Department of  Spanish Italian & Portuguese

 

115 WILSON HALL

PO Box 400777

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

434-924-7159

 

Spring 2008

COURSE DESCRIPTIONS^*

Italian

Portuguese

Spanish

 

^*300 level +

 

 

                                                Featuring…

                               Creative Writing Workshop                                                                                                                                                            Mempo Giardinelli
                                                                                           Rosa Montero
                                      Visiting Professor Roger Wright
                                                                   SPAN 309 Linguistics
                                                                   SPAN 730 History of the Language

Other Graduate Offerings to consider:
ENAM 875 - Hemispheric American Studies
Ruth Hill, Spanish and Anna Brickhouse, English

 

 

FOR MORE ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT

www.virginia.edu/span-ital-port/

 

 

 

For specific days and times please consult the online Course Offering Directory

http://etg08.itc.virginia.edu/cod.pages/20081/ASF/SPAN.html

 

Italian

Spring 2008

Course Offerings

 

ITAL 302 Advanced Conversation II, 3 credits
Enrico Cesaretti

  This course offers an overview of contemporary Italian culture and language through selected readings, vocabulary study, and theme-based class discussions.  Emphasis is placed on strengthening fluency and communication skills. The course intends also to selectively review important points of grammar through essay writing in Italian.

 

 

ITAL 376 Italian Travel Literature, 3 credits

Adrienne Ward

 

Study of Italian travel narratives from medieval to modern times, within a discussion of the definition and history of the genre. Theoretical perspectives relating to travel and so-called "ethnographic" literature will also be discussed.  Authors include Marco Polo, Amerigo Vespucci, Cristina Bel Gioioso and 20th-century writers and journalists such as Pier Paolo Pasolini, Alberto Moravia, Anna Maria Ortese. In Italian.

 

 

ITAL 730 Italian Theater, 3 credits

Adrienne Ward

Study of major Italian dramas from the Renaissance to the present, including works by Machiavelli, Goldoni, Pirandello e Fo.  Contextualization of theatrical literature through examination of contemporary dramatic theories, theater's interaction with other literary genres, theater as socio-cultural practice.

 

 

ITAL758 Pen & Brush, 3 credits
Deborah Parker

This course focuses on the literary and cultural traditions that inform treatments of art and artists in the Italian Middle Ages and Renaissance. Initial readings will examine the way in which Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch characterize great works of art and artists. The balance of the course will be devoted to an examination of the literary works of four Renaissance artist-poets: Giorgio Vasari, Michelangelo, Bronzino, and Cellini. Class discussions will address recurring topics and themes, how writers characterize the figure of the artist, and the different literary styles of artist-poets. We will also discuss in detail the secondary criticism.

   

 ITAL 790 Italian  Avant-Garde, 3 credits
Enrico Cesaretti

   

Italian In Translation

 

HIEU 341/ITTR 341 Dante’s Italy, 3 credits
Deborah Parker
Duane Osheim

This course investigates Italian history and culture through the prism of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, one of the most important works in European literature. The three parts of the Comedy offer a meditation on the social and political life of the Italian city-states, a critique of contemporary Christianity, and a commentary on art and literature at the end of the Middle Ages. The format of the course will be lectures on historical and cultural issues critical to the Comedy and discussions of selected cantos of the great poem. We will also take advantage of the information available through “The World of Dante” website. There will be a midterm, a final and a paper based on a study of issues raised by the poem itself.

 

Portuguese

Spring 2008

Course Offerings

 

POTR 427 Brazilian and Afro-Brazilian Civilization, 3 credits
David Haberly

A general introduction, in English, to the literature and culture of Brazil from 1500 to the present, with special emphasis upon the role of Afro-Brazilians in the creation of that literature and culture. No knowledge of Portuguese is required, and lectures and readings will be in English. The course includes discussions of the nation's social and historical development, but these topics will be presented through readings in the major works of Brazilian literature, including the works of important Afro-Brazilian authors.

 

 

 

 

Spanish

Spring 2008

Course Offerings

SPAN 309 Linguistics, 3 credits
Roger Wright

Prerequisite: SPAN 311 or equivalent.   This course offers a rigorous introduction to the formal study of the Spanish language. Topics include: articulatory phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, historical linguistics and dialectology. Taught in Spanish.

 
SPAN 310 Phonetics, 3 credits

Prerequisite: SPAN 202. This course consists of an in-depth analysis of the phonological system of Spanish, including both Peninsular and American varieties.  Of equal importance are the theoretical (phonological) and practical (phonetic) aspects of the course.  The aim of the course, therefore, is to provide the student with an understanding of phonological theory, while putting the theory into practice to improve the student's pronunciation.

 
SPAN 311 Grammar Review, 3 credits

Prerequisite: SPAN 202   This course strives toward a deeper understanding of grammatical aspects of the Spanish language through an intensive review.  It is assumed the student has a working knowledge of the mechanics.  Though this course is a review, it is intended to increase the student’s skills in reading, writing and speaking, in preparation for work in advanced-level courses.  


SPAN 314 Business Spanish
Maria Gutierrez

This is an advanced Spanish course that focuses on the uses of Spanish business terminology. It is designed to teach the fundamentals of practical commercial Spanish correspondence, advertising, foreign trade, insurance, transportation, and banking.  Other important aspects of the course will be studying Hispanic countries’ commercial behaviors, and their present economical reality.  This course is recommended only for students with a solid background in Spanish.  (One or two 300-level Spanish courses required.)


SPAN 315 Conversational Cinema LA, 3 credits
Karr-Cornejo  

Prerequisites: SPAN 311 Grammar Review. Conversation course whose object is to improve spoken Spanish through discussion of Latin American cinema. Films will be discussed in the context of the history and culture of various countries. Majors are reminded that only one conversation course may be counted towards the major. Closed to native and bilingual speakers.


SPAN 330 Literary Analysis, 3 credits

SPAN 311, Grammar Review, must be completed before enrolling in SPAN 330 or an AP Spanish Language score of 5 NB: Students with an AP Spanish Literature score of 4 or 5 may not take this course for credit. PLEASE NOTE: SPANISH 330, LITERARY ANALYSIS, IS A PREREQUISITE FOR ALL LITERATURE SURVEYS (340, 341, 342, 343) AND ALL LITERATURE AND CULTURE CLASSES. THIS IS A DEPARTMENT REQUIREMENT.   Drawing upon readings from different periods of both Spanish and Latin American literature, this course introduces the student to the fundamentals of analyzing narrative, lyric poetry, and drama.  Through daily readings and discussions, as well as several exams and papers, the student will develop a critical vocabulary that will allow him or her to make convincing oral and written arguments about the relationship between what a literary text says and how it says it.  All work will be conducted in Spanish.  This course is a pre-requisite for all further work in literature and culture & civilization in the Spanish program.  It is also a required course for Spanish majors.   


SPAN 340 Survey Spanish Literature I, 3 credits
Alison Weber  

An introduction to Spanish literature of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Baroque periods. A selection of works from various genres will be studied in their historical context. Completion of Spanish 330 is a pre-requisite. Grades will be based on a midterm, a short paper, class discussion, weekly reaction comments posted on a class e-mail list, and a final. The course is taught entirely in Spanish.    


SPAN 341 Survey Spanish Literature II, 3 credits  

This course provides an overview of literature and society in Spain from the eighteenth century until today.    


SPAN 343 Survey Latin American Literature II, 3 credits
Gustavo Pellón

Spanish 330 Literary Analysis is a prerequisite for this course. This course is a survey of Spanish American literature. The objective of the course is to introduce students to major authors, works, and literary movements of Spanish America from 1900 to the present. Students will read poetry and short prose selections from an anthology (Voces de Hispanoamérica) as well as a novel (Gabriel García Márquez’s Crónica de una muerte anunciada). We will also see a few films. Written work will consist of unannounced quizzes and short writing assignments, two short papers (3 and 6 pages respectively) and a two part exam: the first part will be taken in class and will deal will require recall of information, the second part will be an open-book, open-notebook take-home essay exam.  

SPAN 411 Advanced Grammar, 3 credits  

Attention will center on in-depth examination of the nuances of vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, grammar and style. Students will write on a broad range of topics in a variety of formats for a variety of purposes. Their work will serve as a point of departure for analysis of written language.  


SPAN 413 Conversation Cinema, 3 credits
David T. Gies

This is an advanced conversation course whose subject matter for discussion is contemporary Latin American cinema.  Students will view one film for each class, and be required to discuss that film from varying points of view (theme, plot, character development, artistic innovations, etc.)  Supplementary readings.  Class assignments include film reviews and a short written paper.  Grade based on improvement from beginning of course. Closed to native speakers and students who have taken Spanish 313.
 

SPAN 420 History of Spanish Language, 3 credits
Joel Rini   The purpose of this course is provide an introduction to the evolution of the Spanish language, by examining the phonetic/phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical, and semantic changes that occurred in the development of Latin to Spanish.  No prior knowledge of Latin required.  Prerequisites:  SPAN 309 and 311, or SPAN 310 and 311, or instructor permission.  


SPAN 422 Translation, 3 credits
Juliana Gallardo  

The aim of this course is to explore the general principles of written translation from Spanish to English. We will discuss and translate examples of modern prose and verse drawn from a wide variety of literary genres, with a section on journalism as well.  Each week the student will be required to: translate one text, and have it ready to share with the class, as well as read and prepare for discussion the theory articles assigned for that week.  The student will select, in consultation with the instructor, a text to translate as a Final Project. Prerequisite:  two literature courses at the 300 level or above, one of which must be 330, or permission of the instructor.  


SPAN 427/527 Spanish Culture & Civilization
Fernando Operé  

This course deals with Spain in the 20th century.  It will begin with the most important political events since 1900 (end of the Monarchy of Alfonso XIII, the 2nd Republic, Spanish Civil War, Franco Dictatorship), up to the present political events of modern Spain ruled by a parliament under a monarchy, and integrated into the European Community.  Special emphasis will be put in understanding Spain in its complexity (regional diversity and tensions), social composition, fiestas, and the main social changes of the Spanish society after the death of Franco in 1975 (immigration, nationalism).  Part of the course will be dedicated to the study of the Spanish artistic movements and its most relevant contemporary representatives in the field of music (flamenco and popular), painting (Dalí, Picasso, Miró), architecture (Gaudí), dance. Every student is required to write a 10 pages research paper in Spanish, a mid-term and final exam.

   
SPAN 428/528 Latin America Culture & Civilization, 3 credits
Daniel Chávez

Visual Culture and Nation Building in Latin America
 
With an emphasis on the study of the dissemination and consumption of images we will revisit the processes of Nation Building in contemporary Latin American history. The main focus of the course is on the most important media producers and more dynamic media markets of the last fifty years in the region: Mexico and Brazil. Working with the fundamental concepts pertaining to each specific medium, we will analyze visual and textual genres including: serial novels and newspapers, comic books, films, telenovelas and video games.    


SPAN 428B/528B Latin America: In Quest of Identity , 3 credits
Herbert Braun
Cross-Listed with HILA 402B  

In Latin America the search for identity has been a plural endeavor. Latin Americans have asked, “Who are we? Rarely have they asked, “Who am I? “ Who are we? What kind of a people are we? What kind of a civilization? What is our destiny? What are the causes of our backwardness? What lies in our future? These thoughts run through the writings of almost all of Latin America’s great thinkers. Students in this course will write a final interpretive essay on this quest for identity based on our readings of historical and contemporary writers. This essay will be between twenty and thirty pages in length. The course will be divided into two parts: In the first eight weeks we will read together from the writings of some of those great thinkers, including Bolívar, Sarmiento, Andrés Bello, José María Luis Mora, Lucas Alamán, Alcides Arguedas, Francisco Bulnes, José Ingenieros, José Enrique Rodó, José Martí, José Carlos Mariátegui, Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, Edmundo O’Gorman, Leopoldo Zea, Octavio Paz. During the last six weeks students will read contemporary authors writing from the 1960s onward, as they ruminate on the emergence of modernity, the growth of materialism, the decline of ideology, the place of the individual and the family in society, the prospects for democracy, changing gender roles, the revolution in sexual mores, the heightened place of race and ethnicity, and the relationship between Latin America and the world. Students will select various authors depending on the directions that their essay is taking. Most of the readings are in Spanish. Students taking this course must feel comfortable reading in Spanish. Permission of instructor is required. The final essay may be written in either English or Spanish.    


SPAN 431/531 Hispanic Sociolinguistics, 3 credits
Fernando Tejedo

This course provides students with an introductory coverage of the most relevant topics related to the interrelationship between language and society, as well as language and culture in the particular context of the Spanish language and its varieties. Topics covered are linguistic variation, bilingualism, diglossia, attitudes towards language, gender issues, code switching, language planning, discourse analysis, and language substitution.   Strongly recommended: one previous course in Spanish Linguistics (SPAN 309 Linguistics and SPAN 310 Phonetics are the introductory courses).    


SPAN 474 Women Between Cultures: US Latinas in their Writing, 3 credits
Mané Lagos  

In the last decades, Chicanas, Nuyoricans, Puerto Ricans, Cuban-Americans, Dominican-Americans, and Latin American women living and writing in the United States have created an important corpus that deals with issues of cultural identity and being a woman in-between two cultures. This course will examine how Latina women have articulated the experience of living within two sets of cultural codes, considering variants such as class, race, religious beliefs, language, etc. Class conducted in Spanish; readings are in English. Class participation, oral presentation, two exams, one paper.  


SPAN 480 Essays of Identity, 3 credits
Ruth Hill  

Prerequisites: 311 or 411 and 330. This course will focus on attempts (essays) to define Latin America and the United States in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries through an analysis of non-fiction (long and short essays, newspaper articles) and a handful of fictional works (dramas and novels), plus secondary readings in anthropology, history, and law.  We will be looking at topics such as gender, class, race, development, nationalism, constitutionalism, and modernity.    All students are required to meet with their assigned study group outside of class each week and turn in 3-5 pp. reports every week.  Students will write three exams, plus the final exam, and take unannounced quizzes on the daily readings.  Active and intelligent participation in classroom dialogues is a must; attendance is not enough.  Reading load is heavy and all written assignments and lectures in Spanish.    


SPAN 486 Contemporary Latin American Short Story, 3 credits
Donald Shaw  

The course will be based on analyses of mainstream short stories by Spanish American authors from Horacio Quiroga to Rosario Ferré in broadly chronological order, including Borges, Rulfo, Cortázar and Valenzuela. There will be discussion of methods of dealing critically with short stories and of the place of the authors in the development of modern fiction in Spanish America . The course will be based on a xerox packet of short stories. Grades will be based on three short essays two in Spanish and one in English.  


Spanish 491/591: Spanish Women Writers, 1450-1800: The Creation of Feminist Consciousness, 3 credits
Alison Weber  

This course will explore texts written by  women in Spanish from the late Middle Ages to 1800.  The unifying theme will be the creation of feminist consciousness. Among the issues we will consider are how women claimed the authority to write or teach during periods when these activities were discouraged; women’s religious expression and its relationship to self-actualization; the means by which women writers emulated, rejected or appropriated male-authored models; the development of a separate feminine literary tradition; and women’s awareness of gender roles as historically constructed. Pre-requisites: Spanish 330 (or equivalent experience); highly recommended: at least two other literature or culture courses in Spanish at 300 or 400 level. Active participation and extensive writing will be expected. Distinguished majors and BAMT students should register under the 591 rubric. The course will be conducted in Spanish.  


SPAN 493 Second Language Acquisition, 3 credits
Emily Scida

How do people learn a foreign language?  What are the processes and mechanisms that drive language acquisition?  This seminar will examine the major approaches, theories, and research in second language acquisition ( SLA ).  We will look at various linguistic, psycholinguistic, and sociocultural perspectives to second language learning and use.  Topics may include:  the role of input (listening/reading), the role of output (speaking/writing), feedback and negative evidence (error correction), affective factors (anxiety, interest, motivation), interlanguage, and interaction.  Research in SLA focuses on how learners learn and it is not the same as research into language teaching, although the approaches and research we examine in this course will be valuable to foreign language educators whose goal is to maximize student learning.  Prerequisites:  SPAN 311; and a linguistics course (SPAN 309, SPAN 310, or another course in linguistics) Course work (tentative):  two exams, short reaction papers, term paper, presentation.    


SPAN 495/595 Spanish Creative Writing Workshop, 3 credits
Mempo Giardinelli
Rosa Montero  

This course is taught by two of the most visiting distinguished and exciting writers in the Spanish-speaking world today, with a large experience given writing workshops.  


SPAN 560 Enlightenment and Romanticism
David Gies   This course will cover most of the authors and texts on the Enlightenment/Romanticism section of the Master's reading list. We will focus on the major literary movements in an historical and cultural context, combined with close textual readings. The authors include Feijoo, Luzán, Isla, Cadalso, Jovellanos, Iriarte, Quintana, Meléndez Valdés, Moratín, Larra, Espronceda, Rivas, Zorrilla, and Bécquer. One research paper.


SPAN 565 Realism/GEN 98
Andrew Anderson  

This course will cover most of the readings corresponding to Realism and the Generation of 1898 on the M.A. reading list. Authors to be read include Fernán Caballero, Benito Pérez Galdós, Juan Valera, Leopoldo Alas, Pío Baroja, Miguel de Unamuno, and Antonio Machado.  The course will concentrate both on the close reading of texts and on the examination of them in the context of Spanish and European literary history. Mid-term and final.  


SPAN 730 History of the Language, 3 credits
Roger Wright  

This course is intended to provide the student with an introduction to the history of the Spanish language and to familiarize the student with the structure of Old Spanish in order to facilitate the reading of Old Spanish texts.  The point of departure for class lectures and discussions will be selected texts, most of which come directly from the M.A. reading list.  The grade will be based on several in-class exams.  


SPAN 755 Golden Age Poetry, 3 credits
Ricardo Padrón  

Sixteenth and seventeenth century Spain witnessed an explosion in the production of lyric poetry.  In this course, we will study the Italianate tradition for which the period is famous, represented by Juan de Boscán, Garcilaso de la Vega, Fernando de Herrera, Luis de Góngora and Francisco de Quevedo, but we will also attend to the mystics St. John and St. Teresa, and to the persistence of traditional Castilian forms among these writers and others.  These texts will provide opportunities to develop our abilities as close readers of poetic texts, as well as our appreciation for cultural and ideological issues intertwined with the production and consumption of lyric poetry, such as early modern subjectivity, gender, national identity. Consideration will be given to the poetic theories of the time, particularly to the practice of imitation. Course requirements will include several short writing assignments and class presentations, as well as and a term paper.       


SPAN 783 Latin American Poetry, 3 credits
Fernando Operé  

This is a course of Latin American poetry that with a balance between popular and canonize poetry. In the first group will study poesía gauchesca (Hilario Ascasubi, José Hernández, and some contemporary forms of the gauchesca poetry). We will also see some poetry that found its way into musical expressions and were popularized in the entire continent (el corrido mexicano, el bolero and el tango). Part of the course will deal with popular interpretations of 19th and 20th century poetry, from romantic to modernist trend   (Heredia, Martí, Lugones) and the end up with the most popular of Neruda.    


SPAN 784 Representations of the Mexican Revolution, 3 credits
Gustavo Pellón

In this course we will study the representation of the Mexican Revolution from the beginning of the twentieth century to our days.  We will read several works that try to make sense of the wrenching experience of the revolution and civil wars, and trace the evolution of Mexican self-fashioning.  Among the works we will study are:  Mariano Azuela.  Los de abajo (1915). Juan Rulfo.  Pedro Páramo (1955).  Elena Garro.  Recuerdos del porvenir (1950/63).  Carlos Fuentes.  La muerte de Artemio Cruz (1962).  Rosario Castellanos.  Oficio de tinieblas (1962).  Elena Poniatowska.  Hasta no verte Jesús mío (1969).  Angeles Mastretta.  Arráncame la vida (1988) Sabina Berman.  “Entre Pancho Villa y una mujer desnuda.”  We will also do readings in the history of Mexico and study essays by Octavio Paz, José de Vasconcelos, and Rosario Castellanos that try to define the national character. Brief class presentations (2 pages), a review of a critical or theoretical work (maximum 5 pages), a critical essay (15-20 pages).
   

Spanish In Translation  


SPTR 385/CPLT 305 Fiction of the Americas Second-Year Seminar
Gustavo Pellón  

In this second-year seminar, we will study the centuries long “conversations” between North American and Spanish American writers.  Principally through short stories and some novels, we will examine their mutual fascination.  Our reading list will include works by Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, Horacio Quiroga, John Reed, Mariano Azuela, William Faulkner, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Gabriel García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes, Raymond Chandler, Mempo Giardinelli, Charles Darwin, Silvia Iparraguirre and Cormac McCarthy.  Short papers (300 words) on each author, and take-home essay exam.  The class will be conducted in English, and students may read Spanish American works in English translation or Spanish according to their ability or desire.  

Restricted to second-year students.

Other Courses to Consider...

ENAM 875 Hemispheric American Studies
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 930-1045
Team-Taught Course: Anna Brickhouse, English, and Ruth Hill, Spanish

The last decade of American Studies has heard numerous scholarly calls to move beyond the analytical frame of the nation by developing transnational approaches to the study of American literary history and culture. Conferences and anthologies have announced a "hemispheric" turn in the scholarship devoted to various historical periods, perhaps most notably in the colonial and twentieth-century fields. But if there is a burgeoning comparative, hemispheric American field, what-beyond the continually repeated injunction to demystify the conceptual framework of the nation-are its aims? What are its methods? This seminar proposes that we outline together a series of preliminary answers to these questions by defining some of the most significant critical practices that currently inform (or might in the future inform) the hemispheric field. Our primary texts will cover a range of genres from the nineteenth century on, particularly those grappling with issues of race and the legacies of colonialism throughout the Americas. All readings will be in English, but for anyone interested in researching a final project in other languages, materials in Spanish or French can be made available. We envision this as a course in which people from different fields and disciplinary backgrounds can learn from each other: though the course is officially listed through the English department, we would very much like to include interested graduate students coming from Spanish, French, and other departments as well.