizará los desafíos vinculados a la gobernanza y regulación de la IA. Las discusiones estarán organizadas en torno a preguntas fundamentales: ¿qué es realmente la inteligencia artificial y cómo funciona? ¿Quién diseña estas tecnologías y qué intereses reflejan? ¿Quién se beneficia de ellas y quién asume sus costos? ¿Cómo influyen los algoritmos en la manera en que consumimos información, construimos conocimiento y participamos en la vida pública? ¿Puede la IA contribuir a reducir desigualdades sociales o corre el riesgo de profundizarlas? ¿Qué formas de regulación y gobernanza serían necesarias para garantizar que estas tecnologías sean compatibles con valores democráticos, derechos humanos y justicia social? El curso combinará debates, estudios de caso, análisis de medios, ejercicios prácticos y discusiones basadas en eventos contemporáneos. También incluirá visitas académicas (TBC) a instituciones como la Organización de los Estados Americanos, el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, embajadas y organizaciones de la sociedad civil en Washington, DC. Además, contará con invitadas/os especialistas en tecnología, diplomacia, derechos humanos, políticas públicas y gobernanza digital. El seminario está diseñado para una audiencia multidisciplinaria y no requiere conocimientos técnicos previos. Parte de la premisa de que ningún campo del conocimiento, por sí solo, es capaz de comprender plenamente las transformaciones sociales, políticas y culturales impulsadas por la inteligencia artificial. Por ello, se espera que los estudiantes integren sus propias experiencias, perspectivas académicas y áreas de interés a las discusiones del curso. El objetivo central del curso es desarrollar herramientas analíticas y críticas para comprender cómo la inteligencia artificial está reconfigurando las estructuras sociales contemporáneas, cuestionar narrativas sobre innovación tecnológica y reflexionar colectivamente sobre qué tipo de futuro digital y político queremos construir.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4445 Climate Fiction 3 Credits
This course examines climate fiction as a vital arena where contemporary literature confronts the profound challenges posed by anthropogenic planetary warming. With primary attention to Latin American writers, we will investigate how fiction imagines the cascading disruptions of global heating through genres including eco-gothic, dystopia, speculative fiction, and the New Weird. Drawing on critical frameworks from the environmental humanities and ecocriticism, we will analyze how literary form grapples with the defining problems of climate representation: bridging the gap between intimate bodily experience and geological deep time and making the vast planetary systems that elude ordinary human perception legible.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4512 The Amazon in Latin Am Culture 3 Credits
This seminar examines Latin American cultural productions about the Amazon River Basin from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present. Starting with the “novel of the jungle” that flourished during the rubber boom period all the way to contemporary Indigenous cinema, the course will analyze the different ways in which texts, film and the arts have engaged with the human and non-human diversity of the region. The course will focus on the dynamic interchanges between human beings, animals and plants, and highlight the ways in which non-humans shape human cultural life. We will resort both to Amazonian thought and to the academic field of ecocriticism to discuss how animals and plants leave imprints of themselves in human cultural life, becoming co-creators of human cultural productions about Amazonia. At a time when the Amazon and its peoples are increasingly threatened by extractivist industries that regard the biosphere as a mere resource, this seminar seeks to understand how cultural productions reveal the interdependence of humans and non-humans, and point towards paths for harmonious coexistence between humanity and other living beings.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4515 Brazilian Cinema (In Spanish) 3 Credits
A survey of Brazilian Cinema with emphasis on cultural context and artistic expression of films studied. The course will begin with the innovative Cinema Novo period of the 1950s and end with the resurgence of Brazilian filmmaking in the 1990s. Topics include “Third World Cinema”, post-colonialism and expressions of national identity; representation, film adaptation, constructions of gender, concepts of good and evil, race, popular culture, as well as aesthetics and film structure and the role of the audience. Several feature-length films are studied in their entirety, with several additional films introduced and considered through clips. The course is conducted in Spanish.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4520 Frida K. Mex Art (English) 3 Credits
Frida Kahlo and the Art of the Mexican Revolution (in English): Frida Kahlo is one of the most highly respected women artists of the twentieth century. She has become an international icon, her face appearing on everything from kitchen magnets to mouse pads and tee shirts. In this course we will study Frida Kahlo in the context of post-Revolutionary Mexico. The first part of the course will focus on the Mexican Revolution and the artists it inspired, in particular Diego Rivera, Kahlo’s husband. In the second part we will study Kahlo’s art—her self-representation, use of symbols, incorporation of Mexican folk art, palette and techniques. We will examine her feminism as expressed through her rebellion against the patriarchal society of her time, her career, her bisexuality, and her politics. We will draw from biographies, fiction, film and art, as well as Frida’s own writing. We will also examine the “Fridamania” phenomenon in the U.S. and Western Europe. The third part of the course will explore the ways in which Kahlo has inspired other artists—painters, filmmakers, and novelists such as Barbara Kingsolver.
Activities will include viewing films and visiting the Museum of Women in the Arts. Students will give oral reports and write three short papers and a term paper.
This course meets the Humanities Writing II requirement (HUMW II) and counts toward the Spanish major and minor.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4521 Lat Amer Poetry Visual Arts 3 Credits
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4522 Structure of Spanish Lang 3 Credits
OBJETIVOS:Este curso tiene 2 objetivos básicos:a. Estudiar en detalle el sistema de formación de oraciones complejas en español.b. Práctica intensiva para el examen de DELE (Diploma de español como lengua extranjera). Comenzaremos con exámenes de nivel B2 y terminaremos con exámenes de nivel C1. Trabajaremos en especial las áreas de: (a) vocabulario temático B2-C1 (información, medios de comunicación, trabajo, educación, ocio, salud, política, viajes, medio ambiente, etc.), (b) comprensión de lectura relacionada con esos temas, (c) comprensión auditiva (diálogos, charlas, conferencias), (d) presentaciones académicas, (e) producción de textos escritos formales e informales.RESULTADOS:Terminado el curso, se espera que el estudiante pueda producir textos orales y escritos a nivel B2-C1. También se espera que pueda comprender textos orales en diferentes dialectos y modalidades.Textos básicos:-Campos, H. De la oración simple a la oración compuesta.-Alzugaray et al. Especial DELE B2 Curso Completo.-Otros materiales disponibles en fotocopias.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4525 Spanish Dialectology 3 Credits
A survey of the dialect structure of Spain and Spanish America, with brief mention of Catalan and Galician-Portuguese. Some attention will be paid to Sephardic or Judeo-Spanish, spoken by descendants of Jews expelled from Spain in the 14th and 15th centuries. While the main focus will be on accounting for phonological and morphological variation, syntactic and lexical features will be discussed where appropriate.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4526 Hist of Span Language 3 Credits
Detailed study of the diachronic processes responsible for the transformation of spoken Latin into Old and Modern Spanish.
What Students Should Know:
The course is given in Spanish. Some knowledge of linguistics is required.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4530 Early Mod Hispanic Black Atlan 3 Credits
This graduate seminar examines the variety of artistic, cultural, historical, and literary representations of black Africans and their descendants—both enslaved and free—across the Spanish-speaking world and the United States. Taking a chronological frame, the course will begin its study of Blackness in medieval and early modern Iberia and its colonial kingdoms in the Americas. From there, we will continue our trajectory and examination of the status of Blackness conceptually and ideologically in the Caribbean, Mexico, and South America. Toward the end of the semester, we will concentrate on black Africans by focusing on Equatorial Guinea, sub-Saharan African immigration in present-day Spain, and the politics of Afro-Latinx culture and its identity politics in the United States. Throughout the semester, we will interrogate the following topics in order to guide our class discussions and readings: bondage and slavery; freedom and emancipation; Critical Race Studies and racial-ethnic difference; animal imageries and human-animal studies; geography and maps; Black Feminism and Black Queer Studies; material and visual cultures (e.g. beauty ads; clothing; cosmetics; food; Blackface performance; royal portraiture; reality TV and music videos); the Inquisition and African diasporic religions; immigration and Post-colonial Studies. Although the seminar will focus primarily on materials originating in Spanish, we will make comparative analyses that will frame our critical approaches to a so-called “early modern” Blackness and Black experience through a rigorous study of literary texts and historical documents from English, French, Portuguese, and other non-Western languages. And, to that effect, we shall see how Blackness conceptually and experientially is subversively fluid and performative, yet deceptive and paradoxical. TAUGHT IN ENGLISH.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4531 Semantics Pragmatics I 3 Credits
Introduction to formal semantics, with emphasis on the place of semantics within theoretical linguistics, relevant topics in the philosophy of language, the relation between semantics and pragmatics, mastering formal techniques, and the investigation of varied phenomena. Designed for students with some background in syntax (Syntax I may be taken concurrently); prior completion of LING-431 is recommended, but not required. LING-531 is a prerequisite for further study in semantics.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Mutual exclusion: SPAN 531
SPAN 4536 Colonial/Post Col Visions 3 Credits
Course description not yet available.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4537 Chronicles and Capitalism 3 Credits
This course will examine discursive and visual collections—chronicles, correspondence, questionnaires, codices, surveys, and maps—that imperial subjects created in Spain and Spanish America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. We will explore how Amerindian and European creators gathered, depicted, and described the American continent's plants, animals, minerals, and humans. We will also consider the relationship between these cultural products and the production of knowledge and value in the colony: by categorizing objects in terms of their potential utility to the Crown and its settlers, Spanish chroniclers engage in a kind of primitive accumulation, divorcing American beings from Amerindian modes of producing knowledge and instead reconfiguring them as resources for Spanish global expansion.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4540 Borges and His Followers 3 Credits
In this course we will read a selection of Borges’s works including essays, fiction and poetry, with special attention to how essayssuddenly become fiction. . In Borges’s work we discover special literary worlds that debilitate or destroy many accepted conventions: our personal identity, the singularity of our world and our time, and the idea of originality. We will explore the idea of reading as creation, the “nothingness” of personality and his persistence in rewriting and altering his own works. Borges is considered a universal writer because he experiments with ideas like space and time that belong to all cultures. Nevertheless, we will see that there is a special emphasis in much of his work on Argentine and Latin American culture. Numerous authors have been influenced by Borges. Of those in Spanish we will read selecciones of writings by Ricardo Piglia, Roberto Bolaño, Alejandro Zambra and others in English.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4541 Modern Latin American Poetry 3 Credits
Is there a margin? Is there a center? Or, is everything cannibalized and left in the space in-between different cultural manifestations? This course explores the development of modern lyric poetry in Latin America between 1880s-1960s, approximately. The aim of this course is to develop a critical framework for understanding (1) the development of modern poetics, (2) the particular ways these different territories respond to the idea of modernity in poetry, particularly the emergence of avant-garde, and (3) its impact on the neo-avant-garde in the 1960s. Some of the questions to be addressed in this course are: the relationship between poetry and avant-garde art, the place of language, cultural dependency, the importance of form, the relationship between autonomous and the social committed art, among others.
Readings in Portuguese, Spanish and English. Authors include: Pablo Neruda, Cesar Vallejo, Gabriela Mistral, Fernando Pessoa, Sá Carneiro, Almada Negreiros, Mário de Andrade, Cecília Meireles, Manuel Bandeira, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Federico García Lorca, Rafael Alberti, Vicente Aleixandre, Jorge Guillén, among others. All work and discussion in Spanish.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4543 Medieval Spanish Lit 3 Credits
An introduction to the principal genres of the Spanish Middle Ages and early Renaissance: lyric poetry, epic, hagiography, romance, exempla, and chronicle. Emphasis is placed on historical and cultural contexts, as well as relationships to other medieval Romance literatures. Issues of medieval poetics, reading and interpretative strategies, and literary ideals concerning historical didactic, sacred, and imaginative literature in poetry and prose are explored through representative works.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4544 Hemisp Indigeneities: Abiayala 3 Credits
This course considers literature, film, essay, music, and visual culture from across Abiayala—what we might refer to as ‘the Americas’—produced by Indigenous authors, artists, practitioners, and intellectuals. Taking a comparative approach that rejects settler divides between ‘Latin America,’ the United States, and Canada, students will engage with key debates from Indigenous Studies and Native American Studies while also considering how various cultural objects articulate contemporary and transhistorical experiences of coloniality, dispossession, racism and racialization, political violence, environmental degradation, and erasure. Central to our in-class discussions will be the tracing of nodes of divergence and continuity, as well as the examination of how specific creative genres and formal techniques are wielded to simultaneously reject settler impositions and advance alternative political futures. Readings and viewings will be in Spanish and English.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4545 SEM: Heroes Myths 3 Credits
What does it mean to be a hero? What distinguishes the hero from the saint? How does heroism play itself out in contemporary society? Through examining literary works from the Middle Ages to the 21st Century – as well as theoretical texts – this course will explore the nature of heroism and the connections between the concepts of heroism and “performance.” Readings will include works by authors such as J. O. Urmson, J. Campbell, F. Savater, R.W. Emerson, J. Ortega y Gasset, and R. Schechner. Also analyzed will be films by R. Rosellini (The Flowers of St. Francis), A. Kurosawa (Kagemusha), F. Zimmerman (High Noon), and R. Attenborough (Ghandi).
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4546 Hispanic Theater inPerformance 4 Credits
Description unavailable at this time.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4547 Early Modern Spanish Theatre 3 Credits
General information
This course originated as part of the Doyle initiative, which seeks to engage students in discussion of diversity and difference. The plays have been arranged thematically rather than chronologically in order to allow us to analyze how theater bolsters the official regime and its values and how it subverts them. The first two plays, by early modern Spain’s greatest Catholic writer, will help us to define the Christian framework for seventeenth-century theater. The second group of plays provides examples of social norms and will serve as a basis for conversation about seventeenth-century Spanish cultural values. The third group features protagonists who openly challenge the norm: the criminal, the independent woman, the lesbian, the gay man. The final group focuses on outsiders—Moors, Jews, Indians—and shows how playwrights both reinforce existing stereotypes and undermine them.
In order to analyze these plays as plays rather than as written texts, we will see videos of actual productions. Videos are available through the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater (AHCT) and can be borrowed or else rented for a small fee. See the AHCT web site for more information.
Course requirements
Graduate students will be required to write one long professional-level paper of between 20 to 25 pages. Graduate students should write in the language in which they will publish. Undergraduates have the option to write three short papers (3-5 pages) and one longer paper (5-7 pages) in Spanish. All papers, graduate and undergraduate, should include a Works Cited section. Additional assignments (online quizzes, theater critiques, commentaries on lectures) will be given throughout the semester.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4548 Journalism and Media in Lat Am 3 Credits
Literary Journalism and Media Culture in Latin America:
Most of the best-known authors in Latin America have not only written poetry and fiction, they have written newspaper crónicas, developing public personae whose discussions of art, culture, and daily life reflect the social issues of their day. In this class we will explore those intersections of journalism and literature, from the 19th century to today. Framing our discussion with theories of media reception and production, we will consider how the literary newspaper genre shapes, and is shaped by, public discourses on class, race, and gender. We will also consider how the crónica has echoes in contemporary media forms such as radio narrative, blogs, and podcasts. With its roots in both travel and the minutiae of everyday life, the crónica further allows us to see how local community identities have long been shaped by transatlantic flows of information that set the stage for globalized media discourse today. Authors to be considered may include José Martí, Rubén Darío, Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera, Alfonsina Storni, Cube Bonifant, Elena Poniatowska, Clarice Lispector, Carlos Monsiváis, Roberto Bolaño, Pedro Lemebel, María Moreno, and Leila Guerriero.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4549 (De)colonizing the Indigenous 3 Credits
(De)colonizing the Indigenous imaginary This course will examine the nature and processes of subject formation in Spanish America during the 16th and 17th centuries. We will read Spanish-authored texts of several genres (evangelical and confessional manuals, utopian plans, legislative proposals, autos sacramentales and loas) that attempt to shape Amerindian individuals' worldviews and self-perception as subjects of the Spanish Crown, alongside Indigenous-authored texts (lawsuits, codices, histories, plays, testimony) that resist those efforts. We will base our analysis of these materials in 20th- and 21st- century theories of subjection and subjectivation, including works by Althusser, Foucault, and Butler.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4550 Medieval Genders 3 Credits
From the Cid's luxuriant beard to the virile behavior of Isabel the Catholic, medieval Spanish literature continually explores gender and gendered performances. The debate on women’s nature also constitutes a major conflict in the medieval Iberian literary arena, which not only theorizes femininity, but masculinity as well. In this course, we will survey a cross-section of literary works that are emblematic of these deep preoccupations with the construction and representation of gender and sexuality. Through our readings we will follow the debate and the anxiety about gender identity and performance that it reveals across genres, paying particular attention to its influence on Romance. Throughout, we will consider the extent to which contemporary gender and queer theory, as well as poststructuralist and psychoanalytic criticism can help us to understand medieval constructions of femininity, masculinity, and sexuality.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: SFS/CULP Humanities
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4551 Spanish Mystics 3 Credits
This course offers an in-depth study of the great Spanish mystics of the Counter Reformation: Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Saint Teresa of Avila, and Saint John of the Cross. Students will analyze selected works by these authors with particular attention to the language of spirituality, questions of power and authority, the multiple dimensions of the dark night of the soul, and the interplay of historical, philosophical, and rhetorical elements. Students will view the readings from diverse perspectives: as historical documents, literary creations, and spiritual testimonials pertinent to modern readers. Guest speakers will include a Jesuit theologian and an experienced spiritual director, who will guide the students through a meditation from St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises. Class activities will include trips to a semi-cloistered convent and to a Carmelite monastery to meet present-day members of the order of St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross; visits to the library to see original letters of St. Ignatius and St. Francisco de Borja, early editions of St. Ignatius and St. Teresa, and other pertinent documents. Taught in English; counts toward major/minor in Spanish and in Theology.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4552 Miguel de Unamuno and his time 3 Credits
Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) was the most important Spanish writer and philosopher of his time. Few authors have matched Unamuno's impact on Spanish culture and literature until his death during the Spanish Civil War. The recent film by Alejandro Amenábar Mientras dure la Guerra (While at War, 2019) recognizes this fact. During his life and after, Unamuno was also an important philosopher and writer in the European and Latin-America contexts. He wrote critical philosophical texts such as Del sentimiento trágico de la vida (The Tragic Sense of Life, 1913), novels, poetry, theater, and essays. In addition, he was fully immersed in the tumultuous politics of his time (Monarchy, Dictatorship, Second Spanish Republic, Civil War) as a figure of intellectual and ethical resistance. He was also the President of the University of Salamanca, where he confronted the Francoist General José Millán Astray, a clash that almost cost him his life. As a writer, he is a unique figure in Spanish literature. He had an original perspective on critical intellectual figures who influenced his work, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Søren Kierkegaard. His approach to these figures as well as his connection with German and English Romanticism makes his work highly ironic, experimental, theoretical, and remarkably relevant to contemporary culture. In this class, we will delve deeply into Unamuno's role as a public intellectual, his writings (mainly his novels), and his legacy.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: SFS/CULP Humanities
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4553 Hero Myth: Lit Cult. Eval 3 Credits
What does it mean to be a hero? What distinguishes the hero from the saint? How does heroism play itself out in contemporary culture? Through examining literary works, philosophical and theoretical texts, and film this course will explore the nature of heroism and the connections between the concepts of heroism and “performance.” Readings will include Spanish and Latin American literary works from the Romantic period until today; philosophical material by authors such as such as J. O. Urmson, J. Campbell, F. Savater, J. Ortega y Gasset, and Richard Schechner; and Spanish films as well as films by Roberto Rosellini (The Flowers of St. Francis), Fred Zinnermann (High Noon), and Richard Attenborough (Ghandi).
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4554 Survey of Brazilian Literature 3 Credits
A survey of Brazilian literature from 1500 to the present. Students will engage a wide variety of texts, including representative works of colonial period, romanticism, realism, modernism and postmodernism. Special consideration will be given to the idea of a national literature, looking at issues such as local and “universal”, country and city, representations of race, gender, class, and sexuality. Note: This class is taught in Spanish. Readings are in Portuguese and Spanish or/and English.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: SFS/CULP Humanities
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4555 Culture and Spectacles 3 Credits
What does Christ’s crucifixion have in common with George Floyd’s video-recorded murder, Donald Trump’s reality TV-like Presidency, popular festivals like Mardi Gras, the advertising and news media images that flood our daily existence, and the January 6th assault on the Capitol in Washington? The answer is that all of the above are spectacles with a significant impact at the individual, local, national, and/or global levels. Because spectacle rejects any ethical alignment, it can possess a positive or negative character. On the darker end of the spectrum, spectacle —live and virtual— can show its power by posing a clear and present threat to democracy. On the brighter side, spectacle can strengthen the very foundations of community and democracy. At this point in history, when unprecedented polarization, misinformation, and a human-induced climate crisis pose serious threats to our collective future, intelligence about the power of spectacle is critical in mediating its unconscious influence. In this class, we will explore the various notions of “spectacle,” from concerts to popular festivals, from political rallies to spectacles of death, and from virtual spectacle to the negative concepts of spectacle associated with the post-truth era in which we live. The course will include theoretical readings and textual analysis of both visual and written texts. In addition to class presentations and a final paper, students will be required to produce their own reality show to present to the class for discussion.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4556 Ecocriticism in Hispanic World 3 Credits
This course will focus on Animal Studies, a branch of Ecocriticism, a discipline that focuses on how cultures and human self-understanding construct and in turn are constructed by the non-human world, as well as on issues of literary representations of nature. The course will examine the meaning of “the animal” as the foundation on which prevalent notions of the human and the humanities rely. Science and our knowledge of animals’ lives have recently called into question the traditional definition of “the human”—as living beings that possess thought, consciousness, and language. These characteristics, it is argued, are not exclusively human, and yet they have served to exclude animals. The theoretical reevaluation of “the human” and humanism from the perspective of animal studies emphasizes the way animals resist our analytical tools and our aggressive, Enlightenment-inspired ways of knowing. It also focuses on the theoretical flaws in the dualistic humanist arguments that radically separate non-human and human animals. As a result, a process leading toward a post-animal and post-human sense of ethics and of the world is underway. The “turn to animals” in art and in theory envisions a different understanding of what we humans are—not as beings opposed to animals, but as animals. The class will approach this debate from a multidisciplinary, multimedia perspective. In addition to some key theoretical texts dealing with the "turn to animals"—by Jacques Derrida, Deleuze and Guattari, Giorgio Agamben, Kari Weil, and others—we will analyze literature, photography and film, primarily from Spain and Latin America. Authors, photographers, and filmakers that we will cover include: Cervantes, Juan Valera, Unamuno, Ortega y Gasset, Edgard Neville, Ramón J. Sender, Fernando Savater, Leopoldo Lugones, Ernest Hemingway, Bill Viola, Frank Noelker, Fernando Alegría, Daniel Samper Pizano, and Benedikt Erlingsson.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4557 Other Gods/Heroes:Am-Ind Myths 3 Credits
Popular and learned poetry of medieval Spain from its beginnings through the Cancioneros of the 15th century. Medieval prose from Alfonso X to La Celestina.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4558 Early Modern Spanish Lit 3 Credits
This course is offers and overview of early modern Spanish literature and is open to graduate students and advanced undergraduates. Students will examine masterpieces of early modern Spain of all genres. Readings will include texts by Garcilaso de la Vega, Teresa de Ávila, Juan de la Cruz, Góngora, Quevedo, Luis de León, Montemayor, María de Zayas, Cervantes, Lope, Tirso Calderón, and Moreto, as well as the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes. We will explore the burgeoning literary consciousness of the sixteenth century, the importance of Italian models, poetic experimentation, the explosion of mystical writing, the development of the novella and the full-length novel, and the flowering of Spanish theater. We will approach the texts from both literary and cultural perspectives. We will also read pertinent criticism and consider how changing approaches to literature influence how early modern texts are read. Graduate students will write one long paper. Undergraduates will write three 5- to 7-page papers.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4559 Don Quixote 3 Credits
In this course we will study Don Quixote, one of the very first modern novels, in the artistic and historical contexts of early modern Spain including: imperialism, changing modes of spirituality, the expulsion of Jews and Moriscos, the rise of urban society, the expansion of print culture, and new genres of leisure reading. In addition, we will explore the ways in which Don Quixote has been used as a cultural touchstone up until present. In this light, we will also consider how a text becomes—and remains—a canonical masterpiece, and the role of such “masterworks” in cultural and historical memory. This course will be conducted in English; students may read Don Quixote in Spanish or in translation (in English) and students may write papers in Spanish or English. This course counts toward the Spanish major and minor and meets the HALC requirement. This course is open to undergraduates and graduate students
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4560 Lit Film of Mex Amer Mexico 3 Credits
Revolution! Dictatorship! Migration! The border! This course will study an exciting diversity of Mexican and Mexican American artistic responses to the complex and changing contexts of the last hundred plus years of Mexico and the United States. Students will explore a rich range of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, film, music, and visual and performance arts, starting with texts about the Mexican Revolution that erupted in 1910. These include the novel Los de abajo by Mariano Azuela, the short story collection Cartucho by Nellie Campobello, the folk song “La Adelita,” photos of women soldiers who fought in the Revolution, and the classic film Vámonos con Pancho Villa. The course will then move on to major mid-century texts, including paintings by Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, poetry by Rosario Castellanos, a film starring the great Mexican comedian Cantinflas, another film starring Marlon Brando in the role of the Mexican Revolution hero Emiliano Zapata, and the gripping testimonial La noche de Tlatelolco by Elena Poniatowska about a brutal massacre before the Olympic Games in Mexico City in 1968. Finally, students will study more recent Mexican and Mexican American cultural expressions, including the comedic play Entre Villa y una mujer desnuda by Sabina Berman, manifestos by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, the bilingual Chicano classic Borderlands/La frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa, performance art videos by MacArthur “Genius” award winner Guillermo Gómez-Peña, notable films such as Y tu mamá también and Real Women Have Curves, and compelling 21 st century music in assorted genres by various Mexican and Mexican American artists. Throughout the semester, students will discuss in nuanced ways a diverse range of questions of modern Mexico and Mexican America as refracted through their arts.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4561 La América clásica 3 Credits
This course explores the connections that Indigenous, Afro-American, Spanish, and Criolle writers of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries draw between American and classical cultures. What do colonial writers gain—and what do they risk—in invoking, adapting, and critiquing the traditions of Greece, Rome, and early Christianity? How are such comparisons utilized in service of epistemological and cosmological expansion, cultural syncretism, legal and theological argumentation, political resistance, and efforts to develop a specifically Spanish-American history and identity? We will examine historical and ethnographical texts, autobiographies, crónicas, and relaciones as well as prose, poetry, and drama.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4562 Cervantes His World 3 Credits
This course, taught in Spanish, is designed to give the graduate student and advanced undergraduate an in-depth understanding of early modern Spain. It focuses not only on Cervantes and his writings, but on the political, social, and cultural environment in which the writer lived. Students will learn about the artistic explosion in early modern Spain and how painters such as El Greco, Ribera, Zurbarán, and later, Murillo and Velázquez, reflect evolving values and outlooks in the 16th and 17th centuries. Students will also look at examples of Spanish architecture from Herrera to López de Rojas and consider the early modern conception of space. Of course, the writings of Cervantes will be central to the course. Students will read key segments of Don Quijote, La Galatea and Persiles, novellas from the Novelas ejemplares, plays (eg. Pedro de Urdemalas), and poetry. In addition, we will look at some of Cervantes’ contemporaries and rivals such as Lope de Vega, Francisco de Quevedo, María de Zayas, and Baltasar Gracián. In order to understand the philosophical and religious underpinnings of Cervantes’ work, students will also read excerpts from some of the most influential moral and religious philosophers of the period. These include Juan Luis Vives, whose treatise on women achieved international recognition, Francisco Suárez, whose Disputaciones metafísicas were read in Jesuit schools throughout Europe, and Miguel de Molinos, whose quietist approach to spirituality caused him to be denounced by the Inquisition.
Assignments: Graduate students will write one 20-25-page term paper. Undergraduates will write three short papers (4-7-pages) and one longer paper (7-10-pages). Both graduates and undergraduates will write periodic reflections.
Format: Lecture, class discussion, oral presentations.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4563 Explring Brderlnds:Cultrl Frnt 3 Credits
In this course we will examine the concept of the “frontier” from a variety of perspectives—philosophical, psychological, historical, political, and anthropological. We will approach the frontier as a zone of interaction among entities as well as cultures, where a complex dynamic between attraction and repulsion unfolds as a “process,” as a geographical and poetic boundary, as a source of inspiration for national identities and institutions, and even as a zone of violence. We will address the following specific frontiers: literature and philosophy, madness and sanity, human and posthuman, Debord’s “society of spectacle” and popular spectacles, and the transatlantic frontier between Europe and the Americas. In addition, we will explore “frames” as a complex type of frontier that shapes the interpretation of what lies inside as well as of what remains outside.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4564 Travel Literature:Self Other 3 Credits
This course will explore the writing of self and other represented in travel literature. We will pay particular attention to the negotiations between the self and the observed world by analyzing the processes through which the travelers attempt to describe, interpret and represent peoples and places that are different to their own. We will read representative examples of accounts from travelers who came from and moved to distant point of our world.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4565 Sensory Worlds 3 Credits
Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Iberian poetry is filled with imagery that appeals to the senses. Poets invite listeners not just to see and listen to what they describe, but also to smell, taste, and feel poetry. Attending to rhetorical synesthesia (mixed sensory tropes) and ekphrasis (vivid description), two closely related and at times intersecting poetic devices, this course will explore the somaesthetic dimensions of medieval Spanish poetry. Sensory and synesthetic metaphors are continual reminders of the presence of the body as a perceiving object and subject that serves as the conduit of feelings and information to the soul; they reveal medieval literature’s deep preoccupation with human senses, sensuality, and the relationship between body and soul. Further, synesthetic metaphors also attune us, as modern readers, to the essence of poems as performances, brought forth from a speaking or singing body, to be enjoyed through the eyes and the ears. As sensual as medieval poetry can be, the bodies that sing, listen, and interpret it have been overlooked by contemporary criticism. In addition to reading the Libro de Alexandre, the Libro de Apolonio, the Libro de buen amor and selected narrative poems by Gonzalo de Berceo, we will read medieval medicinal, theological, and epistemological works on the senses.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4566 Cont. Lat. Am. Novel 3 Credits
Este curso explora una variedad de novelas latinoamericanas de los últimos 20 años. A lo largo del semestre los estudiantes van a tener la oportunidad de desarrollar sus conocimientos de ficciones recientes tanto como una gama de aproximaciones críticas y teóricas. También van a considerar cuestiones como los desafíos que se les presentan a novelistas contemporáneos que escriben después de los textos más influyentes del “Boom”; las posibilidades y los propósitos de periodizar el momento actual o cualquier momento por clasificaciones literarias; el papel del mercado internacional en la popularidad de ciertos autores y textos; y las construcciones de género y nación en novelas que buscan audiencias globalizadas.
El curso tiene la forma de un seminario. Es requisito que las estudiantes preparen las lecturas (¡y hay muchas páginas que leer!) con anticipación y que participen activamente en las conversaciones. Sus comentarios analíticos deben ser intelectualmente rigurosos y creativos.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4567 Ethnography:Colombia Conflict 3 Credits
How is the Colombian conflict lived day-by-day by its protagonists—human rights activists, guerrillas, paramilitary, members of the military, poor urban dwellers, peasants? What can the ethnographic study of the everyday realities of this conflict tell us, that we cannot learn from more macro-level sociological and political analysis? Anthropologists, filmmakers, sociologists, and oral historians have endeavored over the past fifty years to document the impact of conflict on Colombian society. This course will explore their work. Reading knowledge of Spanish is required.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4568 El modernismo en Am. Latin 3 Credits
El seminario se basará en poesías, crónicas, ensayos, y cuentos por escritores como Rubén Darío, José Martí, J.E. Rodó, Delmira Agustini, Leopoldo Lugones, Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera, Julián del Casal, José Asunción Silva, Horacio Quiroga, Julio Herrera y Reissig, y Juana Borrero. Estudiaremos algunos de los temas siguientes: la modernización y la modernidad en el contexto latinoamericano; la decadencia y la ruina como temática y como metáfora; la literatura y las artes visuales; la ciencia y la tecnología y su influencia en la literatura y el arte; los cambios de la versificación en español y los experimentos formales; el erotismo como tema central del movimiento y la representación de la sexualidad; los cambios de género literario, e.g. la versificación, el cuento fantástico, la crónica, y la emergencia paralela de formas regionalistas, como el teatro gauchesco, los corridos, y la novela telúrica.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4569 Lit, Film, Musc of CENT AM 3 Credits
This course explores a variety of cultural texts from Central America. Key questions that will be considered throughout the semester include the following: Does Central America exist in any sense other than geographic? How might a regional identity be defined? Given the different histories and demographics of the various countries, does it make sense to treat local artistic traditions through national frameworks? Or does that move too evade sharper questions about internal and external fault lines? To what extent is Central America not a marginal space but a globally central one? Given the large Salvadoran population in the Washington, D.C., area, to what extent is Central America even in Central America anyway? Given Atlantic coast populations such as the garífuna, how do Central America and the Caribbean interdefine and distinguish from each other? And how can the canon of modern Latin American literature be read from Central America? During the semester, students will develop possible responses to such questions by analyzing a variety of 20th and 21st century Central American literature, music and art. The course will be taught as a seminar, so students are expected arrive to each class prepared to participate with intellectual rigor and creativity. This course, which will be taught entirely in Spanish, is open to undergraduate as well as graduate students.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4570 U.S. Latin American Relations 3 Credits
Globalization has had both integrative and disintegrative consequences for the US and the Americas. On the one hand it has led to increased economic integration and interdependence, leading to regional and hemispheric processes of political and economic integration. Democracy, free markets and trade have made great strides in the past decade or two. But globalization has also had less positive consequences, challenging state capacity, enabling international criminality, and spreading greater economic insecurity. Globalization also threatens traditional collective cultural identities. This course explores the impact globalization has had on US-Latin American relations. Among its objectives are to review the motor forces of globalization, to examine the evolving pattern of interaction between the United States and countries in the Western Hemisphere, to explore the impact of hemispheric integration and trade, and to assess the challenges that globalization poses in the areas of corruption, governance, and human rights as well as transnational crime and immigration.
This course is taught in Spanish and is also listed as GOVT-451.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4571 Libro de Buen Amor 1-4 Credits
The fourteenth-century Spanish Libro de buen amor (Book of Good Love) is a most perplexing book. Its author, Juan Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita, promises readers that his book will be 1) a manual for salvation; 2) a manual for sexual seduction; and 3) a manual for the composition of poetry. This class will take Juan Ruiz's philosophical, comic, and literary tour de force as a central text for as an introduction to medieval studies. To understand the Libro de buen amor we will delve into the medieval history, theology, philosophy, and arts of rhetoric that produced it. We will pay special attention to the cultural crossroads of Al-Andalus, where the traditions and languages of Christianity, Judaism and Islam coexisted. In addition to key works of the Middle Ages by Augustine, Boethius, Maimonides, and Ibn Hazm of Cordoba, we will read selections from Ruiz's near contemporaries Boccaccio and Chaucer, and also representative works in the ars amatoria, fabliaux, and maqamat traditions. In order to better understand medieval texts and to hone their own writing skills, students will do in-class writing exercises that introduce some of the same techniques learned by medieval authors and readers. Students in this course will have the opportunity to register for a fourth credit digital humanities practicum and contribute to the Libro de buen amor / The Book of Good Love Online Project while learning about the research methods and opportunities of the digital humanities. Required Texts (Do not get kindle editions, hardcopies are required in class) Ruiz, Juan. Libro de buen amor. 978-8437610115 Andreas Capellanus. The Art of Courtly Love. 978-0231073059 Augustine. On Christian Teaching. 978-0199540631 Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy. 978-0140447804 Ibn Hazm. El collar de la Paloma. 978-8420634302 Ovid. The Love Poems. 978-0199540334
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4572 Book History 1st Best-Sellers 3 Credits
Course Goals & Description As students and scholars, we all read from screens, books, printed pages, and—with less and less frequency—handwritten documents. How does each form affect our understanding? Is the medium the message? Did the advent of printing change the ways we read and think? This class will combine the study of the first 150 years of book culture after the invention of printing in Europe with readings of some of the most popular fiction on the international European book market in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: Amadis of Gaul, Celestina, Arnalte and Lucenda, The Prison of Love, and Grisel and Mirabella. Reading fictions while the studying material books that contain them, we will explore how book-objects reflect the emotional and intellectual experiences of historical readers. We will discuss the relationships between manuscripts and printed books, the politics and business of publishing, the importance and effects of book format on readers, and developing notions of authorship and literary property. Throughout the semester we will visit Georgetown’s Booth Special Collections Center, The Library of Congress, the Folger Library, and the National Gallery of Art. Students will seek out manuscripts and early printed books conserved in the DC metro area’s Libraries in order to do individual projects. We will also make use of the growing number of digital archives of pre-modern books and discuss how this newer medium is changing reading habits today (even now, as you read this course description on-line). Texts & Readings 1. Howsam, L. Old Books and New Histories: An Orientation to Studies in Book and Print Culture. U Toronto Press, 2006. ISBN-13: 978-0802094384 2. Finklestein Ed. The Book History Reader. Routledge, 2001. ISBN-13: 978-0415226585 3. Celestina. Ed. Severin. Cátedra. 2006. ISBN-13: 978-8437607009 4. Obras de Diego de San Pedro. I. and II. Ed. Whinnom. ISBN-13: 978-8470390333 and ISBN-13: 978-8470391576 5. Martin Abad. Los Primeros Tiempos De La Imprenta En Espana, 1471-1520. Laberinto 2003. ISBN-13: 978-8484830863. We will use digital resources, such as the Biblioteca virtual Cervantes and Early English Books Online (EEBO), for other readings. Assignments & Expectations of Students This course will be taught in English with readings in Spanish and English. Students lead discussions, write 2 5-7 page papers, and complete an original research project. Prerequisites for undergrads 241, 242, 261, or 262 (or equivalent)
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4573 AsianAfrican Lit in Spanish 3 Credits
What map of the Spanish-speaking world do you have in your mind? Whatever it is, it probably does not include Asia and Africa. The widely held premise that cultures of the Spanish-speaking world exist only in Europe and the Americas will be revealed to be entirely wrong in this course, which will focus instead on artistic traditions in Spanish from the Philippines and Taiwan in Asia, Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara in Africa, and elsewhere in both continents and around the planet. Key theoretical issues of colonialism, national identity, and translation will be discussed along the way. The timeframe will mostly be from the late 19th century through today, though the earliest narratives will date from the failed Spanish conquest of Taiwan in the early 17th century. Texts to be analyzed will include fiction, poetry, alleged non-fiction, films, songs, a graphic novel, and the only known Asian science fiction novel in Spanish. Texts in Chabacano (a Filipino language partly derived from Spanish) and Catalan will also come up for discussion. The course will offer, in short, an ongoing discussion of how cultural production in Spanish is a global rather than binary (i.e., Spain/Latin America) phenomenon. During the course, students may conduct independent research at the Library of Congress to seek out unknown Asian or African literature in Spanish and analyze it. The term paper will include the option of focusing on Asian or African literature in Portuguese. The course is open to both undergraduates and graduate students. It will be taught entirely in Spanish and as a seminar in which vibrant class participation is a must. Please note that due to the market unavailability of most texts, nearly all readings will be in the form of pdfs.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4574 Framed:Stories that Move in Ch 3 Credits
This course, structured as a research seminar for graduate students and advanced undergraduates, explores the nature of collections of stories gathered within frame tales, focusing on six of the many frame tale collections from the medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean traditions. Throughout the semester students will give frequent oral presentations, write two short essays, and develop original research projects incorporating both primary texts and critical perspectives, leading to a final research paper. Readings and class discussions in Spanish and English. Cross-listed with Comparative Literature and Medieval Studies.
Required Texts:
1. Boccaccio, G. The Decameron. Trans. Mc William
Penguin Books; 2nd edition (2003)
ISBN-10: 0140449302
ISBN-13: 978-0140449303
2. Gonzalo de Berceo
Milagros de Nuestra Señora
Ed. Fernando Baños Vallejo
Editorial Crítica (1997)
ISBN-10: 8474238404
ISBN-13: 978-8474238402
3. Ruiz, Juan
Libro de buen amor
Ed. G.B. Gybbon-Monypenny
Castalia (1988)
ISBN-10: 8470395084
ISBN-13: 978-8470395086
4. El Conde Lucanor
Ed. Guillermo Serés
Editorial Crítica (1994)
ISBN-10: 8474237092
ISBN-13: 978-8474237092
5. Marguerite de Navarre, The Heptameron
Ed. Chilton
Penguin Classics (1984)
ISBN-10: 014044355X
ISBN-13: 978-0140443554
6. Zayas, María de. Desengaños amorosos
Ed. Alicia Yllera
Cátedra (2006)
ISBN-10: 8437604354
ISBN-13: 978-8437604350
Recommended:
1. The Arabian Nights. Trans. Haddawy.
Norton Critical Ed (2009)
ISBN-10: 039392808X
ISBN-13: 978-0393928082
2. Calila e Dimna
Ed. M. Cacho Blecua and M. J. Lacarra
Castalia (1984)
ISBN-10: 8470394290
ISBN-13: 978-8470394294
3. Narrative Dynamics: Essays on Time, Plot, Closure, and Frame.
Ed. Brian Richardson
Ohio State University Press (2002)
ISBN-10: 0814250920
ISBN-13: 978-0814250921
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4575 Brazilian Lit in Translation 3 Credits
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4576 Asian Lit and Cultures in Span 3 Credits
What map of the Spanish-speaking world do you have in your mind? Whatever it is, it probably does not include Asia. The widely held premise that cultures of the Spanish-speaking world exist only in Europe and the Americas will be revealed to be entirely wrong in this course, which will focus at length instead on artistic traditions in Spanish from the Philippines and Taiwan. Key theoretical issues of colonialism, national identity, and translation will be discussed along the way. Students will also have the opportunity to research cultural production in Portuguese from Goa (in India), East Timor, Macau, and Japan. Texts in Chabacano (a Filipino language partly derived from Spanish) will be studied as well. The course will then expand its geographic reach beyond Asia to include cultural production in Spanish and Portuguese by people of Asian ancestry in Spain and the Americas, including Taiwanese-Argentine films, Chinese-Peruvian food, and Japanese-Brazilian poetry. Finally, the course will turn to a selection of Latin American literature inspired by Asian traditions but by authors not of Asian ancestry. The overall timeframe of the course will mostly be from the late 19 th century through today, though the earliest texts will date from the 16 th century and include narratives from the failed Spanish attempt to conquer Taiwan in the 17 th century. The general goal of the course, in short, is to provoke an ongoing discussion of why any map of the Spanish-speaking world that leaves out Asia is not in fact much of a map at all. The course will be taught in Spanish; a reading knowledge of Portuguese is not required. For graduate students in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, this course satisfies the distribution requirement for both the Transatlantic and Modern Latin America fields.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4577 Lit Rural Modernity in Latam 3 Credits
This course will examine representations of rural territories (deserts, highlands, and jungles) from the nineteenth century to the present. We will study how the Latin American elites appropriated rural lands to make them part of their civilizational nation-building project by reading foundational poems, regionalist novels, and modernista short stories. Some issues that we will explore include the creation of a creole identity as a bridge between Europeans and Latin Americans, the abandonment of rural zones due to the contradictions of uneven modernization, and the role of literature in capturing the voice of dispossessed rural actors such as Indigenous women. We will read canonical works that mapped the region’s ecosystems and their heterogeneous populations and the work of women writers who used modern literary techniques to question forms of land-based and sexual oppression. We will also study the work of contemporary authors who destabilize traditional debates about civilization versus barbarism, the dispossession of bodies and territories, and Latin America’s insertion into the global economy.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4601 2666 y los detectives 3 Credits
Students in this course will spend the entire semester reading and analyzing two astounding novels by turn-of-the-21st-century writer Roberto Bolaño: the eleven hundred page 2666 and the six hundred page Los detectives salvajes. The former, published posthumously, is the greatest novel in Spanish since Don Quijote; the latter, published a few years earlier, brought Bolaño to global attention as the most important Latin American writer since the heyday of Gabriel García Márquez. By taking this course, students will be challenging themselves to read massive amounts of amazing fiction at a rapid pace. Students will also be challenging themselves to come to class ready to analyze and discuss art of the highest caliber that seeks to represent extensively, among other things, the horrors of sexual violence, bodily mutilation, war and genocide…and the enduring beauty and importance of literature in the face of such horrors. Diverse theoretical, inter-artistic and scholarly frameworks for these fictions will be considered along the way, as well as the centrality of the comedy within them. Please note: this is a course in which students, tasked primarily with reading two colossal novels, truly cannot fall behind and hope to catch up by skipping ahead. This course should only be taken by those who are dedicated to its workload and the joy of marathon reading and thinking about important things. The course will be taught entirely in Spanish and as a seminar in which high levels of student participation will be expected. Requirements include oral presentations, a single lengthy essay, and a love of great literature.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4610 El mundo de Guaman Poma 3 Credits
In this course, we will study Andean historiographer Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala's magnum opus, the Primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno (1615), and the context in which he produced it. We will read the entire chronicle and some of the primary materials that influenced or intersected with it, along with relevant secondary materials.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4660 Intro to Critical Theory 3 Credits
A general introduction to contemporary literary criticism, its methods (philology, stylistics, formalism, structuralism, and the different versions of poststructuralism, including deconstruction, feminist criticism, and Marxism), its aims, and limits, applied to Hispanic literature. Special attention is paid to the ways contemporary criticism has been informed by other disciplines--linguistics, philosophy, psychoanalysis, sociology--and the most recent discussions on genre. Intended for upper-level undergraduates and beginning graduate students in Spanish. Permission of the instructor is required.
Undergraduate prerequisites: SPAN-242 or SPAN-262 or Placement Test
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 4930 Topics: 3 Credits
This course focuses on the presence of Spanish and its speakers in what currently constitutes the United States of America. It presents and discusses issues related to historical, sociopolitical and linguistic aspects of the use of Spanish in the US, and their impact on the individual and the American society. The course introduces concepts revolving around language ideologies, attitudes and identities; language use; language contact; bilingualism and code-switching; heritage speakers; and language shift and maintenance. It focuses on the Latinx communities of the US from the point of view of dialectal and sociolectal distribution while critically reflecting on topics like European settlement, migration, and other relevant, current social issues affecting US-based Spanish-speaking individuals. Furthermore, the course will examine the role of Spanish in education, as well as the future of Spanish in the US.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4949 Spanish Tutorial 0-3 Credits
Level: Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4960 Senior Capstone 3 Credits
SPAN-494 is a required capstone seminar designed to give Spanish majors the opportunity to apply the language, literature and cultural knowledge they have acquired throughout their academic career. Majors in Spanish take this course in the Fall of their senior year. Students will participate in the seminar to work on a topic of their own choosing that will culminate in a research paper. The seminar will give students the opportunity to collaborate with their peers and to work on their research, writing and oral skills.
This course is a requirement for continuing with the honors thesis during the Spring Semester. This Capstone course is limited to undergraduate majors (Spanish and Spanish and Portuguese Studies) and does not satisfy the major requirement of taking a 400 level elective.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4961 Problems of Contemp Democracy 3 Credits
As a result of the economic crisis, Spanish society has witnessed a series of challenges to existing institutions and democratic practices. Some examples are the protest movement 15-M or the "indignados" (“outraged”), the growth of political disaffection, a questioning of traditional political parties, a rise in populism and challenges to territorial integrity. This is not a unique challenge to Spanish society, but a malaise present in manyadvanced democracies. Developments in Spain showcase a situation that is taking place in various countries and reveal how these events amount to a redefinition of democratic legitimacy. In this class, we will approach these political developments through the lenses of philosophy and political science. Something serious is going on with politics, and the term "indignation" that has recently been associated with it reflects this dramatically. Never before in history have there been so many ways in which to gain access to, monitor and challenge the authorities, but neither have the people ever felt so frustrated regarding their ability to make politics something different. It is certainly true that the crisis we are living through is a complex process and the acceleration is so great that we still have not had enough time to fully understand it. Perhaps that is why times of indignation are also, and principally, times of confusion. At a time of indignation, which questions and criticizes many things that we presumed to be peacefully shared, this course will attempt to give an overview of our ideas about politics, questioning whether we have hit the mark when it comes to defining its nature, who should do it, what are its possibilities and limits, whether some of our commonplaces are still valid and what we can expect of it. Readings in English: Colomer, Josep (1995), Game Theory and the Transition to Democracy: The Spanish Model, Aldershot: Edward Elgar. Hessel, Stéphane (2011), Time for Outrage, Twelve. Innerarity, Daniel (2012), The Future and its Enemies. In Defense of Political Hope, Stanford University Press. Urbinati, Nadie (2014), Democracy disfigured, Harvard University Press. Weber, Max (1946), "Politics as Vocation", in Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, pp. 77-128, Oxford University Press. Readings in Spanish: Brugué, Joaquim (2014), Es la política, idiotas, Accent: Barcelona. Chirbes, Rafel (2013), En la orilla, Barcelona: Tusquets. Colomer, Josep (1998), La transición española. El modelo español, Anagrama: Barcelona. Innerarity, Daniel (2009), El futuro y sus enemigos. Uma defensa de la esperanza política, Paidós: Barcelona. Muñoz Molina. Antonio (2013), Todo lo que era sólido,Barcelona: Seix Barral. Ovejero, Félix (2013), ¿Idiotas o ciudadanos? El 15-M y la teoría de la democracia, Barcelona: Montesinos.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4962 Adaptation 3 Credits
Literary history is the history of a series of adaptations, translations and mutations. As Linda Hutcheon has observed, drawing upon Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene, “some stories,” like genes and adaptive mutations, clearly “have more ‘stability and penetrance in the cultural environment,’ . . . Stories do get retold in different ways in new material and cultural environments; like genes, they adapt to those new environments by virtue of mutation—in their ‘offspring’ or their adaptations. And the fittest do more than survive; they flourish.” (A Theory of Adaptation, 32). Many such stories seem to have no locatable origins in space or time. Others appear in specific moments and become pillars of cultural literacy, but their stability and penetrance is limited.
Taking Hutcheon’s observation as a point of departure, this seminar explores a series of adaptogenic narratives, told and retold over the centuries and across cultures, as they travel through literary history. This seminar also explores how relations between medium and message change as stories move from one cultural context to another. Throughout the semester we will examine multiple definitions and practices of “adaptation,” in order to study the cultural politics and critical methodologies that inspire the reimaginings and revisions of works of art in contemporary literature, film, and interactive media. This course is intended for graduate students and advanced undergraduates. Readings and class discussions in Spanish and English. Cross-listed with Comparative Literature and Medieval Studies.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4963 Cult Pol of Sound LA/Spain 3 Credits
In the last few years the field of Sound Studies has emerged as a new way to understand culture and politics. Some topics of interest include popular music and the mechanisms of its circulation, such as radio, mp3s, and online videos; the production and meaning of soundtracks, accents, and sound effects in film; and the literary and historical depiction of soundscapes we experience in our daily lives. Studies in this area have shown that sounds we take for granted—industrial and natural noise, ring tones, vocal inflections and accents, even the styles of certain musical genres—are in fact implicated in wider historical and ideological frameworks that reflect beliefs about race, gender, class, and other political categories. With this in mind, in this course, we will take a Sound Studies approach to 20th- and 21st-century Iberian and Latin American culture. In addition to reading key theoretical texts on sound, we will examine how specific novels, films, podcasts, radio programs, and websites from contemporary Spain and Latin America reflect political beliefs about sound and society.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4964 Transatl Cross:Spain Lat Amer 3 Credits
This course will explore the ways in which the conceptual and real boundaries of nationhood are crossed and confounded in the literature and intellectual history of contemporary Spain and Latin America. Situating Hispanic literature in a multilingual Atlantic world, we will read a variety of texts by Spanish, Catalan, British, and Latin American authors spanning the early 20th through the 21st century. We will also explore the most recent theory and criticism on transatlantic literature and culture, considering such questions as: What are the roles of race, language, and history in constructing or challenging the nation-state? How do literatures from and about Europe, America, and Africa influence and transform each other? Finally, how does Hispanism, as a concept of pan-Latin identity and experience, reaffirm, dismantle, or transfigure the idea of nation, particularly in a transatlantic context? In addition to reading classic texts by Ganivet, Unamuno, Rodó, and Conrad, we will read contemporary novels by Alejo Carpentier, Luz Gabás, Javier Marías, Juan Gabriel Vásquez, and others.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 4965 World Spanishes 3 Credits
This course provides a comprehensive examination of the complex linguistic landscape of the contemporary Spanish-speaking world. Throughout the course, students deepen their understanding of the social and linguistic diversity of Spanish and its speakers through the study and analysis of the dialectal varieties that shape the language, as well as the social meanings these varieties hold for their users. Particular attention is given to the major geographical and social varieties of present-day Spanish, with an emphasis on the linguistic, social, political, historical, and geographical factors that have contributed to their development. The course also examines how speakers use, perceive, and evaluate these linguistic forms. Building on this foundation, students complete a research project that culminates in the production of a written paper. The course is taught in Spanish.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 5000 Spanish Teacher Education 3 Credits
This course is a requirement for all teaching graduates in the Spanish and Portuguese as it prepares them for four years of teaching service and for a future teaching the languages and cultures of the Luso-Hispanic speaking world. The course links readings and discussions on the theoretical underpinnings of current pedagogical approaches to language teaching, including an introduction to processing approaches to language learning, with their practical implementation -methods, techniques, the role of explicit instruction and input and classroom interaction. Special attention is devoted to the development of techniques for the teaching of L2 comprehension (reading and listening), production (speaking and writing), and assessment materials. Throughout the semester, students will critique published articles and design activities, tasks, tests, and lesson plans and complete classroom observations. Assessment consists of oral presentations, two examinations, and observation reports.
The course is taught in Spanish and all assignments must be completed in Spanish.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 5010 Spanish and Social Meaning 3 Credits
In this graduate seminar, students are invited to analyze the ways in which predominant discourses surrounding speakers of Spanish are closely intertwined with attitudes towards these speakers and these speakers’ linguistic choices. Concepts such as awareness, control, and stance will be addressed. A strong focus will be put on connecting theoretical tools to social patterns, with emphasis on current and local discourses. A key component of the seminar is engaging students in a hands-on research project with data elicited from the Spanish-speaking communities in the DC Metropolitan area.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 5070 Topics: 3 Credits
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 5090 Instructed SLA 3 Credits
This graduate course is designed to introduce applied linguistics students to three major areas in the second language acquisition (SLA) research literature, namely, instructed SLA (empirical efforts to investigate the effects of exposure to or instruction of the L2 on learners’ L2 development, research methodology, arguably the heart of the research design, and different approaches (quantitative and qualitative) to research. Other key issues in this course on classroom language learning will include current theoretical SLA models and hypotheses. A key component of the course is research apprenticeship, that is, hands-on experience in conducting a replication study of a published article in SLA.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 5110 Spanish Phonology I 3 Credits
An introduction to generative phonology. We will examine aspects of the sound structure of a number of diverse languages, in order to introduce the student to data analysis and the formal tools of phonological theory. Questions to be addressed include: How do we extract sound patterns from a set of data? What kinds of patterns can we expect to find? How can we best describe these patterns in a formal notation? What kinds of formalisms have been proposed? How can we evaluate the proposals? This course is recommended for any student who plans to use phonological data in her or his further research. This course has no prerequisites, but it will itself be a prerequisite for all more advanced phonology courses.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 5120 Spanish Phonology II 3 Credits
The aim of this course is to provide a deeper understanding of aspects already introduced in SPAN 511 and to get a general picture of current issues in phonological research. A detailed study of prosodic constituents, such as the syllable and the foot (accentual patterns) will take prominence.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 5250 Baroque Utopias 3 Credits
As the Spanish Empire expanded in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, so did the selection of goods available in its marketplaces. The explosion of wealth and the increased circulation of products had aesthetic effects as well as economic ones. In this course, we’ll draw on literary theory, and especially theories of capitalism, to explore the ways that 16th- and 17th-century texts from Spain and Spanish America (and, on occasion, England) idealize the accumulation of material and intellectual goods. We’ll examine visual and textual representations of productive or accumulative space, including maps, cityscapes, encyclopedias, and libraries, in an attempt to resolve several questions: Are these spaces really intended to be utopias? How do they illuminate the effects of Spain’s globalizing economy? Do their efforts to amass goods and ideas constitute a form of capitalism? Does their obsessive accumulation ultimately defy the synthesis and utility of knowledge to which “utopias” aspire?
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 5251 Women (Re)Write the Hemisphere 3 Credits
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 5257 Generative Syntax I 3 Credits
After a brief introduction to the philosophy and methods of generative grammar, this course examines some of the basic aspects of modern syntactic theory. It starts with an in-depth discussion of the need for postulating syntactic structures and then moves on to examine how best to account for phenomena such as word order variation across languages, the distribution and referential properties of noun phrases, and the differences among clausal types. These phenomena will be analyzed through the insights offered by the Principles and Parameters and the Minimalist frameworks. Some of the theoretical notions that will be discussed are features, subjects, and empty categories. The course consists of lecture presentations, class discussion and intensive problem solving and argumentation on the part of the students.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 5258 Generative Syntax II 3 Credits
This course is the second in a series of four courses and its main objective is to provide the student with a working knowledge of the philosophy and methods of generative grammar. This course seeks:(1) to provide a practical and thorough review and expansion of the theory of Principles and Parameters; (3) to introduce the basics of the Minimalist Program; (4) to guide the student in the writing of professional and publishable abstracts and squibs; (5) to give the student tools to evaluate squibs and articles.
After this course the student is expected:
- to have a complete knowledge of the principles of the theory of Government and Binding
- to understand how the different principles of the Minimalist Program came about
- to apply the principles to analyze data of English, Spanish, Greek, Albanian, Vietnamese, among many other languages.
- to be able to translate analyses from the Government and Binding framework to the Minimalist Program.
- to be able to read and criticize major articles that motivated the Minimalist Program
- to be able to write a 5-8 page squib describing and analyzing a theoretical problem
BASIC BIBLIOGRAPHY
L. Haegeman (1994) Introduction to Government and Binding Theory.
N. Chomsky (1995) The Minimalist Program
N. Hornstein et al. (2005) Understanding Minimalism
A. Radford (2009) An introduction to English sentence structure.
D. Adger (2003) Core Syntax: A Minimalist Approach.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 5320 Semantics Pragmatics II 3 Credits
In Semantics and Pragmatics 2, we extend the knowledge and skills gained in Semantics and Pragmatics 1 with the goal of giving students the abilities to read semantics/pragmatics literature on a virtually any topic which interests them and to do focused individual research projects in these areas. The course combines a “taught” component, with readings, lectures, and exercises, with a seminar-like component. This year, the course will concentrate on topics in intensional semantics, in particular tense (e.g., past, present, future), mood (indicative and subjunctive), and modality. We may also touch on aspect (perfect and progressive) and sentence types (interrogatives and imperatives), if student interest warrants. Prerequisites: Semantics and Pragmatics 1, or permission of instructor. Requirements: Reading, participation, homework assignments (especially in the first half of the semester), term paper.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 5333 Span Lingx Grad Res Practicum 1 Credit
SPAN 5333 provides students with an opportunity to engage deeply with a research project individually or with a fellow graduate student using the QuBa/NALCAP databases over the course of a semester. Students will work on their project with one or more undergraduate research assistants as mentors, providing guidance on research projects, career development, and academic navigation, creating a mutually beneficial relationship that builds mentoring skills for the graduate student and research experience for the undergraduate. The class is conducted in Spanish in a lab format. Bi-weekly class meetings include presentations by all students and by guest speakers, along with additional training on research methods. Learning goals in tjis experiential learning course include self-efficacy, ethical practice, and professional identity formation and collaboration.
Level: Graduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 5340 Medieval Genders 3 Credits
Medieval literature continually explores gender and gendered performances. The debate on women’s nature also constitutes a major conflict in the medieval literary arena, which not only theorizes femininity, but masculinity as well. In this course, we will survey a cross-section of literary works that are emblematic of these deep preoccupations with the construction and representation of gender and sexuality. Through our readings we will follow the debate and the anxiety about gender identity and performance that it reveals across genres, paying particular attention to its influence on Romance. Throughout, we will consider the extent to which contemporary feminist, queer, poststructuralist, and psychoanalytic theories can help us to understand medieval constructions of femininity, masculinity, and sexuality.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: SFS/CULP Humanities
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 5350 Migr Bord LATAM Cult Prod 3 Credits
What is a border? What is “bordering”? How do borders relate to race, coloniality, and imperialism? How do literature and film, among other mediums, both engage with and challenge transnational conversations around migration and borders? “Migration and Bordering” considers these and other questions via an examination of contemporary literature, film, performance, and visual art from two distinct regional contexts that are heavily defined by migratory processes: Mexico and Central America, and the Andes. Dialoguing with major works of Border Theory from Latin America and beyond, our course considers cultural production’s role in challenging, dismantling, reconfiguring, and, at times, upholding borders of all kinds (national, international, linguistic, socioeconomic, racial, etc.). We will also consider how various forms of migration—namely international and internal—shape these borders and those who cross them. Our approach to these questions will be comparative and transdisciplinary, drawing from a number of fields and critical approaches. Students are welcome and encouraged to bring their own experiences, disciplinary backgrounds, and expertise to the classroom.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 5360 Issues in Spanish Syntax 3 Credits
Negation is an essential semantic concept crucial to the expressive power of natural language. In this class we will look at how negation is realized in Spanish and compare Spanish in this regard to other Romance languages and also to English and German. One important topic we will discuss is Negative Concord. In addition to its syntax and semantics, we will also look at the history of Negative Concord, the relation between Negative Concord and the licensing of Negative Polarity Items, and how Negative Concord systems relate historically to double negation systems. A related topic we will discuss is sentential negation (e.g. not, n't ) and the historical development known as Jespersen's Cycle.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 5370 Race Mestizaje:Latin America 3 Credits
Although “race” is not a biological reality, it is a social construct that has developed over time, producing forms of social hierarchy and discrimination, representations, and symbols that impact upon the lives of people. This course will explore how “race,” “race mixing,” and cultural hybridity have unfolded since colonial times in Latin America, with a special focus on the comparison between how Latin American scholars have studied the topic, and how it has been studied by foreign scholars. In terms of disciplinary focus, the course will highlight ethnographic and historical works by authors from Latin America and North America. Course Reading List: de la Cadena, Marisol, Indigenous Mestizos: The Politics of Race and Culture in Cuzco, Peru, 1919-1991 (Duke, 2000) Candelario, Ginetta, Black Behind the Ears: Dominican Racial Identity from Museums to Beauty Shops (Duke, 2007) Freyre, Gilberto, The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization (Knopf, 1956)/ Casa-grande & senzala: Formação da familia grasileira sob o regime de economia patriarcal (Recife, 1966-70) / Casa-grande y senzala: Formación de la familia brasileña bajo el régimen de la economía patriarcal (Bib. Ayacucho, 1977) Hale, Charles, Más que un Indio: Racial Ambivalence and Neoliberal Multiculturalism in Guatemala (School of American Research, 2006) Hernández Castillo, R. Aída, Histories and Stories from Chiapas: Border Identities in Southern Mexico (Texas, 2001) / La otra frontera: Identidades múltiples en el Chiapas poscolonial (CIESAS, 2001) Rappaport, Joanne, The Disappearing Mestizo: Configuring Difference in the Colonial New Kingdom of Granada (Duke, 2014) Sartorius, David, Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba (Duke, 2013)— Sansone, Livio, Blackness without Ethnicity: Constructing Race in Brazil (Palgrave, 2003) Segato, Rita Laura, “The Color-Blind Subject of Myth; Or, Where to Find Africa in the Nation,” Annual Review of Anthropology 27 (1998): 129-51 Sheriff, Robin E., Dreaming Equality: Color, Race, and Racism in Urban Brazil (Rutgers, 2001) Torres-Saillant, Silvio, “The Tribulations of Blackness: Stages in Dominican Racial Identity,” Latin American Perspectives 25 (1998) 3: 126-46 Wade, Peter, et. al., Mestizo Genomics: Race Mixture, Nation, and Science in Latin America (Duke, 2014)
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 5380 Exploring Ethnographic Writing 3 Credits
This course is meant to provide graduate students with a general introduction to the problems inherent in writing ethnography, drawing upon a range of styles and genres of ethnographic writing from different time periods, covering different issues in a variety of world areas, and highlighting some of the differences in national anthropologies. Texts will be in both English and Spanish, class discussion will be bilingual. For graduate students only, or by permission of instructor.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 5390 Mapping the Hispanic Atlantic 3 Credits
In this course, we will explore the cultural production of the Atlantic as an imagined and material space throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries. We will also consider how that production has reverberated in the last few decades in discussions of historical memory and national identity, particularly in Spain. Comparing the seafaring adventure tales that produced the Atlantic space for European and elite criollo audiences in the Americas to narratives produced by enslaved people and cimarrones, among other topics, we will explore the geographical and political tensions that arise out of the stories people tell of themselves and their communities. At the same time, we will explore the critical consequences of positing transatlantic, diasporic, and other transnational frames as the basis for (re)thinking identity. The primary historical focus will be on the late colonial relationship between Spain and Cuba, but the critical texts and theory we study will cover a wider Atlantic frame. Authors to be considered may include Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, Cirilo Villaverde, Juan Manzano, Nicolás Guillén, Esteban Montejo, Carme Riera, and María Teresa Álvarez García. All work will be read, written, and discussed in Spanish.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 5539 Translation Hist/Theory/Praxis 3 Credits
History, Theory, Practice. Translation is the lifeblood of literary history and study. Yet because it challenges major critical categories such as authorship, originality, periodization, and meaning itself, it provokes inquiries into many of the assumptions that guide the study of languages and literature.
Level: Graduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 5540 Lat Amer Graphic Narrative 3 Credits
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 5541 Spanish Cinema Natl Identity 3 Credits
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 5542 Film theory interpretation 3 Credits
This course provides a general introduction to film theory
and to the practice of film analysis. It provides students with a critical
map of some of the most influential theoretical approaches to the
study of film, and also the analytical tools needed for critical
interpretation. We will examine the evolution of film worldwide as an
art form, a cultural medium, an agent for social emancipation, and a
tool for political and ideological indoctrination. We will explore the
medium of film through the prisms of early film theory, realist,
formalist, post-structuralist and psychoanalytical approaches to
cinema, and feminist, post-colonial and philosophical film theory. The
seminar will be conducted entirely in Spanish. Reading assignments will
be both in Spanish and English.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 5545 Climate Fiction 3 Credits
This course examines climate fiction as a vital arena where contemporary literature confronts the profound challenges posed by anthropogenic planetary warming. With primary attention to Latin American writers, we will investigate how fiction imagines the cascading disruptions of global heating through genres including eco-gothic, dystopia, speculative fiction, and the New Weird. Drawing on critical frameworks from the environmental humanities and ecocriticism, we will analyze how literary form grapples with the defining problems of climate representation: bridging the gap between intimate bodily experience and geological deep time and making the vast planetary systems that elude ordinary human perception legible.
Level: Graduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 5550 Nueva Novela Historica Latinoa 3 Credits
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 5551 Post-War Spanish Novel 3 Credits
In this course, we will cover several of the most influential Post-War Spanish authors such as Camilo José Cela, Juan Goytisolo, Maria Laforet, Juan Marsé, Carmen Martin Gaite or Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio—who produced their best work under Francoist dictatorship—and post- Francoist transitional authors such as Javier Marías, Eduardo Mendoza, Antonio Muñoz Molina, Cristina Fernández Cubas or Enrique Vila Matas; we will also cover a younger generation of Spanish authors including Javier Cercas, Belén Gopegui, Antonio Orejudo, or Rafael Reig.
The objective of this course is to read all these canonical authors and its younger counterparts with fresh critical eyes. We will place their works in their turbulent Spanish historical context in which they were produced, but also in the rich theoretical context provided by critics such as Mikhail Bakhtin, Roland Barthes, Peter Brooks, Paul de Man, Terry Eagleton, Wolfgang Iser, D.A Miller, Franco Moretti, Richard Poirier, Edward Said, among others. Following Jonathan Culler´s taxonomy of literature, our aim will be to read these novels as historically bound literary artifacts attempting to perform a foregrounding and integration of language, offering themselves not only as paradigms of fiction but as aesthetic, self-reflexive objects. We will pay particular attention to the literary manipulation of space and time to recreate a constrictive Spanish social milieu or to imagine what Richard Poirier has termed a “world elsewhere” where characters can “swell into shapes or defy the realities of space and time.”
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 5555 LAT AMER: Cine y Realismo 3 Credits
This course will equip students with an understanding of how Latin American cinema has addressed the problem of realism from the second half of the 20th century up until the present, how it blended with the European theoretical discussions of the Italian Neorealism and French Cinéma Vérité to develop its own aesthetics such as Cinema Novo, Tercer Cine and Cine Imperfecto in the 1960-70s, and how contemporary Latin American films, in their own way, have dealt with the question of realism. Throughout the course, we will follow the recurring argument that there is a specter that haunts Latin American cultural production, and that said specter is its own reality which through film contributes to show this spectral presence. This course will regard the filmmaker's commitment to representation, to truth and to the film medium's material bond with the real, in this case, Latin America’s uneven projects of modernization indicated by urban crime and delinquencies, countryside violence and the struggle for land, the fight for democracy, race, gender, the environment as well as the question of indigenous identity. Realist theories will include writings of John Grierson, György Lukács, Siegfried Kracauer, Sergei M. Eisenstein Bertold Brecht, André Bazin, Fernando Birri, Glauber Rocha, Octavio Getino, Fernando Solanas, Julio García Espinoza, and Jorge Sanjinés, among others. Typical films might include !Qué viva México! (Sergei Eisenstein, 1979), Los olvidados (Luis, Buñuel, 1950), Araya (Margot Benacerraf, 1959), Vidas sects (Nélson Pereira dos Santos, 1963), Deus e o diabo na terra do sol (Gláuber Rocha, 1964), La hora de los hornos (Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, Argentina, 1968), La batalla de Chile (Patricio Guzmán, Chile, 1975-79), Iracema (Jorge Bodanksy, 1974), Pixote (Héctor Babenco, 1981), Cidade de Deus (Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, 2000), Amores perros (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2000), and Roma (Alfonso Cuarón, 2018), among others.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Equivalent to SPAN 555
SPAN 5560 Lit Film Music of Mex Mex A 3 Credits
This course is open to Undergraduates and Graduate Students - No restrictions.
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Este curso, el cuál está abierto a los dos estudiantes subgraduados y graduados, explora las culturas mexicanas y chicanas desde la Revolución hasta hoy día por una variedad de géneros y medios, incluso ficción, poesía, cine, música, prosa testimonial, teatro, ensayos y arte de performance. A lo largo del semestre se van a analizar los detalles y rasgos llamativos de cada texto en sí y cómo se tratan de cuestiones culturales y nacionales más amplias y profundas. La meta general del curso es que los estudiantes desarrollen un conocimiento diverso de las expresiones artísticas mexicanas y chicanas de los siglos XX y XXI y que mejoren sus destrezas críticas y teóricas para poder discutirlas.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 5588 Computer Assist. Lang Learning 3 Credits
As computer-based technologies have taken on an increasingly central role in foreign language instruction, Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) is no longer a specialty area. Accordingly, this course serves as an introduction to the broader field of CALL and various techno-pedagogical applications that fall under this umbrella. Students will understand the growth of CALL in foreign language (L2) instruction, examine the pedagogical rationale for utilizing CALL, and evaluate various applications for L2 instruction. In addition to critical examination of learning technologies, students will develop their own abilities to utilize and apply technologies relevant to L2 instruction. There will be three major course assignments, and they will be showcased on a jointly-constructed class website: 1) Research brief: Students will select, read and summarize one article/chapter from a scholarly publication (i.e., journal or edited volume). These text-based summaries should also address the articles’ contributions to the growth of CALL as a field of scholarship. 2) Technology review: Students will select and evaluate one particular technology or application that can be used to foster language development. The technology reviews will be delivered using a non-text-based multimedia platform (e.g., video, podcast, etc.). 3) Teaching unit: In the context of a particular L2 curriculum, students will design a teaching unit that incorporates CALL in an integral way. In all cases, the course will emphasize the primacy of sound pedagogy when using CALL for L2 instruction.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 5597 SEM: Current Trands Span Phon 3 Credits
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 5598 Digital/Medieval/Postmodern 3 Credits
It has been said often and by many scholars, critics, and entrepreneurs that the hypertextual and hyperreal landscape of the internet is “medieval.” This course will explore the varied meanings of such claims and the connections between “the medieval,” “the digital,” and the “postmodern” through a series of readings on the digital humanities, critical theory, and the close relationships between deconstructive postmodernism and medievalism. We will pair this theorizing with the study of select medieval texts that are digitally accessible in their manuscript and early printed material contexts and the study of past and present writing technologies. The course will serve as an introduction to medieval studies as a global, multidisciplinary field in the twenty-first century. Student work will include presentations, short reflective papers, practical training in digital humanities tools, and a final project combining the traditional research paper and digital visualizations. We will work closely with the Lauinger Library’s digital scholarship programs. Taught in English with readings in Spanish and English.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 5599 Lat. American Cultural Theory 3 Credits
Este seminario de posgrado tiene el propósito de examinar los debates contemporáneos sobre cultura, política y democracia en América Latina. Se enfocará los temas de cultura y democracia; medios masivos y ciudadania; cultura urbana; genero y cultura. Eligibilidad: Es eligible a matricularse todo estudiante de posgrado que sepa hablar, leer, escribir y entender el castellano con facilidad. Algunas lecturas estarán también en português. Tienen prioridad los estudiantes de (a) Spanish and Portuguese (b) Latin American Studies (c) Comparative Literature y (d) otros departamentos y programas.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 5600 Syntax/Semantics Interface 3 Credits
Clearly, there is a systematic relation between grammatical structure and meaning, but what do the semantic and syntactic modules of grammar need to be like to explain it? In this class we are going to explore the syntax-semantics interface with the goal of understanding both classic and currently debated theoretical approaches. Our course will be organized around three clusters of topics: 1. Covert (and other A’-) movement a. Scope b. Quantification and binding c. Wh-questions 2. Alternatives and multidimensional meaning a. Focus b. Wh-questions c. Indefinites d. Free choice e. Exhaustification 3. Argument taking a. Event semantics b. Status of agents c. Modes of combination (Ladusaw/Chung) d. DM layers in the syntax The course will be co-taught by Elena Herburger (Spanish and Portuguese) and Paul Portner (Linguistics). It will have a seminar-style format, and so we anticipate lively discussion among all participants. Target audience: graduate students in syntax and semantics, computational linguistics and formal approaches to language acquisition Prerequisites: Syntax 1 and Semantics and Pragmatics 1 Requirements: reading the papers, participation, presentation and term paper
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 6000 Natural Histories 3 Credits
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 6014 Quant Methods: Span Socioling 3 Credits
This course is designed for graduate students embarking on master's or doctoral theses in Spanish sociolinguistics or related fields. It focuses on equipping students with essential methods for effective data preparation and analysis to address their research questions. The curriculum encompasses various aspects, including data collection techniques, stimuli creation, and statistical analysis of multivariate data, whether linear, binomial, or ordinal. Additionally, participants will delve into plotting options for complex visualizations, such as interactions. Throughout the course, students will engage in hands-on workshops utilizing existing datasets from my research or colleagues' work in other institutions. The objective is for students to master established methods in the field, preparing them for rigorous research endeavors. Emphasis will also be placed on developing the skills necessary to articulate research results in the academic narrative expected in both master's and doctoral theses, as well as in general academic writing. The course is taught in English.
Level: Graduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 6555 Foundtns Latam Film 3 Credits
"Foundations of Latin American Film" This course provides an overview of the significant National Cinemas of Spanish American countries in the hemisphere, including Brazil. Within the overarching framework of society and culture, specific topics such as representation, adaptation, ideological constructs, docudrama and cinematographic techniques as markers of meaning serve to sharpen the close-film analysis as well as a micro/macro-examination of contemporary Latin America, Mexico and Cuba.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Course attribute: Core:HALC - Hum, Art, Lit, Cul
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
SPAN 7000 It's all about you: Spanish ad 3 Credits
In this graduate seminar, students are invited to think about and analyze the ways in
which linguistic features of different varieties of Spanish are socially conceptualized in
specific ways, how these conceptualizations are ideological, and how they are closely
intertwined with speakers’ contextually situated linguistic choices. Concepts such as
sociolinguistic awareness, control, and identity stance will be addressed. A strong focus
will be put on connecting theoretical tools to social patterns, with emphasis on current
and local discourses, and on engaging students in a hands-on corpus-based research
project.
Level: Graduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 7015 SLA: Depth of Processing in L2 3 Credits
Both educators and researchers alike are usually confounded by the differential performances of L2 learners who are exposed to the same L2 information in the classroom setting. One potential explanation may lie in how deeply L2 learners process the L2 information, usually referred to as depth of processing (DOP). Depth of processing is defined as “the relative amount of cognitive effort, level of analysis, elaboration of intake together with the usage of prior knowledge, hypothesis testing and rule formation employed in decoding and encoding some grammatical or lexical item in the input” (Leow, 2015: 204). The benefits of adopting a DOP perspective to address the issue of type of learning are theoretical, methodological, empirical, and pedagogical. This seminar will critically and empirically address the assumed role depth of processing plays in the L2 learning process by empirically revisiting selected Instructed SLA strands of research. Students will be assessed by a data-based research project in addition to oral presentations and written assignments.
Level: Graduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 7016 Spanish Sociophonetics 3 Credits
Back in 1998 Roy Major observed that “of the nearly 200 articles published in SSLA during the last 10 years, only about a dozen focus on phonetics and phonology.” This situation has changed in recent years and judging by current trends, research in L2 phonology is only picking up speed. The seminar will start with a historical background followed by a comparative overview of L1 and L2. Then we will review theoretical approaches and research methods, which should lead to the analysis of current trends. Specific topics that will appear in different readings include the factors that affect rate and ultimate level of acquisition such as age, transfer, individual differences, context of learning, UG, and markedness. We will cover segmental and suprasegmental units and move from the phonological to the phonetic domains as well as from production to perception. This course should be of interest to the sizable number of students currently working on projects related to the sound component of multilingualism, to students looking for a red-hot topic for their upcoming proposals and QPs, or to students just curious about all the fuss and excitement surrounding L2 phonology.
Level: Graduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 7017 Sem:Study Abroad Lg Developm 3 Credits
Language Development in Immersive Contexts Abroad
Recent approaches to SLA, including neurocognitive approaches, suggest that only ‘immersion-like’ conditions lead to an electrophysiological signature typical of native speakers. However, contrary to expectations, SA research often finds minimal or no effects of immersion experience on linguistic development. Traditionally, studies have compared SA vs L2 classroom contexts and have focused on fluency and lexical and grammatical development. The last decade however has seen significant growth in the number of publications with more diverse populations and programs and more robust research designs. Of special interest to us in this course are the multiple interactions among internal and external factors that work together or against each other to affect L2 development in immersive contexts. The following will receive special attention: 1. context: study vs stay abroad; program characteristics; living arrangements; 2. individual differences: general cognition; aptitude, memory; motivation, anxiety; attitudes, identity; 3. targets: how is language development operationalized and measured?; 4. methods: cross-sectional vs longitudinal; SA vs. at home; SA vs SA; qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods.
Level: Graduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 7019 STAT Meth in SLA Research 3 Credits
This seminar introduces quantitative methods commonly used in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and Applied Linguistics research. The contents will cover traditional univaraite approaches including ANOVA, multiple regression and Chi Square tests, and selected multivariate methods such as factor analysis and cluster analysis. Emphases are on the conceptual understanding of various techniques, interpretation/presentation of the findings and hands-on experience of applying the methods to real data. Examples to illustrate the methods will be demonstrated with popular software packages such as SPSS. One unique feather of this seminar is that all examples and exercises will be taken from recently published articles in SLA journals. At the end of semester, students are expected to be able to understand publications using the methods covered in this course and to analyze their own data for publication. This course is reading and analysis intensive.
Level: Graduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 7020 Sem on Biling Cognition 3 Credits
Level: Graduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 7021 Intro Systemic Functional Ling 3 Credits
Level: Graduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 7022 SEM: Conditionals 3 Credits
Sentences of the form 'if A then B' ('Conditionals') are anything but rare and play an important role in language. Their meaning raises some interesting questions, however. Some that will be discussed in this class are: How can we actually have judgments about the meaning and veracity of conditionals when they are often about hypothetical, sometimes even counterfactual situations? What instances of A are relevant when we interpret B and which do we safely set aside? How do conditionals behave in different environments, e.g. under negation? And, finally, how come 'if A then B' is often to taken to mean 'if A then B' and 'If not A then not B'. Prerequisite for this class is Semantics and Pragmatics 1 or equivalent.
Level: Graduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 7023 Lang Attitudes and Identities 3 Credits
This graduate seminar focuses on sociolinguistic research into Spanish accent variation, language attitudes, and identities. Students explore where our attitudes towards language come from, how they are formed and manifested, and what they may tell us about society. They are introduced to a range of sociolinguistic research methods; study the relationship between language and a diverse array of social identities, including, but not limited to, race/ethnicity, socio-economic status, gender, and sexual orientation; and reflect on the real-world implications of language attitudes on our society as a whole.
Level: Graduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 7024 Written Corrective Feedback 3 Credits
SEMINAR ON WRITTEN CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK The role of written corrective feedback (WCF) in L2 writers’ compositions has been empirically addressed for over three decades yet not much has been gleaned from this strand of research in relation to its benefits given its previous primary focus on the product of the exposure. In addition, there has been a subtle shift in the perspective of the writing process to probe deeper into the potential for learners’ overall L2 development being derived from this process. This shift has resulted in a distinction between learning-to-write (mostly associated with writing courses) and writing-to-learn (mostly situated within an L2 curriculum). With respect to for latter, researchers have recently called for a more process-oriented approach to WCF with an emphasis on a change in methodological designs (Manchón & Leow, 2020; Leow & Manchón, forthcoming) that are more aligned with the language setting and curriculum (Leow, 2018, 2019; 2020; Leow & Cerezo, 2016). The paucity of online studies that have gathered concurrent data on learner processes as they engage in both the composing and revising stages of the L2 writing process clearly underscores the need to gather further data during these two stages. In this seminar, students will conduct a data-based project that addresses theoretically and empirically the effects of type of WCF by probing deeper into how learners cognitively process online written L2 feedback. Students will also be assessed by oral presentations and written assignments.
Level: Graduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 7025 Processes in L2 Learning 3 Credits
In SLA, all major theoretical perspectives agree on the following coarse-grained framework: Input > Intake > Internal system > Output. In this framework, there are several stages postulated to occur along the learning process that begins with exposure to the L2 (Input), some of which is taken in by the learner (Intake), a subset of which may be further processed and become L2 knowledge in the Internal system, which may then be produced as Output, assumed to be representative of the L2 knowledge or what has been learned (implicitly or explicitly). However, while there is much interest and discussion of the first stage, namely, input processing or the input-to-intake stage, there is a paucity of research that has addressed empirically the processes involved during both the intake processing and output processing stages. This seminar will critically and empirically address these processes in an effort to shine some light on learners’ processes as they occur along the learning process in SLA. Students will be assessed by a data-based research project in addition to oral presentations and written assignments.
Level: Graduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 7026 Technology L2 Learning 3 Credits
Undoubtedly, the use of technology in the second/foreign language (L2) classroom has had a tremendous impact on both experimental research and pedagogy. Empirically and pedagogically, the findings of many of these technology-based studies appear to indicate that employing technology in the L2 classroom is more advantageous for L2 exposure and instruction in the classroom setting. However, two recent methodological studies addressed the robustness of research designs employed in technology-based empirical studies and, more specifically from a psycholinguistic perspective, the effects of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) versus traditional instruction or face-to-face (FTF) in relation to L2 grammatical development (Cerezo, Baralt, Suh, & Leow, 2013), and vocabulary learning, reading and listening comprehension (Leow & Suh, forthcoming) and called for more robust investigation before addressing categorically the effects of the medium on these outcomes. In this seminar, students will conduct a data-based project that addresses empirically the effects of the electronic medium by probing deeper into how learners cognitively process online L2 data. Students will also be assessed by oral presentations and written assignments.
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 7133 SEM: Syntax 3 Credits
The principal non-Markovian characteristic of human language syntax is that it involves long-distance dependencies (displacement, agreement). One of the fundamental discoveries of Generative linguistics has been that, contrary to appearances, syntactic dependencies are always relatively local. Much work since the 1970s has focused on understanding the principles that regulate syntactic locality. In the last thirty years or so, there has also been increased interest in leveraging syntactic locality domains to explain locality effects at the interfaces with form and meaning. In this course, we will examine locality as it pertains to syntactic operations and to the transfer of syntactic structure to the interfaces. Do the same locality principles operate in the two domains? We will trace the development of various locality theories (Subjacency, Phase theory, Relativized Minimality), understanding both their historical context and their place in modern syntactic theorizing. We will scrutinize the successes and failures of these theories, especially (the various instantiations of) Phase theory as a unified theory of locality. Throughout, the emphasis will be on examining a maximally broad set of cross-linguistic data, with the goal of drawing wide-ranging empirical generalizations about locality effects in grammar. The overarching aim is to distill the key insights from the very rich literature on locality in order to understand whether a unified theory of syntax-internal locality and interface locality is (a) empirically desirable and (b) achievable given current theoretical offerings.
Level: Graduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 7949 Tutorial: Spanish 3 Credits
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 9991 Continuous Registration
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: No Grade
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 9992 Continuous Registration
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: No Grade
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 9993 Continuous Registration
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: No Grade
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 9994 Continuous Registration
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
SPAN 9999 Thesis Research
Level: Graduate, Undergraduate
Grading: Main Campus (UGrad, Grad)
Course registration restrictions:
Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.