Courses in Spanish
Note: This page contains all of the regular courses taught by this department. Not all courses are offered every year. Check the searchable schedule to see which courses are being offered in the upcoming semester.
SPAN 111Y Intensive Introductory Spanish
Credit: 0.75
This first half of a year-long course is for students who are beginning the study of Spanish or who have had only minimal exposure to the language. The course offers the equivalent of conventional beginning and intermediate language study. The first semester's work comprises an introduction to Spanish as a spoken and written language. The work includes practice, in both master teacher classes and scheduled drill sessions with an apprentice teacher, in understanding and using the spoken language. Written exercises and elementary reading materials serve to reinforce communicative skills, build vocabulary, and enhance discussion. Offered every year.
SPAN 112Y Intensive Introductory Spanish
Credit: 0.75
This second half of a year-long course is a continuation of SPAN 111Y. The second semester consists of a rapid review and continued study of the fundamentals of Spanish, while incorporating literary and cultural materials to develop techniques of reading, cultural awareness, and mastery of the spoken and written language. The work includes practice, in both master teacher classes and scheduled drill sessions with an apprentice teacher, in understanding and using the spoken language. Written exercises and elementary reading materials serve to reinforce communicative skills, build vocabulary, and enhance discussion. Offered every year.
SPAN 213Y Conversation and Composition
Credit: 0.5
This first half of the year-long intermediate-level language course is designed for students who are interested in developing their ability to speak, read, write, and understand Spanish. A comprehensive grammar review is included. The texts chosen for the course serve as a general introduction to Hispanic culture and literature. Short articles from the Hispanic press and Spanish-language magazines, language software, and a video series of images from Spanish-speaking cultures are among the materials on which class activities may be centered. One additional fifty-minute practice session per week, conducted by a language teaching assistant, will be required. Prerequisite: SPAN 111Y-112Y or equivalent. Offered every year.
SPAN 214Y Conversation and Composition
Credit: 0.5
This course is a continuation of the first semester of Conversation and Composition. Please see the description of SPAN 213Y.
SPAN 321 Advanced Grammar, Conversation, and Composition
Credit: 0.5
This course is designed to give advanced students the opportunity to refine and increase their abilities to write, read, and speak Spanish. The course will have a strong emphasis on oral proficiency. Cultural and literary readings, writing software, and selected Spanish-language films are among the materials on which class discussion and assignments may be centered. A grammar review, focused mainly on typical areas of difficulty, will be included.
SPAN 324 Introduction to Spanish Literature
Credit: 0.5
This is a foundational survey of the literature of Spain from its early manifestations to the present. Students read both selections and several representative works of different time periods and literary genres, gain insight into significant socio-historical transformations, and acquire knowledge of literary theory and techniques of analysis in Spanish. Readings and class are conducted in Spanish. This course is recommended for Spanish and international studies majors. Prerequisite: SPAN 321 or equivalent. Normally offered every other year.
Instructor: Staff
SPAN 325 Introduction to Spanish-American Literature
Credit: 0.5
This is a foundational survey of Spanish American Literature from its pre-Hispanic manifestations to the present. The course covers major historical periods and literary movements, including the narrative of discovery and conquest, Renaissance and Baroque poetry, and the literatures of Romanticism, Modernism, the avant-gardes, the Boom, and postmodernity. Fundamental concepts of literary theory and techniques of literary analysis are discussed. Historical readings, critical essays, and films provide the background for textual analysis. The course is recommended for Spanish and international studies majors.
SPAN 328 Hispanic Culture and Literatures: Methodologies and Analysis
Credit: 0.5
This course is an introduction to close textual analysis and methodologies for the study of master works of literature, culture, and film from the Hispanic world. It will prepare students for more advanced work in the major through the practice of research methodologies such as composing annotated bibliographies, conducting library searches, and employing academic writing styles. Class will be conducted in Spanish. This course is recommended for majors in Spanish and international studies.
SPAN 335 Literature and Popular Culture in Spanish America
Credit: 0.5
One of the features of the most exciting and innovative Spanish-American literature is that it seeks to speak directly through and with popular culture. This course has as its focus precisely this relationship. Topics that may be covered include the ties between witchcraft and sexuality, literary appropriations of different musical genres (Son, Tango, Nueva Canción, or Salsa), and testimonial literature and legends. Special attention may also be paid to the cultures created by the three major revolutions from the region; Mexico (1910), Cuba (1959), and Nicaragua (1979). Writers and artists may include Rubén Blades, Ana Castillo, Sandra Cisneros, Rosario Ferré, Juan Gelman, Nicolás Guillén, Pedro Lemebel, Carlos Monsiváis, Elena Poniatowksa, and Silvio Rodríguez. Selected films, compact discs, and multimedia will be part of class materials. The course is recommended for Spanish and international studies majors.
SPAN 337 Literature and Popular Culture in Spain
Credit: 0.5
This is an introductory-level literature and culture course whose aim is to explore the relationship between artistic expression and popular culture in Spain from the period of the "Transition" (between the Franco dictatorship and democracy) up to the present. Bringing into focus an array of cultural artifacts from literature, film, music, and the visual arts, the course looks at complexly rendered depictions of the cultural "other" often marginalized due to ethnicity, gender, class, profession, ideology, or language. Among the "others" to be considered are gypsies, flamenco performers, immigrants, working-class women, homosexuals, "toreros," delinquents, law-enforcement officials, and residents of the political and linguistic periphery. Among the cultural artifacts to be considered are films by Jaime Chávarri, Montxo Armendáriz, Carlos Saura, and Julio Médem; the TV program Cuéntame cómo pasó; musical compositions by Camarón de la Isla, "Ketama," "Radio Tarifa," and "Martirio"; illustrated anti-taurine essays by Manuel Vincent/Ops; and short fiction by Ignacio Martínez de Pisón and Lorenzo Silva. Our discussions, and paper assignments for the course, will draw on ideas from the field of cultural studies. With the exception of some background readings, all work for the course is in Spanish. Prerequisite: completion of SPAN 321 or an appropriate score on Kenyon's placement exam. The course will not generally be open to students who have taken a literature course numbered above 335.
Instructor: Metzler
SPAN 338 Survey of Contemporary Spanish-American Fiction
Credit: 0.5
This course is an introductory overview of contemporary Spanish-American narrative. It will review different types of narrative, such as the short novel, the short story, and the chronicle. In order to represent the regional diversity of Latin America, the course will examine both canonical and non-canonical works of fiction produced in Mexico and Central America, the Caribbean, the Andes, and the Southern Cone. Different trends in Latin American literature of the twentieth century will be discussed, including modernism and postmodernism, the avant-garde, magic realism, and fantastic and detective fiction. Special attention will be given to the connection between literary and non-literary narrative texts, such as those produced by journalists. The course is recommended for Spanish or international studies majors.
SPAN 340 Latin American Cinema
Credit: 0.5
The course studies a significant, provocative selection of films from Latin America. This cultural production, despite its lack of international visibility until recently, has a long and complex history that merits consideration. In class, students will be given the opportunity to see the present-day region and the forces that have shaped it through images generated from within its cultures. They will be exposed to an art that is revolutionary because of its form and the ways in which it challenges the cinematic methods and styles of creation that characterize Hollywood's cultural industry. It uses as a theoretical basis a range of cultural, gender, ethnic, queer, and postcolonial perspectives as they apply to cinema. It considers films directed by "El Indio" Fernandez, Buñuel, Birri, Gutiérrez Alea, Rocha, Sanjinés, Ledouc, Lombardi, Subiela, Gaviria, Bemberg, Salles, and Cuarón, among others. Class is conducted in Spanish. This course is recommended for majors in Spanish as well as international studies.
SPAN 343 Don Quijote
Credit: 0.5
This course offers a close reading of the Quijote with particular emphasis on Cervantes' contribution to the novel form, the comic hero and the anti-hero, the interplay of fiction and history, and the confusion of appearance and reality. The novel will be studied in its social and historical context.
SPAN 344 Contemporary Spanish-American Short Stories
Credit: 0.5
This course presents an overview of the Spanish-American short story from 1940 to the present. It examines the antecedents of the new Spanish-American narrative, the so-called "Spanish American Boom," and a narrative of the periphery. The national literature of the "boom" will be read with attention to sub-genres such as the fantastic, magic realism, and the marvelous real. It will be shown how these sub-genres are transformed and eventually challenged by an ethnic, feminine, and postmodern narrative, which instead of focusing on the representation of the nation explores other social subjects and forms of cultures. Among the authors included are: Jorge Luis Borges, Juan Rulfo, Julio Cortazar, Carlos Fuentes, García Marquez, Luisa Valenzuela, Isabel Allende, Ana Lydia Vega, Diamela Eltit, Ricardo Piglia, and Elena Pontiatowska Prerequisite: SPAN 321 or equivalent. Normally offered every three years.
SPAN 345 Baroque Short Fiction
Credit: 0.5
The seventeenth century, when Spain's empire was at its apex, was one of tremendous literary production. Authors of the Baroque period used short fiction as a laboratory for new artistic and social ideas that came from Spanish holdings at home and abroad. In order to consider the original values embedded in these stories and novellas, the class will read and discuss multiple works of short fiction written by Miguel de Cervantes, María de Zayas, Lope de Vega, and Francisco de Quevedo. Through a growing familiarity with the most important literary criticism written on the topic, members of the class can join the critical conversation surrounding these important authors and their most celebrated prose works. Prerequisites: successful completion of SPAN 324 or permission of instructor.
Instructor: Hartnett
SPAN 347 Sex, Science, and the Realist Novel in Spain
Credit: 0.5
Literature and science have enjoyed a fluid relationship for centuries, but in the particular case of the nineteenth century, the novel became a laboratory for understanding both the individual and society. In Spain, writers sought to capture and critique "reality" with new knowledge about the laws governing behavior, and in the process they came to reveal unanticipated truths about the nature of scientific discovery. In particular, sex was on the mind, and in this course we will attempt to understand how and why. Across Europe, groundbreaking, often disquieting schools of thought fueled the popular imagination, from evolutionism to criminology, experimental medicine, and psychoanalysis. Together, in Spanish translation, these writings and related essays on sex will frame our discussions of novels from several of the greatest Spanish realists, including Benito Pérez Galdós, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Jacinto Octavio Picón, and Leopoldo Alas (Clarín). Their representations both disturb and entertain, feeling more like fun-house mirrors than anything else, and thus we will no doubt question the science of such reflections. Our last author will be Miguel de Unamuno, as we look at how this wayward realist and his later novel Niebla (1914) managed to turn the entire enterprise on its head.
SPAN 348 Guerrillas, Drugs, Imagination: Violence and Culture in Contemporary Colombia
Credit: 0.5
Leech has acknowledged that to perceive Colombia "simply as an exporter of cocaine or a perpetrator of terrorism is to completely misunderstand it." Hence, this course firstly addresses the economic and political causes of the violence that has plagued the Latin American country since 1948. After establishing this historical perspective, we focus on relevant cultural productions that represent and challenge contemporary Colombian social reality. The course studies narrative, essay, poetry, theater, and cinema produced throughout the last 50 years in this intriguing country that has been defined as "the scent of an overripe guava." Offered every two to three years.
Instructor: Rodriguez-Nunez
SPAN 353 The Literature of National Experience in Argentina
Credit: 0.5
This course examines the history, culture, and literature of Argentina since the war of independence. Our study proceeds thematically and chronologically, focusing primarily on works that either implicitly of explicitly deal with the theme of nation building. We will examine an array of issues: early nation building, the theme of civilization against barbarism, the loss of the frontier and of innocence, the region's export-oriented agricultural economy, urbanization and industrialization, and dictatorships and revolutions as they are portrayed in a variety of representative works of literature. The course will focus on how particular Argentine communities experienced and responded to these processes. The course will include many of the most celebrated and influential works of Argentine literature.
Instructor: Sierra
SPAN 354 Spanish-American Poetry Since 1880
Credit: 0.5
This course is designed to introduce students to the literary trends and the poetics that underlie twentieth-century Spanish-American poetry, including those labeled "modernism," "avant-garde," "social poetry," "anti-poetry," and "conversationalism." Through close readings of representative works, the course will examine the representation of nation, class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality by the practice of these poetics. Some of the authors included are: Martí, Darío, Mistral, Vallejo, Storni, Girondo, Huidobro, Borges, Guillén, Neruda, Lezama Lima, Burgos, Paz, Parra, Cardenal, Castellanos, Benedetti, Varela, Gelman, and Pacheco. Readings and class will be conducted in Spanish. The course is recommended for international studies majors.
SPAN 355 The Literature of National Experience in Mexico
Credit: 0.5
Using literature, art, and history as the primary sources of exploration, this course examines aesthetic constructions of Mexico from the movement of independence led by Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla in 1810 to the present. Through close analysis of the most representative and influential works of Mexican literature and art, the course explores thematically and chronologically an array of issues, including early nation building, the Mexican Revolution, cuadillismo, political repression, machismo, malinchismo, and diverse conceptualizations of national identity. The course will focus on how prominent writers such as Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes, Mariano Azuela, Rodolfo Usigli, Elena Poniatowska, Elena Garro, and Sabina Berman, as well as the "muralistas" Rivera, Siqueiros, and Orozco, have responded to these issues, contributing to the historic myths of the Mexican nation.
Instructor: Román-Odio
SPAN 359 Literature and Film from the Cuban Revolution
Credit: 0.5
As Burns and Charlip remark, "Perhaps no other event in Latin American history has had the impact of the Cuban Revolution of 1959. It became the model for revolutionary changes throughout Latin America and beyond. It also became a model for U.S. Cold War policy." Naturally, this social process has generated an array of cultural productions during the last five decades, in favor and against, on the island and in the U.S. and other countries, in Spanish and English. This class examines representative works of such cultural production, exploring the representations of different kinds of social subordination in poems, short stories, essays, and films. It considers works by well-known poets like Guillén, García Marruz, and Padilla; short story writers like Piñera, Jorge Cardozo, and Benítez Rojo; essayists like Fernández Retamar, Pérez Firmat, and Campuzano; and filmmakers like Gutiérrez Alea, Solás, and Pérez, among others. The class includes extensive reading on social context and a theoretical perspective informed by postcolonial studies. The class is conducted in Spanish. This course is recommended for majors in Spanish as well as international studies.
Instructor: Staff
SPAN 360 The Power of Words: Testimonios and Documentary Literature in Spanish America
Credit: 0.5
What is the role of literature in representing reality? This question has been consistently addressed by writers and intellectuals in Spanish America over many decades. The genre can be said to have begun with the accounts of Spaniards arriving in Spanish America, but it was during the 1960s and 1970s when writers used these accounts extensively to address distressing political realities. The social and political turmoil of recent decades, including political violence, human rights violations, and the implementation of equally violent neoliberal policies in the region in the 1990s, have confronted writers with new levels of social engagement in Spanish-American societies. In this class we will study different responses to the question of how testimonios and documentary fiction have addressed social issues in Spanish America. In addition, we will review documentary films that enhance our discussion of the genre. We will consider examples of testimonials and documentary fiction from Cuba, Bolivia, Mexico, Chile, and Argentina. The course is recommended for Spanish and international studies majors.
Instructor: Staff
SPAN 361 Spanish Literature of the Golden Age
Credit: 0.5
This course invites students to explore some of the great works of literature produced in Spain during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. We will read poems by Fray Luis de León, San Garcilaso de la Vega, Francisco de Quevedo, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Lope de Vega, and Luis de Góngora; religious prose by Santa Teresa de Jesús; plays by Lope de Vega and Tirso de Molina; and short novels by Miguel de Cervantes and María de Zayas. Textual analysis will be stressed, but we will also consider the social, economic, and political realities that helped to shape literary and artistic production during this period. This course is recommended for Spanish and international studies majors. Prerequisite: SPAN 321 or equivalent. Normally offered every three years.
Instructor: Hartnett
SPAN 363 Spanish Romanticism - Transgressions of Self in Romantic Spain
Credit: 0.5
From the historical shadows of birthright, religious oppression, and absolutism emerge the makings of Promethean individualism in Spain at the dawn of the nineteenth century, with fire stolen through profanations, infidelities, perversions of desire, erotic sentiment, secret fellowships, unbound interiority, and political censure. Indeed, in its various manifestations transgression as a creative force drives new configurations of the self in opposition to established literary norms and cultural conservatism at this watershed moment in the nation's history. Structured around distinct, often mixed genres of the period (theater, poetry, prose), our discussions will address: how to define Romanticism; what role specific writers of the period have had in shaping literary history in Spain and beyond; why cultural production, namely literature, and nation building occur in tandem; and where gender factors in the equation. Prerequisite: SPAN 321 or higher.
Instructor: Landry
SPAN 369 Queering Spanish American Literature and Film
Credit: 0.5
This course studies the representation of sexualities that confront social norms in Spanish American contemporary literature and cinema. It presents a provocative, captivating selection of poems, novels, short stories, essays, cronicas and films from the region often excluded from canonical accounts. The class also develops a theoretical perspective based on Queer Studies and its practical application to textual and cinematic analysis. Readings and class are conducted in Spanish. Prerequisites: SPAN 321, any Spanish or Spanish-American Literature course, or permission of the instructor. Course especially recommended for Spanish and International Studies majors. Offered every two to three years.
Instructor: Rodriguez-Nunez
SPAN 370 Origins of Spanish Language and Literature
Credit: 0.5
Where did that word come from and what does it really mean? This is a common question that we ask ourselves or our teachers at some point in our Spanish education. The first part of this course will address this question and many others as it discusses the development of the Spanish language from Latin to Old Castilian to Modern Spanish. The second part of the course will provide students with an opportunity to apply their knowledge of the development of Spanish to the earliest manifestations of Castilian literature. Through a variety of activities, they will also gain an understanding of some of the difficulties faced by scholars and students alike when interpreting these works. Students will read parts of the following texts in the original Old Spanish: a selection of romances, El poema del mío Cid, Los Milagros de Nuestra Señora, El Libro de Buen Amor, El Conde Lucanor, a selection of poesía cancioneril, and La Celestina. This course will be conducted in Spanish. Prerequisites: successful completion of SPAN 324 or permission of instructor.
Instructor: Hartnett
SPAN 371 Gender, Identity, and Power in Women's Literature
Credit: 0.5
The artistic discourse of Latin American women has been largely omitted in academic studies, yet the contributions of women's works have been instrumental in shaping and changing our world views. In this course we will examine Latin American women's use of the dimension of gender to produce a critique of their culture and oppressive structures of power. Art, film, and literature will be used as the primary sources of exploration. Recurring themes such as self-knowledge, affirmation of female eroticism, and struggles for social and gender equality will be examined within the framework of the historical and socio-political realities of Latin American societies. Contemporary feminist theories will serve to interpret writing and creative strategies used by these women to produce an experimental language that embodies new human relationships. Among the filmakers, painters, and writers included are: María Luisa Bemberg, María Novara, Frida Kahlo, Remedios Varo, Tilsa Tsuchiya, Julia de Burgos, Claribel Alegría, Luisa Valenzuela, Gioconda Belli, Cristina Perri Rossi, Pia Barros, Elizabeth Subercaseaux, and Diamela Eltit.
SPAN 373 Spanish Short Story of the Twentieth Century
Credit: 0.5
Students will read, analyze, and interpret selected short stories and works of short fiction by such important twentieth-century writers from Spain as Miguel de Unamuno, Pio Baroja, Azorín, Gabriel Miró, Ramón Gomez de la Serna, Francisco Ayala, Carmen Laforet, Miguel Delibes, Jorge Campos, Javier Marías, Marina Mayoral, Juan José Millas, Ana María Navales, Soledad Puertolas, Esther Tusquets, and Cristina Fernández-Cubas. Close textual analysis will be stressed, and the individual works will be considered in their socio-historical and literary contexts.
Instructor: Metzler
SPAN 374 Spanish Poetry of the Twentieth Century
Credit: 0.5
The course considers selected poems by such major twentieth-century Spanish poets as Antonio Machado, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Federico García Lorca, Jorge Guillén, Luis Cernuda, Miguel Hernández, Angela Aymerich, Gloria Fuertes, José Hierro, José Angel Valente, Ana Rossetti, María Victoria Atencia, Vicente Valero, and Luisa Castro. Students will draw on critical, analytical, and interpretive skills in reading, discussing, and writing about the works studied. The poetry will be related to important social and political realities and aesthetic ideas of different periods in twentieth-century Spain.
Instructor: Metzler
SPAN 375 Spanish-American Essay and the Quest for Decolonization
Credit: 0.5
This course examines the modern and contemporary Spanish-American essay in its defiance of colonialism and neocolonialism. It considers, among others, texts by Bolívar, Bello, Sarmiento, Gómez de Avellaneda, Martí, Rodó, Henríquez Ureña, Mariátegui, Reyes, Ortiz, Paz, Castellanos, Fernández Retamar, and García Márquéz. These works are placed in their social and cultural context by concise and interpretative readings on Latin American history. A theoretical perspective informed by postcolonial studies is used extensively. However, a critique as a metropolitan representation that does not accurately mirror the periphery's social reality is also incorporated. Readings and class are conducted in Spanish. The course is especially recommended for Spanish and international studies majors.
Instructor: Staff
SPAN 376 Family and Nation in Modern Spanish Film
Credit: 0.5
In 1941, Spaniards saw the debut of a film, Raza , based on a novel published pseudonymously by the country's recently installed pro-fascist dictator, Francisco Franco. The film, adapted from the novel by the director Saenz de Heredia, depicts several generations of a conflict-filled Galician familyone strikingly similar to the dictator's own--as they contend with successive Spanish political and social upheavals: the Spanish-American War, the Second Republic, and the Civil War. The film, a mouthpiece of Franco's own socio-political policy, posits a family unit based on values of traditional Catholic piety, the sanctity of motherhood, and allegiance to the Regime. Beginning with Raza , this course considers the images of family and of the nation (conjoined or counterpoised, explicitly or implicitly) in selected works of important Spanish filmmakers through the early twenty-first century. Directors include Juan Antonio Bardem, José Luis García Berlanga, Luis Buñuel, Carlos Saura, Basilio Martín Patión, Jorge Grau, Chus Gutierrez, Pedro Almodóvar, Daniela Fejerman, Iciar Bollain, and Alejandro Amenabar. Students will view the films together (one evening per week, outside of class). Class discussion will center on film analysis enabled by a critical text and supplemented by historical and cultural readings. All viewing, reading, writing, and discussion for the course are in Spanish. Please note that some of the films shown will not be available in a version sub-titled in English. The course is especially recommended for Spanish and international studies majors.
Instructor: Metzler
SPAN 380 Introduction to Chicana/o Cultural Studies
Credit: 0.5
Chicana/o culture produced in the U.S. is a vast field often underrepresented in undergraduate curricula. Even so, Chicana/os' contributions to literature, visual and public art, music, film, cultural theory, and political activism are among the richest in this nation. This absence is symptomatic of a larger societal reality, namely, a history of cultural and economic oppression, which results in a silencing of this "other" America. This course is an introduction to Chicana/o cultural studies through an examination of Chicana/o history, art, literature, film, music, and cultural theory as sites of opposition to sexist, racist, classist, and homophobic ideologies. A primary goal of the course is to expose students to Chicana/os' identities and critiques, from the Mexican-American civil rights movements to the present. Chicana/os' debates about immigration, custodial labor, border issues, feminism, race issues, human rights, the environment, queer studies, spirituality, and the occult will be seminal to our discussion. The Mesoamerican concept of nepantla, a Nahuatl word referring to "the land in the middle," will serve as an anchor since it is fundamental to the notion of "crossing borders" that is at the root of Chicana/o cultural theory and practice. Border crossing, which emerges from the state of being in nepantla, represents Chicana/os' alternative epistemological approach to dominant ideologies. Readings and class discussion will be in English. Students may choose to read and write in Spanish when primary and secondary sources are available. This course will offer students valuable opportunities to learn through civic engagement and to link key issues from class discussion and readings to their community activities. This course fulfills .5 units of the core course requirement for the Latina/o Studies Concentration. It will also count towards the majors in american studies, international studies, women and gender studies, religious studies, and spanish area studies.
Instructor: Roman-Odio
SPAN 381 Resisting Borders: Contemporary Latino(a) Literature
Credit: 0.5
In this course we will study relevant Latino/a voices in a variety of literary genres, among them essay, poetry, fiction, and theater, with a special emphasis on Mexican-American, Puerto Rican, and Cuban-American literatures, and especially those works that while produced in the United States are written in Spanish. While we will pay close attention to local constructions of identity, we will also look beyond them to focus on how these same representations and constructions are connected to global processes.
Instructor: Staff
SPAN 382 From the Empire's Backyard: Literature of the Spanish Caribbean
Credit: 0.5
For García Márquez, the Caribbean is a "hallucinated and hallucinating world where the maddest of illusions end up being true and the other side of reality is discovered." In this class, we will study the writing that such a reality has produced, focusing on contemporary works that represent and challenge colonialism and neocolonialism. We will consider essay, narrative, poetry, and theater by a variety of authors from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. The course will use as a theoretical perspective postcolonial studies and give particular emphasis to concepts like alterity, appropriation, counter-discourse, decolonization, diaspora, ethnicity, and transculturation, among others. Relevant theoretical voices from the region that have created a culture of resistance to the imperial order, and an introduction to the history of the region, will also be incorporated.The course is recommended for Spanish and international studies majors.
Instructor: Hedeen, Rodriguez-Nunez
SPAN 383 Travel Narratives and Cultural Encounters in Latin America
Credit: 0.5
Travel has recently emerged as a key theme within the humanities and social sciences. The academic disciplines of literature, history, geography, and anthropology have together produced an interdisciplinary criticism which allows for a more comprehensive understanding of travel as an intercultural phenomenon. This class will explore how travel and related forms of displacement are represented in the literature and culture of Latin America. We will review key moments of the global history of travel that have affected local identities in Latin American countries: colonial encounters and imperial expansions (1500-1720) ; the period of exploration and scientific travels outside Europe (1720-1914) ; Modernism and travel (1880-1940) ; and more contemporary experiences of migration and displacement (1940-2000). Since travel accounts can be located in an intricate network of social and cultural tensions, the approach of this class will be interdisciplinary. We will draw our discussions from a wide array of texts (travel journals, fiction, accounts by missionaries, slaves, and immigrants, scientific treatises, poetry, intellectual essays). We will engage in discussion about key topics related to experiences of travel and other forms of displacement in Latin America: travel writing and gender; travel writing and ethnography, cosmopolitanism, diaspora, tourism, migration, and exile. We will study the impact of foreign travelers on Latin American ideas and perceptions of national culture and how the fascination for international travel similarly affected local traditions. This course will be offered every other year.
Instructor: Sierra
SPAN 385 Cities of Lights and Shadows: Urban Experiences in Latin America
Credit: 0.5
This course is a study of how cities are represented in different Latin American cultural manifestations. We will study primarily literary texts, but since the study of cities requires an interdisciplinary approach, our discussions will draw on readings about architecture, urbanism, film, visual arts, popular culture, and music. This class seeks to challenge the idea that Latin America is a rural paradise, given that, as authors such as Luis Restrepo state, 70 percent of the population of Latin America lives in cities. Massive immigration from Latin America to the U.S. and Europe challenges historical divisions of city/country, modernity/primitivism, and development/underdevelopment. We will focus on four representations of urban space in Latin America: the impressionist and futuristic city of the 1920s and 1930s; migration and urban space during the 1950s and 1960s; and, in more contemporary representations, the "massive" city as depicted in urban chronicles and testimonials, and the postnational metropolis. We will review how cities have come to represent social, political, and economic utopias and failed social encounters among their inhabitants. This course will be offered every other year.
Instructor: Sierra
SPAN 388 Literary Translation
Credit: 0.5
This course focuses on both the theoretical and practical aspects of literary translation from Spanish into English. By reading numerous essays on translation, it provides the opportunity to think critically about this cultural practice and to question the imperialist, ethnocentric, and gendered notions that have historically driven it. Much of the class is taught using a workshop format in which this theoretical framework is used to compare original works to translations and to practice the art of translation itself. In addition to weekly writing assignments and the sharing and critiquing of peer work, students complete an extensive literary translation. The course is conducted in Spanish and requires an advanced level of proficiency in that language. Prerequisites: Any Spanish or Spanish-American literature course and permission of instructor.
Instructor: Hedeen
SPAN 395 Creative Writing in Spanish
Credit: 0.5
This course has the goal of cultivating a theory and practice of creative writing in Spanish. Its foundation is contemporary Spanish American writing in Spanish, specifically, essays, short stories, and poetry. The class includes discussion of texts on the art of writing as well as of works that could be considered models for writing. In order to offer students the possibility of developing their craft, part of the course is taught using a workshop format. In addition to writing assignments and the sharing and critiquing of peer work, students complete an extensive creative writing project. This is not a composition course and requires a mature approach to offering and receiving criticism as well as an advanced proficiency in the language. Prerequisites: Span 324, 325 or permission of instructor.
Instructor: Staff
SPAN 396 Literature of the Southern Cone
Credit: 0.5
The aim of this course is to introduce students to the literature of the region known as Cono Sur and neighboring countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay). Experiences of ethnic and social diversity shaped the political struggles as they were reflected in the literature and art of this area. Civilization and barbarism, city and country, democracy and authoritarianism are some of the forces that played a decisive role in the literary traditions of these countries. We will discuss how social and political issues reshaped the role writers had in their society and how the notion of literature was redefined in key historical moments. Additional topics will include theories on writing and readership, the detective genre and the theories of the fantastic, gender issues and literary identities, political violence and literature, the politics of memory in post-dictatorial societies, the contrast between the country and the city, experiences of exile, transatlantic narratives and their impact in the national traditions, and the role of ethnic and indigenous minorities in the literary canon.
Instructor: Sierra