Spanish 20: The Spanish Language: Advanced Training through Contemporary Spanish Culture. Further training in speech and writing based on a study of contemporary Spanish cultural patterns contrasted with those of the United States. This course is designed especially, but not exclusively, for participants in the Dartmouth Foreign Study Program in Spain. Prerequisite: Spanish 3, or equivalent preparation. (First-year students must have special permission from the Chair of the Department.) Sample Syllabus. (Pdf file)
Spanish 21: The Spanish Language: Advanced Training through Contemporary Argentine Culture. Further training in speech and writing based on a study of Argentine cultural patterns contrasted with those of the United States. This course is designed especially, but not exclusively, for participants in the Dartmouth Foreign Study Program in Argentina. Prerequisite: Spanish 3, or equivalent preparation. (First-year students must have special permission from the Chair of the Department.) Sample Syllabus. (Pdf file)
Spanish 23: Argentine Culture: Contemporary Issues. The main purpose of this course is to deepen the student's knowledge of the Spanish language through writing, reading, and discussion of the reading material. The texts will serve as a basis for discussion in class and also for the weekly essay, on problems being examined, to be handed in by the students. The reading materials will be selected in such a way as to expose the students to the main problems of contemporary Argentine culture and society. This course will complement Spanish 33 and 35 by dealing with particular problems of the cultural framework within which contemporary Argentine art and literature are produced. Prerequisite: Acceptance into the Dartmouth Foreign Study Program, Argentina.
Spanish 24: Spanish Culture: Contemporary Issues. The main purpose of this course is to deepen the student's knowledge of the Spanish language through writing, reading, and discussion of the reading material. The texts will serve as a basis for the discussion in class and also for the weekly essay on problems being examined to be handed in by the students. The reading materials will be selected in such a way as to expose the students to the main problems of contemporary Spanish culture and society. This course will complement Spanish 34 and 36 by dealing with the particular problems of the cultural framework within which contemporary Spanish art and literature are produced. Prerequisite: Acceptance into the Dartmouth Foreign Study Program, Spain.
Spanish 30: Introduction to Hispanic Literature I : Middle Ages to 1700. This survey course will present a chronological study of literary material, both Peninsular and Spanish-American. It is designed to prepare the students for more specialized work in major level courses. Readings may include selections from the Romancero, Berceo, Don Juan Manuel, Jorge Manrique, the chronicles of discovery, Lazarillo de Termes and poetry by some sixteenth and seventeenth century authors. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, or equivalent preparation. Sample Syllabus. (Pdf file)
Spanish 31: Introduction to Hispanic Literature II: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. This survey course will present a chronological study of literary material, both peninsular and Spanish-American. It is designed to prepare the students for more specialized work in major level courses. Readings will be drawn from such authors as Jovellanos, Larra, Espronceda, Galdós, Sarmiento, José Hermández, Rubén Darío. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, or equivalent preparation. Sample Syllabus. (Pdf file)
Spanish 32: Introduction to Hispanic Literature III: The Twentieth Century. This survey course will present a chronological study of literary material, both Peninsular and Spanish-American. It is designed to prepare the students for more specialized work in major level courses. Readings will be drawn from García Lorca, Valle-Inclán, Neruda, Vallejo, García Márquez, and others. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, or equivalent preparation Sample Syllabus. (Pdf file)
Spanish 33: Argentine Civilization: The Cultural Heritage. Studies in such aspects of the Argentine cultural heritage as art, music, and folklore with an emphasis on historical and ethnographic approaches. Credit for this course is awarded to students who have successfully completed the Dartmouth Foreign Study Program at its University Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Prerequisite: acceptance into the Dartmouth Foreign Study Program.
Spanish 34: Spanish Civilization. Studies in such aspects of the Spanish cultural heritage as art, music, and folklore, with an emphasis on a historical approach. Credit for this course is awarded to students who have successfully completed the Dartmouth Foreign Study Program at its University Center in Madrid, Spain. Prerequisite: acceptance into the Dartmouth Foreign Study Program, Spain.
Spanish 35: Studies in Spanish-American Literature: Contemporary Argentine Literature. Analytical reading of poetry, drama, and fiction representative of the period from 1910 to the present. Credit for this course is awarded to students who have successfully completed the Dartmouth Foreign Study Program at its University Center in Spanish America. Prerequisite: acceptance into the Dartmouth Foreign Study Program, Argentina.
Spanish 36: Studies in Modern and Contemporary Spanish Literature. Analytical reading of poetry, drama, and fiction representative of the period from 1898 to the present. Credit for this course is awarded to students who have successfully completed the Dartmouth Foreign Study Program at its University Center in Spain. Prerequisite: acceptance into the Dartmouth Foreign Study Program, Spain.
Spanish 37: Texts and Contexts. This course is designed to help students develop excellence in writing as they prepare for upper level literature and culture courses in Spanish. Topics will vary according to term and faculty as well as the "texts" studied in the course (literary, filmic, cultural, and visual). Given that thinking, reading, and writing are interdependent activities, Spanish 37 is designed to offer students an opportunity to study a topic of interest in Hispanic literature or culture while simultaneously emphasizing the advanced writing skills required of a research paper. Frequent exercises in writing and close textual study are basic to this course. Prerequisite: Spanish 9 or permission of the Chair. Not open to first-year students. Sample Syllabus. (Pdf file)
Spanish 40: History of the Spanish Language. From Medieval dialects to world language: how Spanish grew out of spoken Latin, and how it spread to many parts of the world. Spanish will be the model for a general study of linguistic change. Analytical studies of a variety of texts from the Middle Ages to the present, from peninsular Spain and Latin America. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor. Sample Syllabus. (Pdf file)
Spanish 45: Special Topics in Spanish and Latin American Cultural Production. This course presents a wide range of topics pertinent to the study of Spanish and Latin American cultures in all of their diverse intellectual production. Each course will emphasize a different combination of historical, theoretical, and textual practices (literary, filmic, theatrical, graphic, etc.). The course may be offered any term and its content will depend on the interests of the instructor.
Spanish 45 offered Summer 2007 Spanish Narrative of the Twentieth Century (1939-2007)
Visiting Professor Jordi Gracia (Universitat de Barcelona – Spain) This course will focus on the narrative production of the most prominent Spanish novelist and essayist during the Francoist period (1939-1975) to present. The main topics the course will address are: intellectual and literary exile and the new conditions of “Falangist” writers, esthetic experimentation and ethical dissidence, history and the interior realm, essay in contemporary Spain, and the contemporary novel. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 46: Creative Writing in Spanish. This course offers a workshop in creative writing to be taught by prominent writers in residence in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. It is designed for native speakers of Spanish, heritage speakers, and Spanish majors in their junior or senior years. Seminar-sized class meets twice a week, with individual conferences when necessary. The class will consist of group workshops on student writing (fiction, poetry and/or theatre) and individual conferences with the instructor. Students will be admitted on a competitive basis and should submit a short writing sample of poetry, fiction, and/or a play to the Department’s Administrator by the last day of classes of the term preceding the term in which they wish to enroll (May 30th, 2007).
Spanish 50: Literature and Society in Medieval Spain. Not offered in the period from 05F through 08S. In the context of medieval Europe, Spain is rightly acknowledged as unique because of the dynamic interaction of its three peoples: Jews, Christians, and Moors. This course explores the legacy of these cultures as reflected in their historical and literary expression. Texts representative of this cultural uniqueness and its literary diversity will be drawn from the major genres practiced at that time. Readings will include Poema del Cid, Libro de Buen Amor, Juan Manuel’s El Conde Lucanor, Sem Tob’s Proverbios morales, Ibn Hazam, El collar de la paloma, and works by Ramón Llúll. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 51: Women's Voices in Medieval Spain. Between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries, important transformations occurred in social life, giving women an opening to financial and legal independence. This increasingly visible role of women also found expression in art and literature in the Iberian Peninsula. This course will explore aesthetic and cultural images of women in Peninsular literature throughout different literary genres in the context of theories on the nature of women by the most influential theologians of the epoch. Reading will include jarchas, cantigas de amigo, lyric of the Catalan Provençal “trobairitz” (women poets), Libro de Apolonio, La Celestina, La doncella Teodor, and poems by Florencia Pinar and Isabel de Villena. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 52: Eroticism and Spirituality in Early Modern Spain. The transition from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century brought a series of changes in Spain’s ideological formations. Under the influence of Italian culture, new literary forms were developed. Changes in religious practices also left their mark in poetic, dramatic, and narrative texts of these two periods. The course will study the construction of representative erotic themes and motifs as contrasted to the development of moral and religious ones. Readings may include works by Fray Luis de León, Santa Teresa, San Juan de la Cruz, the anonymous Poesía erótica, Cervantes’ Novelas ejemplares and the novelas cortas by María de Zayas. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 53: Knights and Rogues: Narratives of Escape and Alienation in Early Modern Spain. Knights and ladies, noble Moors, lovesick shepherds; vagabonds and rogues, charlatans, tricksters, and thieves. These characters inhabit the imaginative world of a ‘Golden Age’ of contradictions in Spain. The course will explore the relationship between society and literature during the Golden Age, as constructed in several sub-genres of chivalry, the Moorish novel, the pastoral novel, and the picaresque. Readings will include Amadís de Gaula, Montemayor’s La Diana, El Abencerraje, Lazarillo de Tormes, Quevedo’s Vida del buscón, Salas Barbadillo’s La hija de Celestina, and Castillo Solórzano’s Garduña de Sevilla. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 54: Spanish Poetry of the Renaissance and Baroque. Many extraordinary texts written in Spanish were produced by Spain's Renaissance and Baroque poets - among them, Garcilaso de la Vega, Luis de León, Lope de Vega, Luis de Góngora, and Francisco de Quevedo. These authors expressed ideas and sentiments of an era marked by tectonic shifts: crisis of the aristocracy, disintegration of the feudal state, formation of the bourgeoisie, birth of a market economy, and Spanish imperial enterprise in America. This course focuses on close textual analysis of poems within their historical and conceptual framework, providing a dynamic picture of concerns that engulfed a society undergoing transition towards modernity. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 55: Love, Honor, and Monarchy: Drama and Theater in Early Modern Spain. The Golden Age drama created by Lope de Vega is a theatre of poetry and action. Monarchist and deeply rooted in national origins, it has nonetheless produced figures of universal mythic dimensions. El burlador de Sevilla, the original Don Juan play, is one of a number of works to be read in this course, which will explore the relationship between drama and society, theater and public, ceremony and spectacle, text and performance, in seventeenth century Spain and Portugal. Readings will include entremeses of Cervantes, and comedias and autos sacramentales by Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Juan Ruis de Alarcón, Ana Caro, and Pedro Calderón de la Barca. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 56: Don Quijote. From the time of its publication in 1605 (Part I) and 1615 (Part II), Don Quijote has continually fascinated its readers and provoked radically different interpretations. Taking as his point of departure the tradition of chivalric romance, Cervantes begins by writing a critique of imaginative literature that evolves into a critique of reality itself - the first modern European novel. This course seeks to understand the Quijote both per se - as an autonomous work of literature - and as a highly creative response to the literary and cultural forces from which it was forged. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 57: From Romanticism to Realism: Spanish Intellectuals and the New Bourgeois State. The notion of 'the two Spains' (liberal/conservative) served as a battleground for debates among nineteenth-century intellectuals. This course will explore the different literary responses to this historical determinant generated by the Romantic spirit. It will seek to clarify the role and position of the intellectual in relation to the development of the modern bourgeouis state, and will pose the question of national identities in Catalonia and Galicia. The influence of scientific positivism and industrialism in the second half of the nineteenth century raises new intellectual questions that will be expressed in the modern realist novel. We will study the relationship between the urban landscape and psychological exploration, nature and society, and men and women, in these new narrative forms. Readings by Larra, Espronceda, Zorilla, Boehl de Faber, Aribau, Rosalía de Castro, Bécquer, Galdós, Clarín, Pardo Bazán, and Oller. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor. Sample Syllabus. (Pdf file)
Spanish 58: Turn-of-the-Century Literature in Spain. A profound intellectual crisis takes place at the end of the 19th century in Spain. Spanish intellectuals react in opposing ways to the perceived failures of the bourgeois model and the psychological impact of the Spanish-American War. On the one hand, we see the reformist Regeneracionismo movement and a literature of social engagement; on the other hand, a lapse into an aesthetic attitude strictly appreciative of art-for-art's sake. The course will explore the attempts to resolve the conflict between these contradictory positions in individual authors. Readings by M. Unamuno, A. Ganivet, P. Baroja Azorín, J. M. Valle-Inclán, A. Machado, M. Machado, J. Maragall, J. R. Jiménez, R. Maeztu. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor. Sample Syllabus. (Pdf file)
Spanish 59: Avant-Garde Movements and Social Poetry in Spain. This course will explore the developments of Spanish poetry during the first half of the 20th century, in particular the close relationships between art and poetry, and poetry and politics. In the course we will analyze the different poetic expressions of the avant-garde movements (futurism, ultraismo, surrealism) and the development of a poetry of social engagement that will continue after the Spanish Civil War. Readings by García Lorca, Alberti, Guillermo de Torre, Cernuda, Aleixandre, Alonso, Guillén, Salinas, Hernández, Blas de Otero, Celaya. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 60: Exile, Repression and Writing in Post-Civil War Spain. What was the effect of mass exile on Spanish culture after the Civil War? How was the inner exile of the intellectuals and writers who stayed expressed in the literature of the period? How do ideological repression and systematic censorship shape Spanish culture during this period? These are some of the fundamental questions that will be addressed in an attempt to study the relationship between cultural production and historical process. Readings will include works by R. Sender, R. Chacel, C. Cela, Buero Vallejo, M. Rodoreda, J. L. Martín Santos, M. Delibes, J. Marsé, and others. Films by Buñuel, Berlanga and Saura. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 61: Spanish Literature and Film. This course will analyze the relationship between literature and film, focusing on the problems encountered and the narrative strategies involved in the transposition of Spanish literary texts into filmic texts. Issues of narrative exposition, point of view, authorial control, and dramatization will be discussed. How does one ‘read’ films? How can filmic language translate verbal language? What is a ‘faithful’ adaptation? Readings will include modern Spanish novels and plays, such as Bodas de sangre, Los santos inocentes, Tristana, El Sur, La plaza del diamante, El bosque animado, and Bajarse al moro. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor. Sample Syllabus. (Pdf file)
Spanish 62: Women Writers in Twentieth Century Spain. This course explores a variety of issues related to constructions of gender in contemporary Spanish literature: the representation of men and women as subjects, the traditional gender roles and their subversion, the emergence of women writers following the Spanish Civil War. What role does sexual orientation play in their writing practices? How have the representations of women changed in Post-Franco Spain? What role does feminist thought play in the discourse of contemporary authors? Readings will be selected from plays, autobiographies, novels and poetry by E. Tusquets, R. Montero, M. Mayoral, J. Aldecoa, C. Riera, C. Martín Gaite, A. Urrietabizcaia, T. Pàmies and M. Roig. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 63: Postmodern Literature in Post-Franco Spain. This course focuses on the new literary trends that have reshaped the literary scene in Spain in the last two decades following the long tradition of social realism and experimental writing of the post-Civil War period. The course will explore how the acceptance of what were once considered nonliterary genres (mass media, film, novela rosa, autobiographies, historical discourses) and marginal fictional genres (mystery, historical novel, romance, the erotic novel and poetry) have contributed to a new postmodern aesthetic which aims to reconcile formerly antithetical social and experimental modes of writing. Readings by E. Mendoza, M. Vázquez Montalbán, A. Muñoz Molina, A. Rosetti, A. Grandes, J. Juaristi. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 64: Recent Spanish Poetry: The Reconquest of Subjectivity. Spanish poetry since 1960 has shifted its interest from the collective to the subjective, from social issues to problematizing identity; furthermore, as a reaction to post-Civil War poetry, it attempts to reconstruct the subject. The course will focus on the different attempts to recreate this ‘self’: the ‘poetry of experience’ which initiated the recovery of a poetic identity, leaving behind the collective thematics of postwar poetry (Barral, Gil de Biedma); the poets associated with the novisimos group of the late 1960’s, whose poetic subject seeks its frame of reference in a cultural, intertextual collective mythology (Carnero, Gimferrer, Montalbán); and the development of a new dichotomy of subjective and objective positions in the 1980s and 1990s (Juaristi, Alas). In this class, we will trace the limits and configuration of this renaissance, with particular emphasis placed on the questions and problems of representing poetic subjectivity. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 65: One Hundred Years of Solitude. Few literary works have ever fascinated readers all over the world the way One Hundred Years of Solitude has. Gabriel García Márquez's novel opens up a magical world where the boundaries that separate fantasy and reality, fairy tale and history seem to dissolve naturally. And yet no fictional work has ever been more deeply grounded in the reality and history of a people. The book tells the incredible story of the Buendía family as it develops through the successive cycles of destruction and rebirth that shape history in the mythical world of Macondo. And, as the story unfolds, it illuminates the wonders and terrors of the history of Latin American countries, the complexities and contradictions that have defined their peoples and shaped their cultures. In this course, we will read, analyze and enjoy One Hundred Years of Solitude and also a selection of García Márquez's short stories and journalistic works. The readings will be discussed within the framework of some major theoretical issues and in constant dialogue with a variety of secondary sources. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor. Sample Syllabus. (Pdf file)
Spanish 66: Migrations, Displacement, Exclusion and Exile. Since the time of the Spanish conquest Latin American cultures have developed in the midst of turmoil. Racial conflict, gender struggle, ethnic and political exclusion, concentration of power in the hands of small white or mestizo ruling classes provide part of the background for the process of definition of cultural identities in Latin America. Through a careful analysis and discussion of texts ranging from the first native and Spanish accounts of the Conquest to contemporary writings by U.S. Chicano and Latino writers this course will explore some of the faces of what we call Latin American culture. Readings will include selections of native and Spanish chronicles of the conquest, literary works like Hernández’s Martín Fierro, Los ríos profundos by Arguedas, El reino de este mundo by Carpentier, Hasta no verte Jesús mío by Poniatowska and Pedro Píramo by Rulfo, among others. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor. Sample Syllabus. (Pdf file)
Spanish 67: Romanticism and the Formation of National Identities in Latin America. Romanticism in Latin America coincides with the process of the constitution of new Spanish American republics, and plays a crucial role in the definition of national identities. This is why the movement tends to be more socio-political and didactic than subjective. Nature, countryside, city, race, tradition and history participate in the works of the period with distinct and sometimes contradictory contents, according to how each nation or region imagines its identity. The course explores those themes - and their links with liberalism - in the central works of the period. Gómez de Avellaneda, Echeverría, Sarmiento, Ascasubi, Mármol, Isaacs, Alamirano, Palma and Galván are among the authors who will be studied. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 68: Literature and Ideas in Spanish America (1845 to the present). The search for a Latin American identity became particularly urgent during the years of nation-building that followed independence. Was Latin America internally divided between opposing factions of barbaric and civilized peoples? Is it possible to speak of a unified syncretic Latin America? What was the role of the United States and of Europe vis-à-vis the Latin American nations? This course begins with a reappraisal of these nineteenth-century questions as formulated in the works of Sarmiento, Martí, and Rodó. We will then examine how twentieth-century Latin American writers have transformed and redefined these central themes of Latin American history and culture. Race, class, the function of society, and the role of the intellectual will be discussed in relation to a specific sociopolitical context. Readings include works by Sarmiento, Martí, Rodó, Mariátegui, Arguedas, Carpentier, Desnoes, Galeano, and others. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor. Sample Syllabus. (Pdf file)
Spanish 69: Modernismo and Vanguardia. Around the 1880s Latin American poets sought to modernize Hispanic literatures by importing the last wave of French poetic styles: Parnassian and Symbolist poetry. They created the movement that came to be known as Modernismo. In every Spanish speaking country, in Latin America as well as in Spain, Modernismo deeply influenced not only high culture but also the Mexican corrido, the bolero, the Argentinian tango and other forms of popular culture. In the 1920s the legacy of Modernismo was displaced by the poetic innovations of the European Avant-gardes, an aesthetic which continued to shape poetry well into the twentieth century. This course will analyze the development of Modernismo and the transition to the Avant-gardes through the works of Darío, Martí, Agustini, Lugones, Huidobro, Mistral, Neruda, Vallejo and others. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 70: Contemporary Latin American Poetry (from 1936 to the present). The achievements of the Vanguardias shaped to a great extent twentieth-century poetry in Latin America. Starting with the period of high avant-garde we will examine the development of Latin American poetry from the 1930s to the present. We will study the new literary forms that expanded and also fragmented the poetic impulse built around the Vanguardias: social realist poetry, conversational poetry, 'negrista' poetry, neo-avant-garde poetry, anti-poetry, and their reciprocal influence on the popular poetry of the 'Nueva Trova,' folk songs and Brazilian popular music. The readings for this course will include poetic works by Vallejo, Neruda, Pas, Cardenal, Parra, Cisneros, Nicolás Guillén, Gioconda Belli, Castellanos, and the lyrics of Silvio Rodríguez, Violeta Parra and Chico Buarque. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 71: Twentieth Century Regionalist Writing: The Discovery of Latin America's Cultural Heritages. The Russian and Mexican revolutions and World War I changed irrevocably Western perceptions of peoples, societies, and histories. Within the context of twentieth-century ideological and existential developments, Latin America became, once again, a land of discovery for its writers. This course will explore the process of rediscovery of national heritages. The search for non-European cultural identities highlights the African and Amerindian components of the different Latin American regions. What were these cultures that precariously coexisted with Western culture in America and survived centuries of marginality and repression? What were the myths, beliefs, and values that shaped their perception of the world? How do they relate to Western twentieth-century social systems and philosophical currents? These questions will be explored in the writings of Gallegos, Rivera, Guillén, Palés Matos, Carpentier, Icaza, Arguedas, Castellanos, and others. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor. Sample Syllabus. (Pdf file)
Spanish 72: Latin American and Latina Women: Gender, Culture, Literature. This course will explore the images, representations and roles of the ‘feminine’ in Latin American and the U.S. Latino communities, beginning with La Malinche —the translator and mistress of Hernán Cortés—and leading to the reevaluation of those same images by contemporary Latin American and U.S. Latina writers such as Jesusa Rodriquez, Sabina Berman, Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa. We will trace the image of woman as the figure who enables cultural interchange between and within male dominated groups, but who has herself been denied access to cultural institutions, social recognition, and political representation. Through an analysis of novels, plays, poems, short stories, and testimonial writings, we will examine the traditional roles and spaces assigned to women in Latin America and Latino societies and their persistent attempts to subvert, challenge, or transgress these patriarchal limitations. Readings will include selected works by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Gabriela Mistral, Rosario Castellanos, Elena Poniatowska, Griselda Gambaro, Luisa Valenzuela, Diana Raznovich, Clarice Lispector, Nancy Morejón, Rigoberta Menchú, Rosario Ferré, Cherríe Moraga, Gloria Anzaldúa and others. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor. Sample Syllabus. (Pdf file)
Spanish 73: Literature and Social Protest: Alienation, Dictatorship, Revolution and Disillusionment in Twentieth-Century Latin America. In a continent where, from the times of the Spanish Conquest, nature had been the worst enemy of man, twentieth-century writers like Arlt, Onetti, and Vargas Llosa focus on the newer, rapidly growing urban environment. Loners, drifters, madmen, prostitutes, and suicidal characters inhabit the city. Their struggle against oppression and suffering becomes the symbolic expression of the individual's search for identity in contemporary Latin America. Loss of self vs. self-definition, destruction vs. progress, alienation vs. freedom, and rebellion vs. revolution are some of the issues that will be discussed in this course. Readings will be drawn from the works of Arlt, Onetti, Vargas Llosa, Sábato, Fuentes, and others. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of instructor. Sample Syllabus. (Pdf file)
Spanish 74: Old World/New World: Tradition and Change in Contemporary Latin American Cultures. From eighteenth-century pirates to bohemian life in the 1960s Paris; from madness in the green prison of the jungle of the Amazon to the magical world of Macondo, the readings and discussions will explore the complexities of Western/non-Western interaction. The discussion will critically reevaluate a long tradition that views Europe as Latin America's model while perceiving Latin America as Europe's other. A number of key oppositions that have been traditionally used to categorize these views - such as Reason vs. Madness, Barbarism vs. Civilization, and Humanism vs. Nature - will be carefully examined as part of a critical reassessment of Latin America's cultures and literatures. Readings will include such works as Ifigenia by Teresa de la Parra, El siglo de las luces by Charpentier, La casa verde by Vargas Llosa, Macunaima by Andrade, Reyuela by Cortázar, Recuerdos del Porvenir by Elena Garro, and Cien años de soledad by García Márquez. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 75: Negotiating Performance in Latin America. This course explores the history, the theory and current practice of Latin American performance in its broadest sense. This includes theatre, performance art, and carnival as well as rituals and spectacles associated with daily life such as cross-dressing and other examples of what we might call performing culture and culture as performance. Beginning with a brief overview of pre-Columbian rituals, fiestas and public spectacle, the course will trace the imposition of eurocentric notions of ‘theatre’ on populations with a long tradition of spectacle. The course will then turn to the 1960s to examine how Latin American playwrights (Boal, Buenaventura, Gambaro, Carballido) struggled to transform theatre from an instrument of colonial oppression into an oppositional, at times revolutionary, ‘theatre of the oppressed.’ Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 76: The Fabrication of Images: Mass Media in Latin America. The slapstick comedy of Mexican film star Cantiflas, the satirical-melodramatic radio theatre of the Bolivian Raúl Salmón, and the high-tech soap operas of the Brazilian Janete Clair are some examples of the immense repertoire of mass-appeal productions in Latin America. Such media productions create, produce, and reinforce a universe of prototypical and stereotypical characters and plot stories. The gallery of figures ranging through opportunist villain, femme fatale, expert detective, and the family clan are prototypes in often clichéd stories that deal with the themes of marriage, religion, crime, treason, revenge, forsaken love, political corruption and the success story of social conquest. This course aims at a critical reading of such varied media material by focusing on three interconnected issues: ideological content, public reception, and the socio-political context of production. Course material includes a wide selection of films, television serials, soap operas, talk shows, radio productions, and readings of major critical texts. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 77: Hispanic Literature in the USA. The Hispanic experience in the USA offers a wide variety of artistic expressions, ranging from the traditional ‘corrido’ to the poetic experiments of, for instance, Pedro Pietri. One element remains, nevertheless, constant: either by rejection or by assimilation, Hispanic culture is the result of an interaction between the ‘Anglo’ and the Hispanic worlds. This course will examine the terms of that interaction, giving special attention to such problems as marginality, bilingual-bicultural expression, and nationalism. Primary emphasis will be on contemporary works of such authors as Alurista, Anaya, Hinojosa-Smith, Luis Valdés and Pedro Pietri. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 78: Living in the Borderlands: Latino/a Culture and Identity. This course will focus on the historical development of a latino/a culture and identity in the United States. Since the notion of 'borderlands' today includes not only an early Spanish colonial period of the Southwest, but also urban centers in the Midwest and the East coast, we will discuss geographic, psychic, sexual, linguistic, and generic borders and how latinos/as negotiate between them. We will pay close attention to the different development of the Mexican-American, Puertorrican, Nuyorican, Cuban-American, Dominican, Central American and other latino communities. While the U.S. mainstream has for decades stereotyped latinos/as into a negative and immutable 'other,' we will see how constant migrations continually force us to redefine what 'latino' means. Readings will include: Bolton, Parades, Gómez-Peña, Fusco, Anzaldúa, Anaya, García, Soto, Ortiz Taylor, Ortiz Cofer, Prida, Castillo. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 79: Latino/a Literature: Between Literary Traditions, Languages, and Cultures. Latino/a literature is a literature caught between conflicting cultural and literary traditions: it is Janus-faced and looks to Latin America and the U.S. at once. Latino literature draws from sources as diverse as pre-Columbian myths, Mexican corridos, the writings of the Black Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement, and Anglo American feminism, among others. Since it is situated in between different traditions, latino/a literature is excluded from both the U.S. and Latin American literary canons. This course will study how latino/a writers negotiate between Latin America and the U.S. and between Spanish and English. We will analyze how a latino/a literature is arising out of the confrontation between different cultural, linguistic, and literary traditions. Readings will include: Pineda, Umpierre, Moraga, Retchy, Pietri, Esteves, Laviera, etc. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 37; or permission of the instructor.
Spanish 80: Seminar: Latin American Literature. The Department of Spanish and Portuguese offers a seminar on Latin American literature twice during every three-year period. The topic will vary each time the course is taught. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 32; or permission of the instructor. Sample Syllabus. (Pdf file)
Spanish 81: Seminar: Peninsular Literature. The Department of Spanish and Portuguese offers a seminar on Peninsular literature twice during every three-year period. The topic will vary each time the course is taught. Winter 2008: Entre la ciudad y el pueblo: cine y cultura española en la edad global. Este curso tiene como meta proporcionar al estudiante un conocimiento amplio y profundo sobre la cultura española del siglo XX, con un énfasis específico en las dos últimas décadas. El debate crítico del curso se organiza en torno a la relación dialéctica entre el mundo urbano y el rural dentro del marco teórico de la globalización. Se prestará una atención especial a los procesos nostálgicos contemporáneos sobre los cuales se construye una visión utópica del campo y de la aldea en contraposición al conflictivo mundo de la ciudad. Así, mediante el estudio de películas y obras literarias relevantes se avanzará en el conocimiento de la cultura y de la sociedad española actual. El curso tendrá la forma de seminario con lo cual se espera de los estudiantes una alta participación. Prerequisite: Spanish 9, and one of 30, 31, 32 or 32; or permission of the instructor. Sample Syllabus. (Pdf file)
Spanish 87: Independent Reading and Research. A program of individual study directed by a member of the Spanish and Portuguese faculty. Spanish 87 will normally consist of a program of reading and research that is not covered in standard course offerings during a three-year period. Under exceptional circumstances it may serve as the vehicle for satisfying a course requirement that a student has been otherwise unable to satisfy through the regularlly-scheduled curriculum offerings. All Independent Study proposals must be submitted for consideration and approval to the Department, and require the signature of the Major Adviser. Open only to majors in Spanish or Romance Languages. Under normal circumstances, no student may receive credit for this course more than once.
Spanish 90: Honors Course. Supervised independent research under the direction of a designated advisor. Honors majors will normally elect this course as the first in the required sequence (90 and 91) for completion of the Honors Program. Spanish 90 is intended to prepare the student for writing the Honors thesis, through readings in primary and secondary texts, theory and methodology. The course will include periodic written assignments and culminate in a final paper. Prerequisite: Admission to the Honors Program.
Spanish 91: Honors Seminar. A prearranged program of study and research during any term of the senior year, on a tutorial basis, with individual faculty members (normally the thesis advisor). A thesis and public presentation are the expected culmination of the course. Prerequisite: Prior admission to the Department's Honors Program; clear evidence of capability to perform honors level work, normally indicated by completion of Spanish 90 with a grade of B+ or higher.
