Spanish Courses
Spn 500 Intensive Introduction in Spanish (3)
Accelerated introduction to Spanish language and literature.
Spn 501 Varieties of Contemporary Spanish Phonetics and Phonology (3)
Study of regional and sociolinguistic variation in the Spanish spoken in Spain and the Americas. The course will include an examination of the practical implications of such variation for education and other fields. Prerequisite: Spanish phonetics or consent of instructor. Students who have received credit for ASPN401 cannot receive credit for this course.
Spn 502 Spanish Syntax and Morphology (3)
Morphological-syntactic structure of contemporary Spanish in the light of current linguistic theories. Students who have received credit for ASPN 402 cannot receive credit for this course.
Spn 503 Introduction to Spanish Linguistics (3)
This course is a general introduction to Spanish linguistics. It examines the conceptual and methodological bases for the study of language and provides a panorama of contemporary linguistics. It also introduces the students to the different fields of specialization including: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and linguistic change and variation and prepare them to take the specialized corresponding course.
Spn 504 Introduction to Comparative Romance Linguistics (3)
An introduction to the comparative and historical study of the Romance languages.
Spn 505 History of the Spanish Language (3)
The development of Spanish from Latin to the modern period will be viewed from the perspective of the history of the language and relevant linguistic theory. Students who have received credit for ASPN405 cannot receive credit for this course.
Spn 506 Problems in Historical Linguistics (3)
Theoretical linguistic issues of fundamental importance for the understanding of the history of the Spanish language (phonetic, phonological, sound, lexical change and historical methodology). Prerequisite: Consent of instructor. Students who have received credit for ASPN 442 cannot receive credit for this course.
Spn 507 Language and Ideology in the Spanish Speaking World (3)
This course deals with a wide set of topics including: linguistic identity, linguistic prejudices, bilingual and bicultural spaces, language as a threat to national coherence, language and gender, and language and exile. Students who have received credit for ASPN 442 cannot receive credit for this course.
Spn 509 Methodology of Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language (3)
This course aims to develop the necessary linguistic and cultural knowledge and methodological tools to enhance communicative language teaching and learning in the Spanish classroom. In addition to reviewing the problematic points of the Spanish language it helps the student to develop classroom managements skills and maximal use of classroom materials. Students who have received credit for ASPN 403 cannot receive credit for this course.
Spn 510 Topics in Spanish Language or Linguistics (3)
A study of selected topics dealing with Spanish language. May be repeated for credit with change of topic. Students who have received credit for ASPN406/442/491 cannot receive credit for this course.
Spn 511 (Lac 511) Introduction to Latin American Cultural Studies (3)
The course reviews major concepts of cultural studies, such as subjectivity and consciousness, ideology and hegemony, critique and polisemy and their manifestation in Latin American texts. Authors studied will be: Angel Rama, Néstor García Canclini, Eduardo Galeano, Diamela Eltit, Roger Bartra, Román de la Campa, Nelly Richard, Alberto Moreiras, John Beverly, Paulo Freyre, Roberto Schwarz.
Spn 512 Introduction to Spanish Cultural Studies (3)
This course is an introduction to some of the ideological and political debates that conform the cultural refiguration of Spain today. The (im)possibility of feminism and/or nationalism, the theater of Francoist melancholia, the crisis of the nation-state, the new social subject positions, the impact of tourism and immigration are some of the topics under consideration. Authors studied will include: Carlos Barral, Carmen Martín Gaite, Marska Kinder, Helen Graham and Jo Labanyi, Xavier Rubert de Ventós and Manuel Vázquez Montalbán.
Spn 513 Legacy of the 60's: Latin America Redefines Itself (3)
This course will explore, through essays, novels, films and music, the dramatic political, and cultural changes triggered by the revolutionary movements of the sixties in Latin America. Special attention will be paid to the relation between politics and literature, the definition of women’s role in society, and the emergence of new literary genre like the testimonial novel. Readings will include works by Ariel Dorfman, Paulo Freire, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Herbert Marcuse, Violeta Parra and Angel Rama.
Spn 514 Latin American Cinema (3)
This course is an introduction to some of the major cinematographies in Latin America: Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Chile, and Mexico. The films included will be examined both as cinematic texts and as social documents. Emphasis will be placed on current topics and/in the contemporary scene. There will be a few readings in film theory to provide a cinematic vocabulary and a theoretical framework for the course.
Spn 515 Imagined Spaces (3)
It is a course on how specific urban spaces have been represented, constructed, utilized, dreamed of, written, filmed. Ideas such as limits, void and architecture, civilization and barbarism, home and unknown, will be in the basis of our debate. Literature across the centuries (but mostly from the 20th Century), movies and theoretical essays. Students who have received credit for ASPN443 cannot receive credit for this course.
Spn 516 Topics in Hispanic Cultural Studies (3)
Discussion of a certain aspect of cultural studies. It may be applied for Peninsular and/or Latin American area. Students who have received credit for ASPN443/462 cannot receive credit for this course.
Spn 517 Popular Culture (3)
Study of one or many manifestations of popular culture: soap operas, television broadcasts, music, cartoons etc. with the backing of the major theories in cultural studies that relate to popular culture.
Spn 519 Transatlantic Dialogues and/in Hispanic Culture (3)
This course will (re)visit some common (?) threads in the formation of a transatlantic Hispanic culture. Through the analysis of painting, literature and film we will discuss artistic, ideological and socioeconomic issues such as the articulation of memory and history, the occurrence of political violence and its representation, the (nostalgic) revision of the nation-building process, the different “national allegories” and/or foundational fictions and the discursive (en)gendering of cultural identities. Both similarities and differences will be stressed. Texts will be both canonical and non-canonical and will be treated mainly as social texts. Students who have received credit for ASPN443 cannot receive credit for this course.
Spn 521 Spain in Transit: from the Transition to the Present (3)
This course will introduce the student to the historical, cultural and political realities of Spain during and after the political transition from Franco’s dictatorship to the present democratic and autonomous State. The main emphasis will be on the cultural chronicle of the transitional period and the important role played by women artists, intellectuals and politicians in achieving a public subject position. We will also interrogate some of the political “specters” (imperialist nostalgia, State and terrorist violence, xenophobic drives, etc) still haunting the reconfiguration of Spain today. Journalism, television, film and theater will complement some of the central literary texts considered.
Spn 523 Decentering Gazes in Contemporary Spanish Cinema (3)
This course will introduce us to the rich variety of non-traditional filmmakers at work in Spain today. Among the phenomena studied, special attention will be paid to the emergence of a new wave of women directors whose work directly confronts Spain’s traditionally patriarchal imaginary. Micro-cinematographies such as the Basque or the Catalan will also be studied from this decentering perspective inasmuch as they constitute themselves as representational others to the hegemonic Spanish filmic discourse. We will also study marginalized cinematographical forms such as the short film and the documentary and their resistance to the cinematic mainstream.
Spn 524 Cultures of Spain (3)
The plural of "cultures" already present in the title is a good indication of the diversity with which we will be dealing, as much as it points out towards the inaccuracy and dissolution of the idea of unity in relation to Spain and Spanish Culture. The course will explore the "other", the peripheral cultures of Spain, making of the marginal the center of study. Ethnicity, language, gender, a shared as much as an obliterated history, the cultural paraphernalia involved in nation building (events and their relation to reshaping, creating and imagining social identities)... will be some of the discussion topics in this class. Literary texts. documentaries, popular music, news , history, legal texts, etc. will help us learn and debate about other ways of being (or not) Spanish. To be or not to be is a matter of every day living for many; the question, perhaps even more relevant to this class is "what to be".
Spn 529 Literature and Culture of the Borderlands (3)
This course will examine the growing importance of Latino/a literatures and the dichotomies and intersections between Latin America, the United States, and the myriad borders implied. Questions of constructions of ethnicity, interpolations of race, and conflictual stereotyping will be carefully analyzed. Authors whose works will be studied include Cristina García, Julia Alvarez, Ana Castillo, Cherrie Morraga, José David Saldivar, Guillermo Gómez Peña, Stuart Hall, and Judith Butler. Students who have received credit for ASPN443 cannot receive credit for this course.
Spn 530 Latin American Short Story (3)
The short story as a genre from Horacio Quiroga (end of nineteenth century) to the present. Major emphasis on the work of contemporary short story writers.
Spn 531 (Lcs 514) Literature of the Hispanic Caribbean (3)
Survey of contemporary Hispanic-Caribbean literature from the end of the 19th century until today. All genres studied to define a common Caribbean experience, culture, history and identity. Works from contemporary authors of different nationalities, genders, sexual preferences, political point of view, which reflect the diversity of the Caribbean. Students who have received credit for ASPN443 cannot receive credit for this course.
Spn 533 Latin American Essay (3)
Study of the genre within specific socio-historical contexts. Emphasis will be placed on the variety of textual strategies of the authors.
Spn 535 Latin American Romanticism (3)
A study of the major Romantic writers of Spanish America with a consideration of their common aesthetics and their regional characteristics.
Spn 536 Latin American Novel from Modernismo to the BOOM (3)
Intensive study of the most significant Latin American novels since the turn of the century until the BOOM (1960's).
Spn 537 Contemporary Latin American Novel (3)
Study of the generic variations of the novel in Latin America in the last 3 decades.
Spn 538 Parody in the Contemporary Latin American Novel (3)
Like other seemingly peripheral cultures, Latin America has often seen its relation to metropolitan culture as one of mimicry or imitation. Contemporary writing, however, tends to exploit modes such as parody and pastiche that foreground this relationship. Readings include narratives by García Márquez, Vargas Llosa, Antonio Skármeta, Elena Poniatowska, Manlio Argueta, Laura Esquivel and Rosario Ferré.
Spn 539 20th c. Latin American Poetry (3)
Through a combination of poetry, theory and visual art this course will follow the impact of the historical avant-garde in Twentieth Century Spanish America. Attention will be paid to the dialogue between different experimental and critical texts by a variety of poets and critics, in particular to the idea of poetry as the praxis of theory. From César Vallejo, Roman Jakobson and Octavio Paz to Alejandra Pizarnik, Stanley Fish and Johanna Drucker we will look at the evolution of experimental poetics in and out of the printed page.
Spn 540 (Lcs 540) African Diaspora in Latin America (3)
This course provides students with an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the global, cultural, and historical experiences of all peoples of African descent in the Latin American and Caribbean including communities of Black presences from the period of the transatlantic slave trade and their descendants, and from recent migration movements. The course places a strong emphasis on Afro-Latin American cultural expressions through discussions of current day social and political issues. By examining the work of Afro-Latin American writers and artists, the course emphasizes their contributions to the political development of his own country while promoting social change and debating hegemonic discourse of national and continental identity. This course also offers to students the opportunity to discuss the impact of discursive racial constructions to the everyday practices in Latin America. This course is taught in Spanish.
Spn 541 Literature of the Americas (3)
The course explores different areas of cultural contact across genres and historical periods throughout the Americas. How is the notion of America constructed in the South, Central and North regions of the continent? What do these definitions depend on? How have they changed over time? Special attention will be given to the notion of cultural cannibalism. Authors studied include: José Martí, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Andrés Bello, Oswald de Andrade, Williams Carlos Williams, Darcy Ribeiro, José Vasconcelos, Gabriela Mistral, Charles Olson, Susan Howe and Augusto de Campos among others.
Spn 542 Testimonio: The Poetics of Solidarity (3)
The course addresses the proliferation of mediated and unmediated testimonial writing, or "resistance writing" (B. Harlow) as a postmodern phenomenon and will explore the poetics of solidarity, the voice of the "voiceless". Well-known (Rigoberta Menchú, Domitila Barrios) and lesser-known (Saturnino Huillka, Matilde Mellibovsky, Alicia Partnoy) testimonies will be used as examples.
Spn 543 Foundational Fictions (19th century) (3)
The study of so-called "foundational fiction" in Latin America based on a 19th century corpus of texts. Major theme will be the idea of truth and the relationship between history and narration, nation building and nationalism. How did intellectuals dealt with the question of race, history, class and culture? Critical approaches by Doris Sommer, Peter Elmore, David William Foster and Julio Ortega will be discussed. Texts to be examined may vary.
Spn 544 Metafictions and Interpretations of History (3)
Choosing mainly from the 20th-century corpus of the Latin American novel, this course will deal with theoretical approaches that examine the discursive relations between literature and history. The intersection of modern self-reflexivity with history and culture will be explored in literary works by authors, such as Carlos Fuentes, Alejo Carpentier, Homero Aridjis, Abel Posse, Gioconda Belli and Diamela Eltit.
Spn 545 Explorations of Self: Autobiographical Writing in Latin America (3)
This course, in addition to critical evaluation of the autobiography, explores the question of feminine/masculine markings in the text. Special attention is paid to current debates in theory of genre. Critics, such as Philipe Lejeune, Domna Stanton, Leigh Gilmore, and Sylvia Molloy offer useful approaches to primary texts studied in this course.
Spn 546 Women Writing in Latin America (3)
Gender has inflected Latin American literature in ways which are unique partly because of the strong link between masculine attributes and the requirements of nation formation. The gendering of national identity and the literary institution and women writers' exploration of social marginality. In this course the representation of the female subject and a wide selection of mostly 20th century Latin American women authors will be studied. Main concepts of feminist literary criticism will be touched upon, but a variety of critical approaches will be applied to the analysis of the works, which will include all literary genres.
Spn 547 Postmodern Fiction in Latin America (3)
Examines the characteristics of postmodern fiction written in the last two decades, where the topics of exile/collective memory, marginality, gender and urban violence are elaborated as part of the post-dictatorship imaginary. Authors treated in connection to the debate on Latin American postmodernism include Diamela Eltit, Luisa Valenzuela, Abel Posse, Elena Garro, Reinaldo Arenas, Pedro Gómez Valderrama, Juan José Saer. Students who have received credit for ASPN443 cannot receive credit for this course.
Spn 551 Indigenismo (3)
The course focuses on Indigenismo as a social, cultural and literary construct in the Latin American context (particularly in Mesoamerica and the Andes) examining primary works of authors, such as M. González Prada, Ciro Alegría, José María Arguedas, Hildebrando Pérez Huarancca, etc.) in addition to secondary and critical works by M. de León Portilla, A. Cornejo Polar, T. Escajadillo, N. Manrique, Mary Louise Pratt, etc.)
Spn 552 Indigenous Voices, European Writing: Colonial Chronicle Writers (3)
This seminar considers the production of subject identities in the "chronicles" authored by Spanish (Cortés, Bernal Díaz, Cieza de León) and Indian (Garcilaso de la Vega, Guamán Poma, Titu Cussi Yupanqui) "letrados" during the early period of Iberian colonization of this hemisphere. The impact of the "encounter" in all cultural entities involved and the impossibility of the complete imposition of one culture on another, and concepts of transculturation will be discussed..
Spn 554 Latin American literature for High School Teachers (3)
A review of literary trends in Latin America, mostly in the 20th century. Several literary genres will be discussed.
Spn 558 Spanish Second Language Acquisition (3)
This course presents a panoramic view of the major questions, research methods, and findings in the study of the acquisition of Spanish as a second, additional, or foreign language. The first part of the course explores fundamental concepts in the field of second language acquisition - such as interlanguage, language transfer, language universals, error analysis, and stages of development - and traces the development of the field from early behaviorist theories to contemporary approaches to learner language. The second part of the course delves into contemporary research on the acquisition of Spanish. Students will examine and analyze samples of learner language using tools typically employed in the field and will explore structures from all levels of grammar that present challenges to Spanish language learners. Students who have received credit for ASPN 408 cannot receive credit for this course.
Spn 561 Spanish Literature for High School Teachers (3)
Prose narrative, drama, and poetry designed especially for those teaching Spanish in high school. The course will include works dealing with problems such as those adolescents might encounter. The readings will be analyzed for both their literary merit and their pedagogical appropriateness.
Spn 562 Topics in Spanish Literature (3)
Spn 563 Spanish Literature on Film (3)
This course will focus on the filmic adaptations made of Spanish plays and novels and on the texts that originated them. How does verbal translate into visual? How does film narrate or dramatize as opposed to literature. What is the role of the author and of his/her control over the work in both cases? Readings will include contemporary as well as classical works and the viewing and analysis of their film adaptations .
Spn 564 Gender and Writing in Spain (3)
Gender and Writing in Spain is a course which main focus will be the analysis of literary texts written by contemporary Spanish women writers, mostly from the 60's to the present. Some attention will be payed to older texts which are part of the recuperation of historic memory and more concretely of a gynohistory (the erotic poems recited/composed? by slaves in the Muslim courts) or to religious/cultural "icons" to which women writers respond and rewrite. Together with literature, movies, theoretical texts, legal texts ,documentaries as well as guest speakers will be an important part of the course as well. Gender and Writing in Spain will analyze the way those texts question binarism as they oppose, rewrite, dissolve a constructed androcentric reality.
Spn 565 The Twentieth-Century Spanish Essay (3)
The principal essayists of twentieth-century Spain: Costa, Unamuno, Machado, Maeztu, Ortega, and others.
Spn 566 Spanish Narrative Prose of the Golden Age (3)
Study of the principal authors (Cervantes, Quevedo, Zayas, etc.) of the Spanish Golden Age. The course will also provide a historical and ideological background of the period. Emphasis will be given to Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quijote de la Mancha.
Spn 567 Spanish Drama of the Golden Age (3)
Study of the development of Spanish drama from the late fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries. Special attention will be given to some of the most enduring plays by Calderón de la Barca and Lope de Vega. The course will also briefly consider the importance of these authors in Spain’s contemporary scene.
Spn 568 Spanish Fiction of the Nineteenth Century (3)
This course is an introduction to the most relevant literary movements of the XIX century: Romanticism, Realism and Naturalism. We will contextualize these movements aesthetically, ideologically and historically. Special attention will be paid to the major authors in each movement: Larra, Bécquer, Verdaguer, Galdós, Pardo Bazán, Pereda, and Oller.
Spn 569 The Generation of 98 (3)
A study of the Generation of 98 within its historical and philosophical context. Emphasis will be placed on the manner in which these writers emblematized the identity crisis that emerged from the formal end of Spain’s colonial empire. We will pay attention to all the different genres (poetry, novel, essay) used by most of these writers (Azorín, Baroja, Unamuno, etc.).
Spn 580 Twentieth Century Spanish Poetry: Avant-Garde Movement and Social Poetry in Spain (1900-1950) (3)
This course will explore the developments of Spanish poetry during the first half of the 20th century, in particular the close relationship between art and poetry, as well as poetry and politics. Different poetic expressions of the Avant-garde will be analyzed (futurism, ultraísmo, surrealism) and the development of a poetry of social and political engagement before, during, and after the Spanish Civil War. Reading by García Lorca, Alberti, Champourcín, Méndez, Cernuda, Guillén, Salinas, Hernéndez, León Felipe, Figuera Aymerich, Blas de Otero, Celaya will be part of the course.
Spn 582 Spanish Drama of the Twentieth Century (3)
An exploration of some major developments in Peninsular theater during the 20th century. Poetic drama will be studied in García Lorca and Valle-Inclán’s work. Postwar realism will be considered in Buero Vallejo’s and Sastre’s work. The theater of the absurd and epic theater will be studied in two Catalan authors: Espriu and Pedrolo. Neo-expressionist and/or neo-populist tendencies will be explored in Arrabal, Alonso de los Santos, Cabal and Benet i Jornet. The course will end with an analysis of feminist playwrights such as Paloma Pedrero, María Manuela Reina and Pilar Pombo.
Spn 583 Exile, Repression and Writing in Post Civil War Spain (3)
How do systematic ideological repression and censorship shape culture? What did mass exile meant for the Spanish culture? How could intellectuals find ways of expressing their views in a situation of inner exile and in the absence of civil rights? These and many more questions will be raised as we study the cultural production under Francoist dictatorship. Texts will include diaries and testimonial literature, as well as novels, documentaries and movies.
Spn 584 Spanish Narrative Prose of the Twentieth Century (3)
This course will introduce us to Spain’s multilingual cultural reality. We will be reading texts by canonical writers in Spanish such as Juan Goytisolo, Miguel Delibes and Carme Martín Gaite and also by some of the most prominent figures in Basque, Catalan and Galician, such as Merce Rodoreda, Bernardo Atxaga and Manuel Rivas. The course will contain different narrative genres” novel, novella, biography and short story. Emphasis will be placed on fiction that contributes to question and/or enlarge Spain’s traditional literary canon.
Spn 585 Spanish Poetry Since 1950: Recovering Subjectivity (3)
Spanish poetry since 1960 has shifted its interest from the collective to the subjective, from general social issues (mainly class) to problematizing identity (sexual, national). From the "poetry of experience", to the "novisimos and novisimas", from "pop and mass culture" to the dissolution of the dichotomy subjective-objective positions in the 1980's and 1990's (Juaristi, Marcal, Rodriguez Fer);particular emphasis will be placed on the diversity of national, linguistic, generic writings and the esthetic questions and/or problems derived from them.
Spn 591 Advanced Spanish Philology (3)
The medieval dialects of Spain, language, and texts. Prerequisite: Knowledge of Latin equivalent to Cll 101 and Spn 505 or consent of instructor.
Spn 592 Dialects of Peninsular Spanish (3)
The principal phonetic and morphosyntactic traits of Spanish peninsular dialects; the Peninsular dialect continuum, prestige dialects, leveling, and language planning, dialect formation.
Spn 593 Dialects of American Spanish (3)
The principal phonetic and morphosyntactic traits of American Spanish; issue of dialect formation; the classification of varieties into larger groupings; sociolinguistic variations. Students who have received credit for ASPN493 cannot receive credit for this course.
Spn 594 Spanish Sociolinguistics (3)
The purpose of this course is to introduce the students to the scientific study of the complex relationship between language and society in the different parts of the Spanish Speaking World. It examines the wide range of linguistic variations and the corresponding methods of their study both in monolingual and bilingual speech communities. Students who have received credit for ASPN494 cannot receive credit for this course.
Spn 595 Bilingualism (3)
This course offers a deep study of bilingualism and its implications for the individual and the society (identity, family, minorities and education). The focus will be on the acquisition and development of communicative skills by bilingual speakers in Spain, Latin America and The United States. Special attention will be paid to the intersection of bilingualism with other linguistic phenomena including borrowing, code-switching, diglossia, multilingualism, language shift and language maintenance. Students who have received credit for ASPN495 cannot receive credit for this course.
Spn 600 Topics in Literary Criticism (3)
Study of one or more specific approaches in literary theory or criticism.
Spn 601 Literary Theory and Criticism (3)
A course on critical approaches to literature designed to familiarize students with various methods of studying literature and to provide them with the necessary theoretical background for understanding modern critical trends in Spain and Latin America. The course will deal with linguistic, semiotic, sociological, and psychoanalytic models.
Spn 602 Discourse Analysis (3)
The course focuses on the usage and playfulness of rhetorical construction from Aristotle to Roland Barthes.
Spn 603 Literary Research and Scholarly Writing (3)
This course is designed to familiarize graduate students with the different methods and critical approaches to literary research. The main currents of literary theory will be explained, applied to primary works and practical guidance will be given as to how to write research papers, dissertations, how to prepare notes, bibliographies, familiarization with the MLA style, Chicago style etc. and what library and electronic resources (Internet included) are available to help the research process.
Spn 604 Post-Colonial Studies (3)
This course is designed as an introduction to the field of postcolonial studies. By examining how categories --such as race, gender, and class-- are constructed, the usefulness of diverse theoretical approaches will be studied in attempts to renegotiate the power relationships between (ex)colonizer and (ex)colonized. Texts by Said, Fannon, Bhabha, Ashcroft, Slemon, Spivak will be studied.
Spn 606 Applied Critical Theory (3)
Course designed to demonstrate how various theoretical approaches can be applied to specific Hispanic texts.
Spn 611 Methods of Linguistic Research (3)
The common scientific methods of linguistic research in the different fields of specialization and the necessary tools for the realization of research projects.
Spn 621 After Spain: Postnational Reconfigurations (3)
This course is an introduction to one of the most promising theoretical developments in Spanish Cultural Studies: Postnationalism. Postnationalism is an attempt to theorize the democratic aftermath to the failed attempt to articulate a modern Spanish nation-state. By reevaluating the different nationalisms competing and clashing in contemporary Spain (including the Spanish-centralist), postnationalism aims at rethinking race, gender, sexuality, social class, and immigration. As a result, early overlooked phenomena such as the refashioning of old misogyny, the (leftist) state nostalgia or the “exilic home” of feminist subjectivities will be explored.
Spn 622 Migrating Subjects in Contemporary Spain (3)
This course will analyze the histories and representations of the two most “invisible” and influential contemporary economic and cultural agents: tourism and immigration. By providing an account of Spain’s traditional xenophobic treatment of its national others within (Jews, Arabs, Gypsies, etc), the course will offer both a historical and a theoretical background which will help us understand the social and symbolic (lack of) articulation into the fabric of the Spanish body politic of the racially differentiated immigrants and the touristic masses. Texts will include newspaper articles, oral accounts, films and literary works.
Spn 640 Topics in Contemporary Poetics (3)
This course proposes an examination of the most recent works of poetry in dialogue with equally recent critical texts.
Spn 641 Gender Writing (3)
This course examines manifestations in gender writing, such as homotextuality, marginality, and the construction of female or male subjects as they appear in a variety of literary genres using different poststructuralist, feminist and queer theories. The course may be offered with Peninsular or Latin American orientation. In the latter case, the following authors will be discussed: Manuel Puig, Reinaldo Arenas, Cherrie Moraga, Luis Zapata, Sylvia Molloy, Severo Sarduy, and others.
Spn 642 Literature and Exile (3)
This course investigates the literary gaze contributed by writers in exile through their literary works. The readings will explore the many ways in which the notion of foreigness challenges our sense of national identity. Texts by Rubén Dario, Alejandra Pizarnik, Julio Cortázar, Waldo Frank, Virgilio Piñeira, Witold Gombrowicz, María Luisa Bombal, Juan Carlos Onetti, and Copi among others. Critical texts by Benedict Anderson, Jaques Derrida, Julia Kristeva, Edward Said and Beatriz Sarlo.
Spn 643 Travel Literature in Latin America (3)
The course examines Latin American as well as European travel narratives and their contribution to the process of national representation. Special attention will be given to the different ways in which travelers inscribed the landscape as a cultural institution. Readings include travel accounts by Cristobal Colón, Fanny Calderón de la Barca, Charles Darwin, Florence Dixie, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Francisco P. Moreno and critical texts by Roland Barthes, Tzvetan Todorov and Joan-Pau Rubiés among others.
Spn 644 Colonial Literature from a Post-Colonial Perspective (3)
Through chronicles, fiction, film and critical and cultural theories competing constructions of the idea of the Americas will be considered. Gender, religion, language, and the tensions between public and private spheres will be issues for discussion. Readings will range from versions of the conquest through Independence period’s indigenous and bicultural practices
Spn 681 Seminar: Novel (3)
Intensive study of selected novels of a single author or of a closely related group of authors. Prerequisite: Spn 601
Spn 682 Topics in Latin American Literature (3)
Topics in Hispanic literature to include common themes in Spanish and Spanish-American literature. May be repeated for credit with change of topic. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.
Spn 683 Topics in Spanish (Peninsular) Literature (3)
Topics include common themes in Spanish literature. May be repeated for credit when topic changes. Permission of instructor required.
Spn 684 Studies in Hispanic Literature (3)
Close study of individual writers, the specific subject to be decided by the instructor of the course. Prerequisites: 6 credits of Spanish literature on the 400 or 500 level and consent of instructor.
Spn 685 Topics in Hispanic Linguistics (3)
Topics in Hispanic linguistics, to include sociolinguistics, dialectology, and Spanish and Portuguese of the Americas. Course may be repeated for credit with change of topic. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.
Spn 694 Directed Readings in Spanish (1-6)
A course of reading designed primarily for Master of Arts candidates intending to cover major developments within a historical period in which they have received relatively little formal instruction. Readings are to be supplemented by discussions with the sponsoring professor.
Spn 699 Master's Thesis in Spanish (3-6)
Spn 793 College Teaching of the Spanish Language (3)
Practical examination of procedures and materials used for effective teaching of language and composition to undergraduate college students. Planning, testing, and counseling, as well as actually teaching different units to a class. A weekly colloquium provides students and participating faculty an opportunity to exchange ideas related to common profession problems of language teaching.
Spn 897 Independent Study and Research (1-6)
Independent study in an area of special interest not treated in graduate courses currently offered. Designed exclusively for doctoral candidates.
Spn 899 Doctoral Dissertation (1)
Required of all candidates completing the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Registration for this course is limited to doctoral students who have been admitted to candidacy. Course grading is Load Only and does not earn credit.
