2008-2009 Graduate Courses in Spanish
| AUTUMN | WINTER | SPRING |
|---|---|---|
| 30401 Curso de redacción académica | 30401 Curso de redacción académica | 30601 Discurso académico |
| 30402 Curso de redacción académica para hablantes nativos | 31100 Las regiones del español | 30602 Discurso académico para hablantes nativos |
| 32803 Comparative Literature of the Americas | 33703 Narrativa e Imaginarios Históricos Latinoamericanos: Ficciones Esclavistas del Siglo XX | 31100 Las regiones del espanol |
| 34103 El mester de clerecía: 1200-1400 | 33903 Pablo Neruda y la poesía política | 33100 Reading Spanish Equivalent to SPAN 10100 |
| 34300 Cervantes: sus últimas obras | 38403 Tradiciones épicas de la Edad Media. | |
| 38604 My Personal History of the “Boom” | 42100 Reading and Research | 35903 Política y cultura teatral: la escena española en las últimas décadas |
| 39304 Looking for History: Chronicles of Contemporary Latin America | 37401 Literaturas del Caribe Hispánico en el siglo XX | |
| 42100 Reading and Research | 38801 “Las conquistas y las crónicas: escribir, leer, y hacer el Nuevo Mundo” | |
| 42100 Reading and Research |
Graduate Course Descriptions
30401. Curso de redacción académica. PQ: SPAN 20300 or consent of instructor. This course is designed to help students attain very high levels in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. It also serves as an introduction to literary analysis. Through selected exercises, the close analysis of literary and nonliterary texts, weekly essays, and class debates and discussions, students are guided in the exploration of the relationships between linguistic expression and literary style while perfecting their spoken and written Spanish. Staff. Autumn, Winter .
30402. 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. Lidwina M. van den Hout. Autumn .
30601. 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 .
30602. 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. Lidwina M. van den Hout. Spring.
Literature and Culture
All literature and culture courses are conducted in Spanish unless otherwise indicated. Spanish majors do all work in Spanish. With prior consent of instructor, non-majors may write in English.
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. Lidwina M. van den Hout. Winter.
32803. Comparative Literature of the Americas. The last decade has seen a dramatic shift away from nation-based approaches to literary studies and a desire to move towards more transnational approaches. But how and more importantly why should we do so? What is to be gained? This course will explore these conceptual questions as we read primary texts from late eighteenth and nineteenth-century Spanish America and the U.S. Raul Coronado. Autumn.
33100. Reading Spanish Equivalent to SPAN 10100. This course is designed to introduce students to the Spanish language through the reading and analysis of excerpts from non-literary and literary texts from Latin America and Spain. By the end of the quarter, students should be able to read and understand a variety of Spanish written sources. In addition, students will have acquired basic knowledge of Spanish grammar and vocabulary. Although, this course does not emphasize speaking, the basic patterns of conversational Spanish are taught and practiced. Conversation and aural practice is held once a week. Staff. Spring, Summer.
33703. Narrativa e Imaginarios Históricos Latinoamericanos: Ficciones Esclavistas del Siglo XX. This course will examine the entanglement of fiction and historical memory in twentieth -century Latin American culture by focusing on literary and cinematographic narratives that have the representation of the slaveholding past as their subject. What conditions have allowed history to become the overt substance of fiction? What are the historical truths that fiction is thought able to produce, and to what ends? What kind of historical remembrance and forgetfulness do such narratives enact? Among the materials to be discussed are Alejo Carpentier's El reino de este mundo , Gilberto Freyre's Casa-grande e senzala , Lino Novás Calvo's El negrero , Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá's La renuncia del héroe Baltasar , and Miguel Barnet's Biografía de un cimarrón , and films by Sergio Giral, El otro Francisco , Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, The Last Supper , and Carlos Diegues, Quilombo . These works will be analyzed in counterpoint with a series of theoretical texts on the relationships between historical memory, narrative, and truth (e.g. E.H. Carr, R. Barthes, M. de Certeau, H. White, F. Jameson, among others). Agnes Lugo-Ortiz. Winter.
33903. Pablo Neruda y la poesía política. This course will take as its focus the so-called and self-proclaimed political poetry of Pablo Neruda. His active and creative contact with people, politics and aesthetics will frame our discussions of how and why Neruda refashioned his voice of protest and his calls for social change in verse. Kelly Austin. Winter.
34103. El mester de clerecía: 1200-1400. This course examines the formation of the clerical mester in the monasteries and nascent universities of medieval Castile and its development over the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Of primary concern will be the interplay of profane and sacred themes, oral and textual traditions, and the poetic commingling of juglaría and clerecía during this period. Texts include Libro de Alejandre , Poema de Fernán González , Milagros de Nuestra Señora , Libro de buen amor , and Rimado de Palacio . Ryan Giles. Autumn.
34300. Cervantes: sus últimas obras. This course will focus on Cervantes' late works: Don Quijote part II (1615), the Novelas ejemplares (1613) and the Persiles y Sigismunda (1617). The course will show how Cervantes' “desire for Italy” still prevails in these works, through the utilization of Italian Renaissance art. But now these images are transformed, transposed and parodied. The grotesque often replaces the harmonious art of the Renaissance. Frederick de Armas. Autumn .
35903. Política y cultura teatral: la escena española en las últimas décadas. This seminar explores the most important trends in the theater of the last 30 years in Spain. We will read the most significant plays and watch some of the most interesting versions of classic and contemporary texts. Paying close attention to this period's social and political events, we will study not only the plays in question, but also the ways in which they have been successfully staged. Luciano Garcia-Lorenzo Spring .
37401. Literaturas del Caribe Hispánico en el siglo XX. This course will explore some key examples of the literature s of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean (Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo) during the twentieth century, including those of its migrant and exile communities. Questions concerning the literary elaboration of the region's histories of slavery and colonialism, militarization, and territorial displacements will be at the center of our discussions. Among the authors we may read are Fernando Ortiz, Antonio Pedreira, Lydia Cabrera, Luis Palés Matos, René Marqués, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Rosario Ferré, Pedro Pietri, and Julia Alvarez. Agnes Lugo-Ortiz. Spring.
38403. Tradiciones épicas de la Edad Media. This course examines the transmission of heroic traditions on the Iberian Peninsular during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as evidenced by cantares de gesta, as well as historiography and clerical poetry. Primary texts include the Poema de mío Cid, Poema de Fernán González, the "Cantar de Roncesvalles," and "Cantar de los siete infantes de Lara," among others. Ryan Giles. Winter.
38604. My Personal History of the “Boom.” In this seminar course, Chilean novelist and diplomat Jorge Edwards reflects on his personal experience regarding the genesis of the “boom” period in the Latin American novel with a close view of the authors that Edwards knew during the 1970s (e.g., Donoso, Fuentes, Vargas Llosa, Cortázar, Lezama Lima). We also consider the relationship of the “boom” authors with their major precursors (e.g., Borges, Rulfo, Carpentier, Machado de Assis). We also examing the notorious case of Cuban poet Heberto Padilla in which Edwards was directly involved. Classes conducted in English; texts in English and the original. Jorge Edwards. Autumn .
38801. “Las conquistas y las crónicas: escribir, leer, y hacer el Nuevo Mundo.” A study of the Iberian encounter with the New World through texts and how texts served as both program and tools of empire. Centers of analysis will be the New World as a discursive enterprise, the ideologically-driven imaginations of writers and observers, and the epistemological tools that shaped and indeed created New World realities. The colonial mindset as a motor of writing and textuality will be revealed through a number of interrelated, critical topics such as race, gender/sexuality, and strategies of representation. Theoretical work in literary and colonial/imperial studies will be integrated into our readings of a range of primary sources. Joshiah Blackmore. Spring .
39304. Looking for History: Chronicles of Contemporary Latin America. This course will focus substantively on 20^th -century Latin American history, but will also give attention to the particular style of literary journalism, or “chronicles”, characteristic of the instructor's own writings. In other words, the course will explore /how/ chroniclers of contemporary Latin American history produce this genre. Texts will give an overview of contemporary history in Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, with a full course session devoted to chronicles of Che Guevara. This course would be appropriate for students of Latin American history and students of literature. Teaching and texts will be in English. Alma Guillermoprieto. Autumn.
42100. Readings and Research. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.