2007-2008 Graduate Courses in Spanish
| AUTUMN | WINTER | SPRING |
|---|---|---|
| 30400 Curso de perfeccionamiento | 34400 Cultura y esclavitud en la América Hispana | 30600 Discurso académico |
| 30500 Curso de Redacción Académica | 36000 Ficción y representación: el discurso realista | 31000 Discurso académico para hablantes nativos |
| 31500 Introducción al análisis literario | 31100 Las regiones del espanol | |
| 32100 El cautiverio en el imperio español | 32800 Revisiones de la historia colonial en la novela y el cine latinoamericanos | |
| 32301 Sentencia y equivocatio | 33801 Lope de Vega y el arte nuevo de pintar tragedias | |
| 36401 Poesía y Prosodia Desde el Medioevo al Modernismo | 36800 Productividad estética de lo urbano: La ciudad en tiempo present | |
| 37901 Teatro y teatralidad medieval y prelopista | ||
| 42100 Reading and Research | 42100 Reading and Research | 42100 Reading and Research |
Graduate Course Descriptions
30400. Curso de redacción académica. PQ: SPAN 20300 or consent of instructor. The goal of this advanced language course is to help students achieve mastery of composition and style through the acquisition of numerous writing techniques. In this class students read a wide variety of literary, historiographic, and sociological texts. Through writing a number of essays and participating in class debates, students are guided in the examination of linguistic structures and organization of several types of written Spanish discourse. In addition, this course is designed to enhance awareness of the cultural diversity within the contemporary Spanish-speaking world and its historical roots. Staff. Autumn, Winter.
30500. Curso de redacción académica para hablantes nativos. PQ: Open only to native and heritage speakers with consent of instructor. The goal of this advanced language course is to help students achieve mastery of composition and style through the acquisition of numerous writing techniques. In this class students read a wide variety of literary, historiographic, and sociological texts. Through writing a number of essays and participating in class debates, students are guided in the examination of linguistic structures and organization of several types of written Spanish discourse. In addition, this course is designed to enhance awareness of the cultural diversity within the contemporary Spanish-speaking world and its historical roots. L. Van Den Hout. Autumn.
30600. Discurso académico. PQ: SPAN 20300 or consent of instructor. Must be taken for a quality grade. This seminar/practicum focuses on developing vocabulary and discourse styles for academic verbal communication. This goal is achieved through exposure to taped formal and informal interviews and public debate in the media. Most important, however, is active class participation. Through a number of class presentations, students are expected to put into practice a variety of discourse styles (e.g., debates, lectures, seminars, interviews). This course is completed by the reading of newspaper articles from a wide variety of Spanish-speaking countries. Staff. Spring.
31000. Discurso académico para hablantes nativos. PQ: Open only to native speakers. Must be taken for a quality grade. This seminar/practicum focuses on developing vocabulary and discourse styles for academic verbal communication. This goal is achieved through exposure to taped formal and informal interviews and public debate in the media. Most important, however, is active class participation. Through a number of class presentations, students are expected to put into practice a variety of discourse styles (e.g., debates, lectures, seminars, interviews). This course is completed by the reading of newspaper articles from a wide variety of Spanish-speaking countries. Staff. Spring.
31100. Las regiones del español. PQ: SPAN 20300 or consent of instructor. This sociolinguistic course expands students’ understanding of the historical development of Spanish and their awareness of the great socio-cultural diversity within the Spanish speaking world and its impact on the Spanish language. To accomplish this goal, this course emphasizes the interrelationship between language and culture as well as ethno-historical transformations within the different regions of the Hispanic world.
Special consideration is given to identifying lexical variations and regional expressions exemplifying diverse socio-cultural aspects of the Spanish language, and to recognizing phonological differences between dialects. The course also examines the impact of indigenous cultures on the dialectical aspects of Spanish. Students will be exposed to a wide variety of texts, both literary and non-literary, as well as audiovisual materials that will enhance their awareness of regional expressions used in colloquial communication. Native speakers of a variety of Spanish speaking regions will be invited to class. Spring.
31500. Introducción al análisis literario. PQ: SPAN 20300 or consent of instructor. Through a variety of representative works of Hispanic literature, this course focuses on the discussion and practical application of different approaches to the critical reading of literary texts. We also study basic concepts and problems of literary theory, as well as strategies for research and academic writing in Spanish. Classes conducted in Spanish. Staff. Autumn.
32100. El cautiverio en el imperio español. In this course we will examine texts by Spanish captives of Muslims in North Africa and of Amerindians in the New World—as well as works by Muslim and Amerindian captives of Christians. We will study how the representation of captivity was used to construct or challenge religious, cultural, and national identities, and explore how captives contributed to the circulation of knowledge about foreign geography and cultures. Among the texts to be studied are El Abencerraje and the Topographia e historia general de Argel, and works by Miguel de Cervantes, Francisco Núñez de Pineda y Bascuñan, Leo Africanus, and Juan Bautista Tupac Amaru. Conducted in Spanish. L. Voigt. Autumn.
32301. Sentencia y equivocatio: El conde Lucanor y el Libro de buen amor. This seminar will focus on two fourteenth-century framed-tale collections that develop hermeneutic problems and ethical paradoxes for the reader to in some way resolve or reconcile as way of testing and sharpening their ability to interpret signs (among other possible motives). These texts will be shown to represent comparable, but ultimately divergent paths in the development of medieval "wisdom" literature collected from diverse, and in many cases non-Western sources. In addition to the Conde Lucanor and Libro de buen amor, texts will include the Disciplina clericalis, Libro de Calila e Digna, Sendebar, Proverbios Morales, Libro de los gatos, and the Libro de exenplos por a.b.c. Ryan Giles. Autumn.
32800. Revisiones de la historia colonial en la novela y el cine latinoamericanos. Many contemporary writers and filmmakers in Latin America have revisited historical figures and events of the colonial period in order to address contemporary concerns, particularly questions of national or cultural identity. In this course we will study novels and films that are based on or inspired by colonial texts from Brazil and Spanish America, and we will compare the modern "revisions" with their sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sources. Among the works to be discussed may be films by Nicolás Echevarría, María Luisa Bemberg, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, and Lúcia Murat, and novels by Miguel Otero Silva, Juan José Saer, Carmen Buollosa, and Laura Esquivel, as well as excerpts from their colonial intertexts. Conducted in Spanish. L. Voigt. Spring.
33801. Lope de Vega y el arte nuevo de pintar tragedias. Lope de Vega’s Arte nuevo de hacer comedias signals a break from the past, a break from the distinctions between tragedy and comedy, a distancing from Cervantes’ La Numancia. While Lope revels in writing for all the people, Cervantes satirizes Lope’s desire to make writing a commercial enterprise. But Lope always glances back at the past and his works cannot be understood if we view them simply as a new genre. Emulating the classics, he takes up the ancient sisterhood between the arts and incorporates painting on stage, much like Cervantes had done before. In doing so, Lope’s texts become contaminated with the classical visions of the Italian Renaissance. Some of his plays even reflect Titian’s vision of pagan eros as part of the tragic. This course, then, will begin study the rivalry between Cervantes and Lope de Vega, the competition between the arts, and Lope’s reluctant acceptance of tragedy as a compelling genre. Frederick de Armas. Spring
34400. Cultura y esclavitud en la América Hispana. Slavery was not just a system of social and economic organization; it also entailed the production of complex and heterogeneous cultural forms. These ranged from philosophical articulations concerning power, race, and the body to popular syncretization of religious beliefs, as well as the literary and artistic representations of the conflicting interactions between masters and slaves. Focusing on both textual and visual material, we will study key instances in the formation of the cultures of slavery in Spanish America (paying special attention to Cuba, and Puerto Rico, two of the last countries to abolish slavery in the hemisphere). Among the works we may study are texts by Francisco de Arango y Parreño, José Antonio Saco, Cirilo Villaverde, Condesa de Merlín, Juan Francisco Manzano, Alejandro Tapia y Rivera, and by the paintings by Nicolás de la Escalera, José Campeche, and Víctor Patricio Landaluze. Agnes Lugo-Ortiz. Winter.
36000. Ficción y representación: el discurso realista. A study of the tradition (theories and practices) of realist fiction in modern Spanish literature. We will address issues of literary representation and explore both the aesthetic and the ideological foundations of realism in the nineteenth-century and its reformulations in the twentieth century. Mario Santana. Winter.
36401. Poesía y Prosodia Desde el Medioevo al Modernismo. Un estudio de los cambios formales de la poesía en lengua castellana desde el "curso rimado... a sílabas contadas" hasta el verso libre. Seminar type course for graduate students only, although an exceptionally qualified undergrad may be admitted with permission of instructor. René de Costa. Autumn.
36800. Productividad estética de lo urbano: La ciudad en tiempo present. De la ciudad moderna a la ciudad en crisis. El curso se ocupará de la /ciudad escrita /(en el sentido en que Barthes hablaba de la “moda escrita”). Entre la ciudad escrita y la ciudad real no hay simplemente una diferencia entre dos espacios radicalmente distintos, sino entre dos formas de producir significación. La ciudad escrita no reproduce ni puede reproducir la ciudad real. Todo lo que puede hacer, en un nivel de proximidad hipotético, es representarla o imaginarla. En opinión de Françoise Choay entre la ciudad real y la ciudad mítica “los escritores construyen una ciudad imaginaria”. Los materiales de la ciudad escrita son los del lenguaje y, por lo tanto, la ciudad escrita es siempre simbolización y desplazamiento. El curso se inicia con el proceso de modernización urbana de Buenos Aires, en el primer tercio del siglo XX, a través de dos grandes escritores: Borges y Roberto Arlt, que tienen sobre este escenario visiones contrapuestas. Luego se considerará el impacto cultural de dos fenómenos interrelacionados: la decadencia u obsolescencia del “viejo centro” (como en muchas ciudades latinoamericanas) y el surgimiento de centros caracterizados por ofertas diferenciadas desde el punto de vista cultural y social. Procesos de renovación urbana corren en paralelo con la depresión de zonas enteras de la ciudad y con la ocupación temporaria de otras por nuevos protagonistas surgidos de la crisis económica. Entre estos diversos tipos de espacios se produce la máxima distancia conceptual: de la desmaterialización hecha posible por lo virtual y digital a la reintroducción de un co0ntrato de contacto material entre públicos y participantes populares. Algunos films sobre Buenos Aires captan lo no visto de estas culturas emergentes y marginales, juveniles, populares, migrantes. B. Sarlo. Spring.
37901. Teatro y teatralidad medieval y prelopista. This course will examine plays and other potential performance texts written in Castilian from the late twelfth to the mid-sixteenth century. A number of competing and converging influences on the stage will be taken into consideration, including the Mozarabic and Roman liturgies, popular festive culture, as well as theatrical traditions from outside the Peninsula. Texts will include the Auto de los reyes magos, Libro de buen amor, Corbacho, and the Celestina, as well as the works of Diego Gómez Manrique, Juan de Encina, Rodrigo Cota, Lucas Fernández, Gil Vicente, Bartolomé de Torres Naharro, and Cristóbal de Castillejo, among others. Ryan Giles. Autumn.
42100. Readings and Research. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.