This course investigates Italian history and culture through the prism of Dante Alighieri’s Comedy, one of the most important works in European literature. The three canticles 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 consist of lectures on historical and cultural issues critical to the Divine Comedy and discussions of selected cantos of the great poem. We will also take advantage of the information available on The World of Dante.

Lectures will take place M and W, discussion sessions on Wednesday and Thursday. All reading assignments for the week will be listed under the discussion session. The discussions themselves generally will concentrate on specific cantos of the poem. We will set specific topics for discussion in the course of our lectures each week.

This course provides students with the opportunity to review the Italian grammar and, at the same time, deepen their understanding of contemporary Italian culture, society and politics

In this course, we will explore how major works of literature for children, from Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio, to the poetry of Gianni Rodari, reflect changing views of childhood and parenting in the boot-shaped nation. In addition, we will look at how new technologies, such as film and television in the twentieth century, changed the nature of story-telling for younger audiences in Italy. Conducted in Italian.

The Second World War marks a major turning point in twentieth-century Italy. It was this pivotal event that led to the writing of Italy’s constitution and the formation of its current form of government. The war also forever altered Italy’s relationship with the United States, as well as the rest of Europe. This course will examine how literature and film has presented this topic. Readings from Berto, Calvino, Morante, and Moravia.

This survey course investigates historical periods in Italy traditionally considered stagnant from a literary point of view. Recently, however, both the Sei- and Settecento are being re-evaluated for the significant ways in which they transformed early modern culture and helped produce modern literary forms, ideas and currents.

The major writers of 17th and 18th-century Italy will be studied (Marino, Galileo, Campanella, Beccaria, the Verri brothers, Goldoni, Alfieri, Parini) along with their lesser-known contemporaries. Among the most significant issues and cultural phenomena of the time: new science, the Baroque, the Arcadian movement, notions of reason and progress, role and function of women in society, nature of criminal/justice systems, advances in theater, opera, the popular novel, autobiography and consumer journalism. In Italian.

This course explores a prolific artistic period in Italian literature. We’ll read texts by Marinetti, Palazzeschi, Bontempelli and other writers who contributed to ‘revolutionize’ the Italian literary scene in the first four decades of the 20th century.

Watch, read, and laugh at performances by Italy’s most famous comic stars. Plays, films, and one-man shows form the texts, which include not only modern productions by contemporary masters Roberto Benigni and Dario Fo, but also the comedies of the originator of middle-class Italian humor, Carlo Goldoni. Works of these writers/actors/producers introduce important aspects of Italian literary, performative, and cultural traditions. Taught in English.

NO PREREQUISITES
Satisfies Humanities requirement
Fulfills Italian Studies major and minor requirements
Possibly applicable to English, Drama, Media Studies major

Prerequisite: PORT 1110 or equivalent

Continued study of Portuguese through grammar review and emphasis on improving conversational and writing skills.

Prerequisite: SPAN 3010

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.

Prerequisite: SPAN 2020

This course seeks to develop advanced literacy in Spanish through extensive reading, writing, analysis, and discussion of authentic literary texts and videos. Emphasis is placed on how grammatical forms codify meaning and how grammar and meaning interact to construct the language and textual structure expected in the following academic genres: the critical review, the persuasive essay, and the research paper.

Prerequisite: SPAN 3010 (students who have taken SPAN 4010 may not take SPAN 3020)

This course seeks to develop advanced literacy in Spanish through extensive reading, writing, analysis, and discussion of authentic literary texts and videos. Emphasis is placed on how grammatical forms codify meaning and how grammar and meaning interact to construct the language and textual structure expected in the following academic genres: the comparative essay, the argumentative essay, and the research paper.

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.

This course offers a formal description of the Spanish language from the following angles of the linguistic discipline: language variation, change and acquisition; phonetics/phonology, morphology, and syntax.

Prerequisite: SPAN 3010 or equivalent.

Counts for major credit in Spanish and in Linguistics.

Counts for the Structure of a Language requirement in Linguistics.

Conducted in Spanish.

SPAN 3010, Grammar Review, must be completed before enrolling in SPAN 3300 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 3300, LITERARY ANALYSIS, IS A PREREQUISITE FOR ALL LITERATURE SURVEYS (3400, 3410, 3420, 3430) 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.

Prerequisite: SPAN 3300

This course introduces students to Castilian literature from its origins through roughly 1700, covering the medieval and early modern periods. Attention will be paid to all genres, narrative, lyric and dramatic, as well as to the historical and social backgrounds behind the literary texts we will read. These will include selections from the Cantar de Mio Çid, the Libro de buen amor, La Celestina, and Don Quixote, as well as the poetry of Jorge Manrique, Garcilaso de la Vega, Luis de Góngora, and the drama of Lope de Vega. SPAN 3300, Texts and Interpretation, is a pre-requisite for this course, but no prior knowledge of Spanish history and culture is assumed. Course requirements will include a midterm, a final, and at least one paper. Students will be expected to read daily, and come to class prepared to answer, ask, and discuss questions about the readings.

Prerequisite: SPAN 3300

This course looks at the literature of Spain from 1700 to the present, reading selections or whole texts of the major writers of the period (including Feijoo, Cadalso, Moratín, Rivas, Espronceda, Zorrilla, Bécquer, Galdós, Pardo Bazán, Unamuno, Lorca, Cela, Martín Gaite, Muñoz Molina, and Cercas). Exams, written paper. In Spanish.

Prerequisite: SPAN 3300

This is a survey course of Latin American Literature to introduce students to the major authors, and literary movements of Latin America from its Discovery in 1492 up to 1900. Students will get a comprehensive understanding of Hispanic America in that period, reading and discussing a selections of works from accounts of the conquest, colonial period and 19th century, analyzing its historical and literary importance. Some authors include: Cristóbal Colón, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Hernán Cortés, Francisco Núnez de Pineda y Bascuñán, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, José María de Heredia, Esteban Echeverría, Ricardo Palma, José Martí y Rubén Dario.

Prerequisite: SPAN 3300

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 play (Rodolfo Usigli’s El gesticulador). Written work will consist of reaction papers (250 words each), a midterm exam; 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 covering all the reading of the course. All the writing in the course is in Spanish and you are graded equally for grammar and concepts.

Prerequisite: two literature courses at the 3000 level or above, one of which must be 3300, or permission of the instruct

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.

This course is designed to give the student a profound understanding of the fundamental structures of Modern Spanish through both synchronic and diachronic analyses. Various topics will include, but will not be limited to, syllable structure, word structure, pronominal phenomena, and synchronically irregular verbal structures and their origins.

This course is intended to offer an overview of Borges’ work. Concentrating on his short stories, but not excluding some essays and poems. The aim is to present Borges as dominating the great shift in literary sensibility in Spanish America in the 1940s, his influence on the “Boom” and the relevance to his work of the notions of Modernism and Post-modernism in the Anglo-Saxon sense. The course will attempt to cover not only the theoretics of Borges’ main works but also his innovations in technique.

Pre-requisites: At least one survey course. DMPs should register under the 5560 rubric.

Don Quixote is the single most famous piece of literature ever written in Spanish, and one of the great classics of western literature as a whole. Everyone is familiar with the image of its two protagonists, the gaunt madman Don Quixote, who thinks he is a knight-errant, and his portly sidekick, Sancho Panza, who has taken on the role of his squire. Everyone is familiar with the image, but few people, in the US at least, have actually read the book. This course helps advanced undergraduate students to dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe, of reading Don Quixote in the original, in its entirety (almost). In the process, they will discover that the Broadway musical gets it all wrong, and that Don Quixote, the character and the book, is much more complex, much more interesting, and much funnier than they had suspected. We will use an edition designed to make the text accessible to American students of Spanish, but without modernizing or otherwise altering the original language. Prerequisites are SPAN 3300 and at least one survey course. No prior knowledge of early modern Spain or its literature is assumed. The course will require regular reading, at times heavy and active participation in course discussions, as well as two 12-15 page papers.

This course is designed to familiarize students with poetry. How do we go about reading a poem? How do we feel its emotion, understand its contests, penetrate its sometimes esoteric content. Step by step the course will develop techniques that allow us to read poetry in Spanish without the fear of being lost in the process. In this regard, the course will study poetry not from a historical or critical point of view (schools, periods) but from an artistic one.

We will read, discuss and analyze the poetry of Antonio Machado, Miguel Hernández, Pablo Neruda, Blas de Otero, César Vallejo, Alejandra Pizarnik, Delmira Agustini, Carmen Boullosa, and Jorge Luis Borges, among others.

Close readings of the Poema de mio Cid and the Popol Vuh, the epic roots of the Spanish and Mexican cultures that would eventually collide in the early sixteenth century. We will assess the anthropological, political, economical, cosmological, and psychological parallels and differences between the two texts, paying particular attention to their symbols, their narrative structures, and their respective representations of heroes, women, enemies, foreigners, space, and nature. Supplementary materials will include theoretical readings, literary criticism, and film versions of each epic. Requirements: Oral presentations, a final exam, and a final paper.

This course examines representations of the city in Latin American narrative and film from the second half of the 20th century. We will explore Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and Lima through different genres: the detective novel, the Bildungsroman, the chronicle. The class will study contemporary theoretical perspectives on the city and consider the urban space in light of migration, popular culture, the media and social conflict.

Special Topic Sem: CHILE: The Last 40 Years

In the last 40 years Chile has experienced political and cultural transformations that have not gone unnoticed in the world stage, from the 1970 election of a socialist president, Salvador Allende, to the 1973 military coup d’état led by Augusto Pinochet that resulted in Allende’s death and 17 years of dictatorship, to the restoration of democratic rule in 1990, to the present, when Chile continues to change. In this course we will explore how these transformations have been represented in literature (including diaries, chronicles, short stories, plays, and novels) and film in order to understand Chile’s contemporary culture. We will read works by José Donoso, Antonio Skármeta, Hernán Valdés, Guillermo Blanco, Isabel Allende, Ariel Dorfman, Diamela Eltit, Alberto Fuguet, Pedro Lemebel, Andrea Maturana, Roberto Bolaño, and others. We will study documentaries by Patricio Guzmán, as well as several films. Class participation, one oral presentation, papers, two exams.

Course Title: “Spanish Narrative and the Civil War”

In this course we will read a number of Spanish novellas and novels that focus on different aspects of the Spanish Civil War: its causes, the experience of war, and the aftermath. The texts selected will de drawn both from writers working in Spain and others who went into exile after the end of the war. While there will be some attention paid to the historical events, these texts will also afford us the opportunity to analyze a range of different narrative strategies adopted and explored by novelists in the second half of the twentieth century.

How do people learn a second language? How are first language acquisition and second language acquisition different? Why are some learners more successful than others in learning a second language? How does one measure “success” in second language acquisition? How do we define “competence”? I invite you to join me in the exploration of these and other exciting questions. Together we will discover the processes and mechanisms that drive language acquisition by studying how three different areas – linguistics, psychology, and sociocultural perspectives – have contributed to the major theories and ideas informing the field of Second Language Acquisition.

Assessment of learning: participation, reflective writing, 2 papers, presentation, quizzes. Counts for major credit in Spanish and in Linguistics. Seminar conducted in Spanish.

Prerequisites: SPAN 3010; and SPAN 3000 or SPAN 3200 or another course in Linguistics

This course deals with Spain in the 20th and 21st centuries. It will begin with the most important political events since 1900 (the end of the Monarchy of Alfonso XIII, the 2nd Republic, Spanish Civil War, Franco Dictatorship) to the present (modern Spain ruled by a parliament under a monarchy, integration into the European Community, the current economic crisis). Special emphasis will be placed upon understanding Spain in its complexity, 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 Spanish artistic movements and its most relevant contemporary representatives in the field of music (flamenco and popular), painting (Dalí, Picasso, Sorolla), architecture (Gaudí, Calatrava), and dance.

The course offers an introduction to Islam and a cultural history of al- Andalus (Islamic Iberia) from 711 until the expulsion of the Morsicos from early modern Spain in 1609. Lectures, videos, and oral reports will concentrate on several major moments: The rise of the Emirate/Caliphate of Córdoba and Islamic hegemony in the peninsula; fragmentation of the Caliphate and cultural splendor of the ta’ifa (pl. tawa’if) kingdoms in the eleventh century; the advent of Moslem fundamentalism from the Maghrib in the eleventh and twelfth centuries; the phenomenon of mudejarismo after the Christian conquest of Seville and Córdoba in the thirteenth century; the contradictions posed by Islam in Granada, a client state of Castile during most of its history, after the decline of Islam in the rest of the peninsula (1250-1492); and the problems created by the presence of Islamic culture in a Christian state during the sixteenth-century.

The aim of this course is to study Cuban films in the context of Cuba’s history and culture. The course will include the viewing of films outside the classroom (roughly one a week), readings about the films, history, and culture. Please note that out-of-class preparation and the reading load will be significant. The format of the class will be lecture/discussion with a strong emphasis on class participation.
Prerequisites: SPAN 3010, 3300, and 3 credits of 3400-3430, or departmental placement.

All films will be screened on Wednesdays at 6:30-8:30pm. Try to make these screenings, otherwise you need to see the films on your own or in groups.

Grading: Your grade will be determined by

1.) A midterm exam about the history and culture of Cuba.

2.) 250-word reaction papers on every film.

3.) A longer research paper (15 pages) on a topic of your choice to be approved by me.

Each is worth a third of your grade. All papers will be written in Spanish and will be evaluated on the quality of the writing (grammar and spelling 50%) as well as the ideas (clarity of expression, accuracy 50%). I take off one point for each grammatical mistake, including accents. Pay close attention to proofreading. It is recommended you proofread a hard copy as it is easier to miss mistakes and typos on a screen.

Texts:
• Michael Chanan. Cuban Cinema. University of Minnesota Press, 2004.
• Louis A. Pérez, Jr. Cuba Between Reform and Revolution. Oxford UP, 1995.
• Texts in Collab.
• Streetwise Cuba [a pocket laminated map].

Films:
• Fidel Castro (2005) PBS documentary, Adriana Bosch, dir.
• Memorias del subdesarrollo (1968) Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, dir.
• Lucía (1968) Humberto Solás, dir.
• La última cena (1977) Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, dir.
• Retrato de Teresa (1979) Pastor Vega, dir.
• Fresa y chocolate (1994) Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Juan Carlos Tabío, dir.
• The Perez Family (1995) Mira Nair, dir.
• Azúcar amarga (1996) León Ichaso, dir.
• Suite Habana (2003) Fernando Pérez, dir.

Texts:
• Michael Chanan. Cuban Cinema. University of Minnesota Press, 2004.
• Louis A. Pérez, Jr. Cuba Between Reform and Revolution. Oxford UP, 2010, fourth edition.
• Texts in Toolkit.
• Streetwise Cuba [a pocket laminated map].

This is a workshop in Spanish in which students write daily from the first day. The goal is to learn writing techniques with an emphasis on creative writing, the development of imagination, and narrative poetics. As students write they also read and comment on the works of the greatest authors of Latin American literature. The workshop covers major literary trends in the whole of Latin America. Students write every day and analyze what they have written in order to improve their style and explore possibilities.

This course studies two distinct moments of Spain’s culture, Realism (roughly the second part of the 19th century), and the at times overlapping turn of the century, from the 1890s to right before the Spanish Civil War, with a focus on the novel. Books studied will be those listed in the MA reading list.

The last forty years have witnessed a veritable explosion of literary theory. As each new school of thought has arisen, it has challenged previous conception of the object and practice of literary studies. The course will undertake an examination of how the developments in literary theory have altered the definition of criticism. We will consider the major critical tendencies of the twentieth century, among them: formalism, myth criticism, structuralism, deconstruction, reader-response criticism, feminist criticism, new historicism, and post-colonial theory.

Written work will consist of a short paper on a theoretical text (50%), and a longer paper where the student will apply a particular theoretical approach to the study of a Spanish or Spanish American literary text (50%). You will also be called upon to do oral presentations. Everyone will write a 250-word commentary on some aspect of the reading assignment for each class. These commentaries will be read and discussed in class. The course will be conducted in English.

Our text is:
LEITCH – NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF THEORY & CRITICISM – 0-393-97429-4 – $76.00

I will also place some readings in Collab, including different critical approaches to Lope de Vega’s “Fuenteovejuna.” If you have not read Lope’s play recently please do so in preparation for the course.

If this is your first theory course or if you want a refresher, I recommend that you read Barry’s Beginning Theory before you take the course. Barry’s book will orient you well.

Course Title: “The Spanish Civil War in Text and Film”

In this seminar, we will be examining a number of artistic treatments of different aspects of the Spanish Civil War, in novels, plays, and films. While we will address the historical events depicted, we will also be concerned with different story-telling strategies adopted by the writers and film-makers. In particular, the focus will be on texts of which a film adaptation was later made: comparison of the two should highlight features of both. We may also view a few films that are not literary adaptations, and read a couple of texts that do not have corresponding film versions. Some of the authors that we will be reading are Ramón Sender, Fernando Fernán Gómez, Manuel Rivas, and Javier Cercas.

Study of Latin American women’s writings published in the last decades of the 20th century to the present, emphasizing the literary representation of subject formation, family relationships, gender, power, and politics. We will read works by Rosario Castellanos, Elena Garro, Griselda Gambaro, Clarice Lispector, Sylvia Molloy, Luisa Valenzuela, Diamela Eltit, Rosario Ferré, Andrea Jeftanovic, Andrea Maturana, among others, and essays on feminist and gender criticism. We will also discuss films by women directors that enhance the readings. Class participation, oral presentation, several short essays, and research paper.

This course looks at the complex issue of gender in 19th-century Spain through the prism of theater. We will read modern theory as well as 19th-C views of gender issues, along with plays written by women and by men, tracking the changes (advances and regressive moves) from María Rosa Gálvez de Cabrera at the beginning of the century to Benito Pérez Galdós at the end. Research paper, class presentations. In Spanish.

Course Title: SPECTACLE AND DISSIDENCE, THE POLITICS OF LATIN AMERICAN CINEMA

In addition to an advanced study of image and sound this course presents the evolution and theoretical discussions that have placed Latin American cinema at the forefront of socially relevant and aesthetically provocative global spectacles. With a combination of readings and analysis of the political and historical basis for the emergence of the New Latin American cinema from the 50s-80s in contrast with contemporary films from the 90s-2000s, the course questions the building and transformation of national and post-national identities through the consumption of cinematic images. A substantive part of the class is devoted to combine theory and careful analysis of films by major directors from the main film currents in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Central America. Class activities include: oral presentations, sequence analysis, final essay.