Courses
BASQ 12000 Elementary Basque I
First of the three basic-language sequence in Basque language. It provides students with a solid foundation in the basic patterns of spoken and written Basque (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, sociolinguistic norms) and emphasizes all four skills: speaking, listening, writing, and reading. This course is intended for students with no previous exposure to Basque and for those who need an in-depth review of the patterns of the language.
BASQ 12100 Elementary Basque II
Second segment of the first-year course sequence in Basque language. It provides students with a solid foundation in the basic patterns of spoken and written Basque (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, sociolinguistic norms) and emphasizes all four skills: speaking, listening, writing, and reading.
BASQ 12000 or consent of instructor.
BASQ 12200 Elementary Basque III
Third and final segment of the basic-language Basque sequence. It provides students with a solid foundation in the basic patterns of spoken and written Basque (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, sociolinguistic norms) and emphasizes all four skills: speaking, listening, writing, and reading.
BASQ 12100 or consent of instructor.
BASQ 21100 Basque Culture and Society
Straddling the border of southern France and northern Spain, the Basque Country is the home of a complex national community without a state -but with a language that is unrelated to any other in the world and is perhaps the most remarkable feature of their cultural identity. Through the analysis of a wide variety of texts and artifacts, this course will give students the the background to navigate through different dimensions of Basque culture (traditions, gastronomy, music, the language) as well as the history that has marked the development of Basque society (including the so-called Basque Conflict). Taught in English. Prior knowledge of Basque language or culture not required.
BASQ 24730 The Revitalization of the Basque Language
In the last 30 years, the Basque language has seen an increase in the number of speakers, especially among younger groups. The implementation of several language and cultural policies, along with a transformation in the educational system, has been key to this development. In this course we will explore these revitalizing practices used in the Basque Country by analyzing the sociolinguistic situation of Basque language from the transition to democracy in the late 1970s to the present. Taught in English.
CATA 12200 Catalan for Speakers of Romance Languages I
This course is intended for speakers of other Romance languages to quickly develop competence in spoken and written Catalan. In this introductory course, students learn ways to apply their skills in another Romance language to mastering Catalan by concentrating on the similarities and differences between the two languages. Students with a placement of 20100 or higher in any of the other Romance Languages are eligible to take CATA 12200 for completion of the College Language Competency Requirement.
Although familiarity with a Romance language is strongly recommended, students with no prior knowledge of a Romance language are also welcome.
CATA 12200 Catalan for Speakers of Romance Languages I
This course is intended for speakers of other Romance languages to quickly develop competence in spoken and written Catalan. In this introductory course, students learn ways to apply their skills in another Romance language to mastering Catalan by concentrating on the similarities and differences between the two languages. Students with a placement of 20100 or higher in any of the other Romance Languages are eligible to take CATA 12200 for completion of the College Language Competency Requirement.
Although familiarity with a Romance language is strongly recommended, students with no prior knowledge of a Romance language are also welcome.
CATA 12300 Catalan for Speakers of Romance Languages II
This course is intended for speakers of other Romance languages to quickly develop competence in spoken and written Catalan. In this intermediate-level course, students learn ways to apply their skills in another Romance language to mastering Catalan by concentrating on the similarities and differences between the two languages. This course offers a rapid review of the basic patterns of the language and expands on the material presented in CATA 12200.
CATA 12200 or consent of instructor.
CATA 21100 Llengua, societat i cultura I
This advanced-level course will focus on speaking and writing skills through the study of a wide variety of contemporary texts and audiovisual materials. It will provide students with a better understanding of contemporary Catalan society. Students will review problematic grammatical structures, write a number of essays, and participate in multiple class debates. This course satisfies language competency.
CATA 11200, CATA 12300 or consent of instructor
CATA 21600 Catalan Culture and Society: Art, Music, and Cinema
This course provides an interdisciplinary survey of contemporary Catalonia. We study a wide range of its cultural manifestations (architecture, paintings, music, arts of the body, literature, cinema, gastronomy). Attention is also paid to some sociolinguistic issues, such as the coexistence of Catalan and Spanish, and the standardization of Catalan. The course will be conducted in English.
CATA 21950 "Dark Stairways of Desire": Lusting beyond the Norm in Contemporary Catalan Literature
Although we can find a significant number of authors exploring queer desire and identities throughout the history of Catalan Literature (from lesbian scenes in Joanot Martorell's "Tirant lo blanc" to expanding gender identities in Maria Aurèlia Capmany's "Quim/Quima"), more recent Catalan Literature is blooming with queerness and non-normative lust. This course will give an overview of contemporary Catalan works influenced by feminist and queer debates from the seventies on. Beginning with renowned poet Maria Mercè Marçal's only novel, "The Passion According to Rennée Vivien," winner of several of the most prestigious literary awards for Catalan Literature, we will go on to discover 21st-century works by Eva Baltasar and Anna Punsoda. We will also read poems, short stories and excerpts from authors such as Maria Sevilla, Mireia Calafell, Raquel Santanera, Sebastià Portell, Sil Bel and Ian Bermúdez, among others.Taught in English.
CATA 23500 Alone in the Mountains: Tales of Freedom and Violence in Contemporary Catalan Literature
From witches to "goges" ("water women"), Catalan folklore shows a tradition of women living on their own in the mountains, liberated from societal conventions. These women are portrayed as fascinating yet threatening figures. This ancient imagery has permeated contemporary literature, manifested in novels that depict women who remove themselves from "civilization" to inhabit rural areas of Catalunya, seeking freedom and having to confront at the same time societal norms, abusive partners or even their own personal demons. The mountains, far from ideal and peaceful, are an untamed and often brutal space in which human lives hold no greater value than those of goats, mushrooms, rivers. In this course we shall engage with four novels authored by women: "Solitude (1904) by Victor Català, "Stone in a Landslide" (1984) by Maria Barbal, "When I Sing Mountains Dance" (2019) by Irene Solà, and "Alone" (2021) by Carlota Gurt. Through the analysis of these literary works, we aim to delve into Catalan culture and explore its literary archetypes, while establishing significant connections among these texts and their place in modern and contemporary literature. Taught in English, but students seeking credit for the HLBS major/minor must do part of the readings and written work in Catalan or Spanish as necessary for their degree.
CATA 26525 Literatura política en el Barroco: Espacios, géneros y lenguas de la propaganda en el mundo ibérico
A la pregunta, ¿qué se leía en la Edad Moderna?, la respuesta suele ser: Cervantes. Ciertamente su difusión es innegable, pero las lecturas también fueron muchas otras y no siempre responden a lo que hoy entendemos por literatura de creación: relaciones de sucesos, romances, coplas, sermones, pronósticos, etc., se leían y/o escuchaban en la intimidad del hogar o en la calle, en formato libro, pliego suelto, expuestas en una pared, etc. El curso se ocupa de la literatura política y propagandística en el Barroco, entendiendo la literatura como sinónimo de cultura escrita, por un lado, y la literatura política y propagandística, por otro, como aquella que sirve de vehículo para la opinión en un contexto de guerra. Aunque cualquier decisión en el ámbito público tiene un componente político, se debe considerar la propaganda como aquella destinada a diseminar una ideología de legitimación (o deslegitimación) bélica en un contexto de confrontación territorial (entre coronas y/o entre territorios), aunque se base en elementos que en principio pueden parecer diferentes (religión, lengua, tradiciones, etc.).
En esta asignatura vamos a: definir el género, identificar cuáles son estos textos, estudiarlos en su contexto y dilucidar su importancia en la transmisión de mensajes orientados ideológicamente. Se partirá principalmente de las obras que generaron varios conflictos bélicos en la Península y se trabajará con textos en todas las lenguas vernáculas peninsulares y en latín. Taught in Spanish.
FREN 10100 Beginning Elementary French I
This course-intended for students who have no previous knowledge of French and for those who need an in-depth review of the very basic patterns of the language-is the first in a three-part language sequence that provides beginning students with a solid foundation in the linguistic and sociocultural norms necessary for everyday communication in the French-speaking world. Our unique method guides students to learn French inductively, through authentic discourse, so that they learn to speak more like native speakers from the very beginning. This course is designed to help students achieve functional competency in speaking, writing, listening, and reading, with a focus on present tense constructions, and to engage students in all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational). Exposure to French and Francophone materials will foster cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection.
For students with no prior French, or placement into FREN 10100
FREN 10100 Beginning Elementary French I
This course-intended for students who have no previous knowledge of French and for those who need an in-depth review of the very basic patterns of the language-is the first in a three-part language sequence that provides beginning students with a solid foundation in the linguistic and sociocultural norms necessary for everyday communication in the French-speaking world. Our unique method guides students to learn French inductively, through authentic discourse, so that they learn to speak more like native speakers from the very beginning. This course is designed to help students achieve functional competency in speaking, writing, listening, and reading, with a focus on present tense constructions, and to engage students in all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational). Exposure to French and Francophone materials will foster cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection.
For students with no prior French, or placement into FREN 10100
FREN 10100 Beginning Elementary French I
This course-intended for students who have no previous knowledge of French and for those who need an in-depth review of the very basic patterns of the language-is the first in a three-part language sequence that provides beginning students with a solid foundation in the linguistic and sociocultural norms necessary for everyday communication in the French-speaking world. Our unique method guides students to learn French inductively, through authentic discourse, so that they learn to speak more like native speakers from the very beginning. This course is designed to help students achieve functional competency in speaking, writing, listening, and reading, with a focus on present tense constructions, and to engage students in all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational). Exposure to French and Francophone materials will foster cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection.
For students with no prior French, or placement into FREN 10100
FREN 10200 Beginning Elementary French II
This course-the second in a three-part language sequence that provides beginning students with a solid foundation in the linguistic and sociocultural norms necessary for everyday communication in the French-speaking world-offers a rapid review of the basic patterns of the language, and expands on the material presented in FREN 10100. This course is designed to help students achieve functional competency in speaking, writing, listening, and reading, with a focus on present and past time frames, and to engage students in all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational). Students further explore French and Francophone materials that foster cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection.
FREN 10100 or placement into FREN 10200
FREN 10200 Beginning Elementary French II
This course-the second in a three-part language sequence that provides beginning students with a solid foundation in the linguistic and sociocultural norms necessary for everyday communication in the French-speaking world-offers a rapid review of the basic patterns of the language, and expands on the material presented in FREN 10100. This course is designed to help students achieve functional competency in speaking, writing, listening, and reading, with a focus on present and past time frames, and to engage students in all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational). Students further explore French and Francophone materials that foster cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection.
FREN 10100 or placement into FREN 10200
FREN 10200 Beginning Elementary French II
This course-the second in a three-part language sequence that provides beginning students with a solid foundation in the linguistic and sociocultural norms necessary for everyday communication in the French-speaking world-offers a rapid review of the basic patterns of the language, and expands on the material presented in FREN 10100. This course is designed to help students achieve functional competency in speaking, writing, listening, and reading, with a focus on present and past time frames, and to engage students in all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational). Students further explore French and Francophone materials that foster cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection.
FREN 10100 or placement into FREN 10200
FREN 10300 Beginning Elementary French III
This course-the last in a three-part sequence that provides beginning students with a solid foundation in the linguistic and sociocultural norms necessary for everyday communication in the French-speaking world-expands on the material presented in FREN 10200, reviewing and elaborating the basic patterns of the language with the aim of developing functional competency in all four skills (speaking, writing, listening, and reading) in most time frames. Students continue to engage in all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational), and to explore French and Francophone materials that foster cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection. Successful completion of FREN 10300 meets the College's language competence requirement.
FREN 10200, FREN 12001, FREN 14100 or placement into FREN 10300
FREN 10300 Beginning Elementary French III
This course-the last in a three-part sequence that provides beginning students with a solid foundation in the linguistic and sociocultural norms necessary for everyday communication in the French-speaking world-expands on the material presented in FREN 10200, reviewing and elaborating the basic patterns of the language with the aim of developing functional competency in all four skills (speaking, writing, listening, and reading) in most time frames. Students continue to engage in all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational), and to explore French and Francophone materials that foster cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection. Successful completion of FREN 10300 meets the College's language competence requirement.
FREN 10200, FREN 12001, FREN 14100 or placement into FREN 10300
FREN 10300 Beginning Elementary French III
This course-the last in a three-part sequence that provides beginning students with a solid foundation in the linguistic and sociocultural norms necessary for everyday communication in the French-speaking world-expands on the material presented in FREN 10200, reviewing and elaborating the basic patterns of the language with the aim of developing functional competency in all four skills (speaking, writing, listening, and reading) in most time frames. Students continue to engage in all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational), and to explore French and Francophone materials that foster cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection. Successful completion of FREN 10300 meets the College's language competence requirement.
FREN 10200, FREN 12001, FREN 14100 or placement into FREN 10300
FREN 10402 Heritage French: Developing Foundational Skills
This course is designed to build on heritage learners' skills to prepare them for success in subsequent French courses. Skill areas include in-depth practice in reading and writing, along with review and expansion of targeted grammar structures, and development of precision in vocabulary. This course satisfies the College Language Competency Requirement. Designed for heritage learners who placed into FREN 10200 or 10300, or who have not studied French formally. Can also be added with instructor consent. No auditors permitted. If course is full, or total enrollment is less than enrollment limit & you can't register, attend on 1st day. Registered students who don't attend on 1st day may lose spot.
FREN 12001 Intensive French I
Intensive French I, II and III: This intensive, three-quarter sequence brings students with no prior background in French to advanced-low levels in all four skills-reading, writing, speaking, and listening-thus preparing students to take third-year level courses in French. Learners who are starting French late in their College careers or who wish to move forward swiftly will gain skills corresponding to two full years of study by completing the entire sequence. Although the three classes constitute a sequence, students may enter the sequence whenever it is appropriate for them based on prior courses or placement exam results. Students may also exit the sequence after any given class and continue in the appropriate course in the Elementary or Intermediate French track. NOTE: Each course is 200 units and corresponds in workload to taking two courses. FREN 12001, the first course in the sequence, covers the equivalent of FREN 10100 and 10200.
For students with no prior French, or placement in FREN 10100.
FREN 12002 Intensive French II
Intensive French I, II and III: This intensive, three-quarter sequence brings students with no prior background in French to advanced-low levels in all four skills-reading, writing, speaking, and listening-thus preparing students to take third-year level courses in French. Learners who are starting French late in their College careers or who wish to move forward swiftly will gain skills corresponding to two full years of study by completing the entire sequence. Although the three classes constitute a sequence, students may enter the sequence whenever it is appropriate for them based on prior courses or placement exam results. Students may also exit the sequence after any given class and continue in the appropriate course in the Elementary or Intermediate French track. NOTE: Each course is 200 units and corresponds in workload to taking two courses. FREN 12002, the second course in the sequence, covers the equivalent of FREN 10300 and 20100.
FREN 10200, FREN 12001 or placement in FREN 10300.
FREN 12003 Intensive French III
Intensive French I, II and III: This intensive, three-quarter sequence brings students with no prior background in French to advanced-low levels in all four skills-reading, writing, speaking, and listening-thus preparing students to take third-year level courses in French. Learners who are starting French late in their College careers or who wish to move forward swiftly will gain skills corresponding to two full years of study by completing the entire sequence. Although the three classes constitute a sequence, students may enter the sequence whenever it is appropriate for them based on prior courses or placement exam results. Students may also exit the sequence after any given class and continue in the appropriate course in the Elementary or Intermediate French track. NOTE: Each course is 200 units and corresponds in workload to taking two courses. FREN 12003, the third course in the sequence, covers the equivalent of FREN 20200 and 20300.
FREN 12002, 14500, 20100, or placement in FREN 20200.
FREN 13333 Reading French for Research Purposes Prerequisite Course
This course is designed for students without prior experience or training in French who wish to take FREN 33333, Reading French for Research Purposes. In this course, students learn the basics of French grammar and syntax, some basic French vocabulary, and they also begin to learn some of the reading strategies they will need to be successful in FREN 33333. The prerequisite for FREN 33333 is either one year of college-level French language instruction or the equivalent, or successful completion of FREN 13333
For students with no prior French, or placement into FREN 10100.
FREN 13333 Reading French for Research Purposes Prerequisite Course
This course is designed for students without prior experience or training in French who wish to take FREN 33333, Reading French for Research Purposes. In this course, students learn the basics of French grammar and syntax, some basic French vocabulary, and they also begin to learn some of the reading strategies they will need to be successful in FREN 33333. The prerequisite for FREN 33333 is either one year of college-level French language instruction or the equivalent, or successful completion of FREN 13333
For students with no prior French, or placement into FREN 10100.
FREN 14100 French for Romance Language Speakers
This course helps students quickly gain skills in spoken and written French by building on their prior working knowledge of another Romance language (Catalan, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish). By relying on the many similarities with other Romance languages, students can focus on mastering the different aspects of French. This class covers content from FREN 10100 and 10200.
20100 in another Romance language or consent of instructor. Intended for students with no prior French.
FREN 14300 Phonétique et prononciation
French sounds nothing like how it's written - until you know the code. Hone your accent and learn the sounds of French in this production-focused course for post-103 students. We will discuss and practice rhythm and intonation patterns as well as individual sounds, and introduce the underlying linguistic concepts that inform them. Towards the end of the course, we will explore varieties of French from around the world and the phonetic features that make them distinct. FREN 14300 satisfies Language Competency. Taught in (accessible) French.
FREN 10300, 12002 or placement into FREN 20100, 20200, or 20300.
FREN 14500 French for Global Studies and Economics
Designed as an alternative to FREN 20100 for students in Business Economics, Global Studies and related fields of study, this four-skills course meets the grammatical objectives of FREN 20100 while equipping students with the basic communication skills and cultural awareness necessary in the areas of international exchange and economics. Through exposure to a wide range of material-including essays, newspaper and journal articles, film reviews, professional writing practices-and interactive exercises including discussions, in-class activities, and group projects in simulated professional situations, students will acquire the linguistic skills and sociocultural knowledge required for engagement in international exchange and business economics as well as to participate in larger debates in the Francophone context.
FREN 10300 or placement in FREN 20100.
FREN 20100 Language, History, and Culture I
In this course-the first in the intermediate-level sequence-students will engage in all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational) and develop their oral and written skills in describing, narrating, and presenting arguments, reviewing all basic patterns of the language and acquiring new grammatical skills and a broader lexical base to speak and write in depth about leisure activities current and past (including movies), how weekends and vacations used to be spent, and studies. Listening and reading skills are also targeted through a variety of activities. Students will examine French cultural practices and perspectives on these topics, and will do their own research to present other French and Francophone practices and perspectives, which will raise cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection.
FREN 10123, 10300 or placement into FREN 20100.
FREN 20100 Language, History, and Culture I
In this course-the first in the intermediate-level sequence-students will engage in all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational) and develop their oral and written skills in describing, narrating, and presenting arguments, reviewing all basic patterns of the language and acquiring new grammatical skills and a broader lexical base to speak and write in depth about leisure activities current and past (including movies), how weekends and vacations used to be spent, and studies. Listening and reading skills are also targeted through a variety of activities. Students will examine French cultural practices and perspectives on these topics, and will do their own research to present other French and Francophone practices and perspectives, which will raise cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection.
FREN 10123, 10300 or placement into FREN 20100.
FREN 20100 Language, History, and Culture I
In this course-the first in the intermediate-level sequence-students will engage in all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational) and develop their oral and written skills in describing, narrating, and presenting arguments, reviewing all basic patterns of the language and acquiring new grammatical skills and a broader lexical base to speak and write in depth about leisure activities current and past (including movies), how weekends and vacations used to be spent, and studies. Listening and reading skills are also targeted through a variety of activities. Students will examine French cultural practices and perspectives on these topics, and will do their own research to present other French and Francophone practices and perspectives, which will raise cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection.
FREN 10123, 10300 or placement into FREN 20100.
FREN 20200 Language, History, and Culture II
In this course-the second in the intermediate-level sequence-students further develop their descriptive and narrative skills through a variety of texts, audio-visual materials, and activities to speak about the past objectively and subjectively; deepen their knowledge of various cultural practices and perspectives in the French context, including leisure activities, and health and health-care related issues; and learn to express personal and professional plans for the future. Students also carry out their own research to present other French and Francophone practices and perspectives on these same topics, which will enhance cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection. Students continue honing all skills (listening, reading, writing, and speaking) and engage in all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational).
FREN 12002, 20100, or placement into FREN 20200
FREN 20200 Language, History, and Culture II
In this course-the second in the intermediate-level sequence-students further develop their descriptive and narrative skills through a variety of texts, audio-visual materials, and activities to speak about the past objectively and subjectively; deepen their knowledge of various cultural practices and perspectives in the French context, including leisure activities, and health and health-care related issues; and learn to express personal and professional plans for the future. Students also carry out their own research to present other French and Francophone practices and perspectives on these same topics, which will enhance cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection. Students continue honing all skills (listening, reading, writing, and speaking) and engage in all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational).
FREN 12002, 20100, or placement into FREN 20200
FREN 20200 Language, History, and Culture II
In this course-the second in the intermediate-level sequence-students further develop their descriptive and narrative skills through a variety of texts, audio-visual materials, and activities to speak about the past objectively and subjectively; deepen their knowledge of various cultural practices and perspectives in the French context, including leisure activities, and health and health-care related issues; and learn to express personal and professional plans for the future. Students also carry out their own research to present other French and Francophone practices and perspectives on these same topics, which will enhance cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection. Students continue honing all skills (listening, reading, writing, and speaking) and engage in all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational).
FREN 12002, 20100, or placement into FREN 20200
FREN 20300 Language, History, and Culture III
In the third and last course of the intermediate sequence, students continue to hone all skills (listening, reading, writing, and speaking) and engage in all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational). Students learn how to make hypotheses, express regrets and opinions, craft an argument, narrate and report a conversation or interaction through indirect speech, talk about languages and cultures in the global Francophone context as seen in a variety of texts and audio-visual materials, and begin to master the vocabulary and grammatical structures needed to convey all of that. Additionally, this course helps students develop their skills in understanding and producing written and spoken arguments in French as they read, summarize, and comment on an article of their choice in the Francophone press, and listen to, summarize, and comment on a podcast of their choice in French. Students also carry out their own research drawing on other written and audio sources for a final project on any French or Francophone topic, and participate in a discussion. Thus this course, like the others in the sequence, enhances cultural awareness and encourages intercultural reflection, and furthermore helps students develop academic literacy.
FREN 20200 or placement into FREN 20300.
FREN 20300 Language, History, and Culture III
In the third and last course of the intermediate sequence, students continue to hone all skills (listening, reading, writing, and speaking) and engage in all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational). Students learn how to make hypotheses, express regrets and opinions, craft an argument, narrate and report a conversation or interaction through indirect speech, talk about languages and cultures in the global Francophone context as seen in a variety of texts and audio-visual materials, and begin to master the vocabulary and grammatical structures needed to convey all of that. Additionally, this course helps students develop their skills in understanding and producing written and spoken arguments in French as they read, summarize, and comment on an article of their choice in the Francophone press, and listen to, summarize, and comment on a podcast of their choice in French. Students also carry out their own research drawing on other written and audio sources for a final project on any French or Francophone topic, and participate in a discussion. Thus this course, like the others in the sequence, enhances cultural awareness and encourages intercultural reflection, and furthermore helps students develop academic literacy.
FREN 20200 or placement into FREN 20300.
FREN 20300 Language, History, and Culture III
In the third and last course of the intermediate sequence, students continue to hone all skills (listening, reading, writing, and speaking) and engage in all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational). Students learn how to make hypotheses, express regrets and opinions, craft an argument, narrate and report a conversation or interaction through indirect speech, talk about languages and cultures in the global Francophone context as seen in a variety of texts and audio-visual materials, and begin to master the vocabulary and grammatical structures needed to convey all of that. Additionally, this course helps students develop their skills in understanding and producing written and spoken arguments in French as they read, summarize, and comment on an article of their choice in the Francophone press, and listen to, summarize, and comment on a podcast of their choice in French. Students also carry out their own research drawing on other written and audio sources for a final project on any French or Francophone topic, and participate in a discussion. Thus this course, like the others in the sequence, enhances cultural awareness and encourages intercultural reflection, and furthermore helps students develop academic literacy.
FREN 20200 or placement into FREN 20300.
FREN 20500 Ecrire en français
The main goal of this course is to help students acquire advanced grammatical knowledge of the French language and develop their writing skills. This course is strongly recommended for all students who intend to take courses in which writing essays in French is required: French literature classes on campus, the Autumn Paris Civilization program, or the academic yearlong program in Paris. It is also strongly recommended for students who wish to take the advanced proficiency exam in French.
FREN 20300 or placement into FREN 20500/20600
FREN 20500 Ecrire en français
The main goal of this course is to help students acquire advanced grammatical knowledge of the French language and develop their writing skills. This course is strongly recommended for all students who intend to take courses in which writing essays in French is required: French literature classes on campus, the Autumn Paris Civilization program, or the academic yearlong program in Paris. It is also strongly recommended for students who wish to take the advanced proficiency exam in French.
FREN 20300 or placement into FREN 20500/20600
FREN 20500 Ecrire en français
The main goal of this course is to help students acquire advanced grammatical knowledge of the French language and develop their writing skills. This course is strongly recommended for all students who intend to take courses in which writing essays in French is required: French literature classes on campus, the Autumn Paris Civilization program, or the academic yearlong program in Paris. It is also strongly recommended for students who wish to take the advanced proficiency exam in French.
FREN 20300 or placement into FREN 20500/20600
FREN 20601 Expression orale et phonétique
This course focuses on developing the tools necessary for advanced oral proficiency in an academic context. Through active class participation involving a number of class presentations, students practice a variety of discourse styles (e.g., debates, lectures, seminars, interviews). Special emphasis is placed on correct pronunciation.
FREN 12003, 20300, or placement into FREN 20500.
FREN 20602 Expression orale : Décrire l'art moderne et contemporain en français
This course explores major contemporary French and francophone artists, art forms and art works. Students will acquire basic linguistic and analytical skills to apprehend visual arts, graphic novels, movies and theatrical performance in French. They will work on individual and group art and academic assignments. Taught in French. A screening and a museum field trip are required.
FREN 12003, 20300, or placement into FREN 20500/20600.
FREN 20604 Expression orale : Parler du monde francophone contemporain
This course focuses on developing advanced oral proficiency skills in French in the context of contemporary cultural, social and political issues in the Francophone world. As Francophonie is a multifaceted concept that can be approached from various perspectives-institutional, linguistic, geopolitical, cultural, and literary-the course will start with a look at what Francophonie is and means in such places as the Caribbean, Europe, Francophone Africa, and North America. Students will read articles, watch and listen to films, reports, and interviews, engage in discussions and debates, conduct interviews, and carry out projects and presentations on themes of their own choosing within this framework.
FREN 20300, FREN 12003, or placement into FREN 20500
FREN 21300 Introduction au cinéma français et francophone
Ce cours vise à donner une vue d’ensemble du cinéma français et francophone à travers une approche thématique. À l’appui de textes dont nous privilégierons ceux originellement publiés en français, nous examinerons une grande variété de films dont le point commun se situe à leur opposition à la norme, au centre, à la métropole, au mainstream. L’œuvre de cinéastes issus des rives gauche et droite de la Nouvelle Vague, tels que Chabrol, Duras, Godard et Varda, celle de cinéastes africains, et de cinéastes de l’âge classique et moderne comme Alice et Mati Diop, permettra de passer du macro au micro, du personnel à l’autoréférentiel. Nous étudierons ainsi comment ces cinéastes utilisent l’outil cinématographique pour aborder des thèmes tels que la colonisation, la géographie, le genre et la sexualité, et le medium du cinéma lui-même. En mettant en lien l’image et le texte, nous étudierons la tension entre le langage du cinéma et celui de la littérature et leur différente capacité à traiter de ces sujets. Taught in French.
FREN 20300 or placement into FREN 20500.
FREN 21601 Francophone Caribbean Culture and Society: Art, Music, and Cinema
This course provides an interdisciplinary survey of the contemporary Francophone Caribbean. Students will study a wide range of its cultural manifestations (performing arts like music and dance, literature, cinema, architecture and other visual arts, gastronomy). Attention is also paid to such sociolinguistic issues as the coexistence of French and Kreyòl, and the standardization of Kreyòl. Taught in English.
FREN 23003 Introduction: Voix féminines dans la littérature française
Ce cours nous permettra de réintégrer au canon de la littérature française des ouvrages parfois négligés, tout en prenant connaissance des principaux mouvements littéraires, culturels, et politiques auxquels ces textes appartiennent. Taught in French. This is an introductory-level course.
FREN 20300
FREN 23522 Introduction à la satire en France
Le rire est souvent salué en France comme arme et gage de la liberté, mais la satire française suggère une histoire bien plus ambigüe. Dans ce cours, nous retracerons cette histoire (qui compte non seulement Rabelais, Molière, Boileau, Voltaire, Beaumarchais, et Hugo, mais aussi Antoinette Deshoulières, Mohamed Fellag, et Éléonore Pourriat), pour interroger les fonctions de la satire : amuser ou blesser, désabuser ou tromper, libérer ou contraindre, rassembler ou diviser ? Pour chaque roman, pièce de théâtre, poème, dessin, ou film, nous mènerons essentiellement une comparaison de perspectives, entre l'histoire de son interprétation, notre propre expérience de l'ouvrage, et les réactions probables des premiers lecteurs ou spectateurs, et des premières lectrices ou spectatrices, dans un contexte spécifique plus ou moins éloigné du nôtre. This is an introductory-level course. Taught in French.
FREN 20300.
FREN 23725 La querelle des femmes
La condition des femmes dans une société centrée sur l'homme est remise en cause en France au XVIIe siècle : naissent les premiers salons présidés par des femmes, qui défendent leur éducation intellectuelle et remettent en question le mariage ; la séparation cartésienne entre corps et esprit permet de prôner l'égalité des sexes. Ce proto-féminisme affronte aussitôt une forte réaction, qui s'exprime notamment par la satire, comme ses adhérentes sont traitées de « précieuses » et de « femmes savantes », dans le théâtre de Molière comme ailleurs. Dans un premier temps, nous écouterons les voix majeures de ce mouvement (telles que Madeleine de Scudéry, la salonnière dite Sapho), et examinerons ses diverses interprétations (notamment en longeant ensemble La Galerie des femmes fortes en Special Collections). Ensuite, nous ferons l'analyse des stratégies anti-féministes pour le miner. Enfin, la querelle de 1694 autour d'une satire misogyne de Boileau nous servira de conclusion pour un chapitre dans la longue histoire du féminisme et de sa réaction. Taught in French.
FREN 20500 or 20503.
FREN 24240 Drama Queens: Women Playwrights in the Renaissance
This course introduces students to the works of early modern female playwrights from England--including Elizabeth Cary, Aphra Behn, and Margaret Cavendish--and from Continental Europe (in translation)--including the French Marguerite de Navarre (Comedy of Mont-de-Marsan), the Italian Margherita Costa (The Buffoons), the Spanish Ana Caro (The Courage to Right a Woman's Wrongs) and the Mexican Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (Narcissus), among others. In this course, we will read and think through the complex plays and lives of those brilliant authors through various critical lenses such as intersectional feminism, transnationalism, and premodern critical race studies. (Drama, Pre-1650)
FREN 24700 Introduction à la littérature féminine au Maroc
Depuis les années 1980, la littérature féminine au Maroc connaît un essor remarquable qui se traduit dans le renouvellement du paysage littéraire et la diversité des thèmes abordés. En mettant la femme marocaine et ses expériences au centre de l'acte littéraire, les écrivaines marocaines ont brisé les tabous et insufflé une dynamique sociale et politique à l'échelle du pays. Ce cours introductif donnera un aperçu des écritures féminines au Maroc à partir de questions majeures telles que la représentation du corps et de la sexualité, le rapport à la maternité et à la transmission, le poids des traditions et des injonctions sociales, les combats politiques, les droits des femmes ainsi que les luttes contre la discrimination et la violence. Parmi les autrices étudiées figurent Fatima Mernissi, Fatna El Bouih, Leila Abouzeid, Siham Benchekroun et Yasmine Chami. This is an introductory-level course. Taught in French.
FREN 20500, 20503 or consent of the instructor.
FREN 24725 Transatlantic Feminism. French, Francophone, and North American perspectives (20th-21st c.)
This course explores modern and contemporary feminism through a transatlantic lens. We will consider three major moments and sites of a multi-centered conversation. First, we will explore the modernist desire for cosmopolitanism which drew writers across the Atlantic (Simone de Beauvoir's adventures in the US; Djuna Barnes and Gertrude Stein's lives in Paris). In the central part of the quarter, we will focus on the period between 1960 and 1990 which witnessed intense conversation and contestation between a French paradigm of "écriture féminine" (Hélène Cixous, Monique Wittig), and the rivalling practices and theories in America (from Adrienne Rich and Mary Daly to Judith Butler). Finally, we will explore the ways in which feminist thought has endeavored to account for race, class, rurality, and disability (from Maryse Condé to Aurélie Olivier and Roseline Lambert). The course will explore various media (novels, poetry, theater and performance, film), and various ways to engage critically and creatively with this history of transatlantic feminism.
Taught in English but reading knowledge of French is required. Students taking this class for French credit must have taken FREN 20500, 20503 or a literature course taught in French, and will complete assignments in French.
FREN 25725 Mental Health Conditions in French and Francophone Literature
This course aims to survey the representation of mental health conditions in French and Francophone literature from the Middle Ages to the 20th/21st century. We will address three main categories of conditions: 1) neurodivergence/high-functioning mental illness, 2) severe mental illness, and 3) gender dysphoria and sexuality-related issues. Through these readings, the student will gain an interdisciplinary knowledge of contemporary diagnostic criteria and psychological theory as well as the sociohistorical discourse surrounding mental health during the given time period for each of the prominent French and Francophone writers and/or texts. We will investigate links between authors and texts with these mental health conditions - examining the author as a typical/atypical unit and the text as either a reflection and/or object of that condition - and how history, society and culture influence its representation in the French and Francophone context. Our selection of texts covers several different genres including poetry, novellas, essays, autobiographical writings, plays and novels. Authors studied may include: Michel de Montaigne, Gerard de Nerval, Joachim du Bellay, Marguerite Duras, Joy Sorman, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Maïssa Bey, Molière, Heldris de Cornüalle, and the Marquis de Sade. Taught in English, with readings in French for those taking the course for French credit.
For French majors/minors, FREN 20500 or 20503.
FREN 26770 Stories of Oceans and Archipelagos
According to Fijian-Tongan writer Epeli Hau'ofa, "There is a world of difference between viewing the Pacific as 'islands in a far sea' and as 'a sea of islands.'" In this course, we will delve into the "world of difference" that exists between viewing islands as remote and insignificant, and considering them as crucial nodes in an ever-expanding planetary network. Simultaneously, we will consider the stakes of moving away from traditional representations of the ocean as a blank canvas for human movement, to instead consider it as a vibrant material and multispecies space. This course will encourage students to formulate their own approaches to cutting-edge debates in archipelagic theory and critical ocean studies, and to situate those debates within the broader fields of environmental humanities and postcolonial studies. Readings will be drawn from the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean (including the Caribbean Sea), and the Indian Ocean. Taught in French.
For students seeking French credit, FREN 20500 or equivalent.
FREN 29301 Language Identity and Power in French-Creolophone Contexts
This course examines the concept of language identity (i.e., the language[s] people employ to represent themselves) in multilingual Creolophone communities, particularly in Haiti. This course also examines the relationships between language identity, learning, language use, and literacy development in these societies. By the end of the course, students will be able to explain: 1) what language identity in multilingual Creolophone community reveal about speakers and their language attitudes; 2) how context and mode of communication can impact language identity and language use; 3) literacy acquisition and achievement in Creole communities; and 4) how Creolophones' learning and literacy development are affected by language policies and ideologies. A final project will require students to design and conduct a preliminary sociolinguistic study based on students' interests in the French-Creolophone world. Taught in English.
Knowledge of French and Kreyòl will be helpful, but not required.
ITAL 10100 Beginning Elementary Italian I
This course is the first of a three-part language sequence that provides beginning students with a solid foundation in the language and the cultural norms necessary for everyday communication in Italy. It is designed to help students obtain functional competency in speaking, writing, reading, and listening. Students will practice all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational). They will also explore aspects of Italian culture, traditions, and regions through a selection of texts and audio-visual materials that aim to raise cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection.
ITAL 10200 Beginning Elementary Italian II
This course offers a rapid review of the basic patterns of the language presented in ITAL 10100 and further explores the language and the cultural norms necessary for everyday communication in Italy. It is designed to help students obtain functional competency in speaking, writing, reading, and listening with a focus on present and past time frames. Students will practice all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational). They will also explore aspects of Italian culture, traditions, and regions through a selection of texts and audio-visual materials that aim to raise cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection.
ITAL 10100 or placement
ITAL 10300 Beginning Elementary Italian III
This course is the third of a three-part language sequence that provides a solid foundation in the language and the cultural norms necessary for everyday communication in Italy. It expands on the language presented in previous parts of the sequence, and provides functional competency in speaking, writing, reading, and listening, with a focus on present, past and future time frames. Students will practice all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational). They will also explore aspects of Italian culture, traditions, and regions through a selection of texts and audio-visual materials that aim to raise cultural awareness and encourage intercultural communication. Successful completion of ITAL 10300 meets the language competence requirement.
ITAL 10200 or placement
ITAL 12200 Italian for Speakers of Romance Languages
This course is intended for speakers of other Romance languages to quickly develop competence in spoken and written Italian. Students learn ways to apply their skills in another Romance language to Italian by concentrating on the similarities and differences between languages. Students with a placement of 20100 or higher in any of the other Romance Languages are eligible to take ITAL 12200 for completion of the College Language Competency Requirement.
20100 in another Romance language or consent of instructor.
ITAL 12200 Italian for Speakers of Romance Languages
This course is intended for speakers of other Romance languages to quickly develop competence in spoken and written Italian. Students learn ways to apply their skills in another Romance language to Italian by concentrating on the similarities and differences between languages. Students with a placement of 20100 or higher in any of the other Romance Languages are eligible to take ITAL 12200 for completion of the College Language Competency Requirement.
20100 in another Romance language or consent of instructor.
ITAL 20100 Language, History, and Culture I
In this course, students practice all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational), and further develop listening, reading, writing, and speaking skills through a variety of activities. This class reviews basic patterns of the language, and presents new grammatical structures and communicative functions. Students explore aspects of Italian society - with a focus on cultural practices and perspectives - through a variety of literary and non-literary texts and audio-visual materials, which raise cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection.
ITAL 10300 or placement
ITAL 20200 Language, History, and Culture II
In this second part of the intermediate sequence, Students explore aspects of Italian society - with a focus on social issues and socioeconomic changes - cultural practices, and perspectives through a variety of literary and non-literary texts and audio-visual materials. The course raises cultural awareness and encourages intercultural reflection, while offering students several opportunities to practice all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational). Students develop listening, reading, writing, and speaking skills through a variety of activities. This class presents new grammatical structures and lexical items, while reviewing patterns from ITAL201.
ITAL 20100 or placement
ITAL 20222 Italian for Speakers of Romance Languages II
This course is intended for speakers of other Romance languages who have completed ITAL 12200 "Italian for Speakers of Romance Languages." In this intermediate-level course, students will further develop their proficiency in Italian, by focusing on the similarities and differences between Romance languages. This course offers a rapid review of the basic patterns of the Italian language and expands on the material presented in ITAL 12200. Taught in Italian.
ITAL 12200 or consent of instructor.
ITAL 20300 Language, History, and Culture III
This course completes the study of the common grammatical functions and syntactical structures of the language, while reviewing previously-acquired patterns. Students practice all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational), and further develop listening, reading, writing, and speaking skills through a variety of activities. They continue exploring aspects of Italian society, through audio-visual materials and the reading of a contemporary Italian novel. Like the other parts of the sequence, this course raises cultural awareness, encourages intercultural reflection, and help students develop academic literacy.
ITAL 20200 or placement
ITAL 20400 Corso di perfezionamento
This course helps students achieve a very high level of composition and style through the acquisition of numerous writing techniques. Using a variety of literary and nonliterary texts as models, students examine the linguistic structure and organization of several types of written Italian discourse. This course is also intended to help students attain high levels in reading, speaking, and listening through readings and debates on various issues of relevance in contemporary Italian society.
ITAL 20300, placement, or consent of instructor
ITAL 22440 Women in Italian Organized Crime Through Cinema
In this course, we will study filmic representations of women in Italian organized crime, and the implications these portrayals have on the understanding of gender and the mafias through Italian cinema. Sociological and psychological studies have underscored the importance of female roles in relation to mafia organizations, notwithstanding the rigid patriarchal structure that allows only male affiliation. One of the main goals of this class is for students to gain an understanding of different Italian mafias and to get a deeper comprehension of the construction of gender in a selection of films centered around these organizations. We will also discuss how movies contribute to the perception of organized crime. This class will draw on a variety of fields, including sociology, gender studies, and film studies. Taught in English. Students seeking credit for the Italian major/minor must complete a substantial part of the course work (e.g., readings, writing) in Italian.
ITAL 23125 Oral Performance and Gender from the Middle Ages to Slam Poetry
Italian culture has been continuously enriched by oral artistic practices. While the written page has allowed these practices to endure over time, they were also, and often primarily, transmitted through the bodies of performers. Is it possible to reconstruct the voices beyond the page? How does thinking about performance enhance our understanding of the artistic product and, moreover, of the society where this product originated? What are the political implications of the binary division between the written page and the human voice? Why are oral practices largely excluded from the literary canon? Is there a correlation between marginalized oral practices and queerness? The content of this course will consist of various Italian oral practices, ranging from the courtly lyric poetry of the Middle Ages to the contemporary spoken word scene. Additionally, the course will focus on female and queer voices, with the goal of tracing a parallel between the ephemerality of performances and the marginalization of communities. The course will integrate artistic content with theoretical material on the topic of voice, as well as insights from feminist and queer studies, media studies, and performance theory. At the end of the course, students will produce their own creative project with the purpose of answering the following question: how does thinking about performance from a practical point of view help to inform our understanding of performance from a theoretical perspective? Class will be conducted in English with a separate discussion section available for students seeking credit for the Italian major/minor. Readings will be in Italian and in English.
ITAL 23325 (In)Visible Women from Dante to Elena Ferrante: Bodies, Power, Identity
This course introduces students to both historical and current perspectives on gender, with a focus on Italian literature and cinema (14th-21st century). We will examine the representation of women in literature, as discussed in a variety of texts, including Dante's Divine Comedy, Machiavelli's comedies, and Elena Ferrante's novels. We will investigate key issues raised in and by women-authored works, across historical periods as varied as the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and Fascism. And we will also explore conceptualizations of gender and sexuality in Italian and international films, unpacking concepts such as gaze, desire, and intersectionality. As students study topics such as identity, construction of difference, feminism and antifeminism, they will acquire the critical vocabulary to describe, interpret, and formulate arguments about women's agency in literature, film, culture, and society. Taught in English.
ITAL 23425 Love in the Middle Ages
This course examines the theme of love in the literary production of late medieval Italy. We will privilege the tension between profane and sacred love, around which Italian writers take different postures. The variety of possible attitudes is wide and ranges from enthusiastic or painful representations of love passion to rejections of profane love, from daring experiments in the blending of sacred and profane love to representations of their irremediable dichotomy. Through close readings of poems and prose texts, we will see how these different attitudes not only explore the complex nature of love and love poetry, but also enter into dialogue with the historical context of 13th- and 14th-century Italy. In particular, we will probe how the literary debate on love sheds light on the socio-political and cultural developments of the time. Readings will include texts by Sicilian poets, Guittone d'Arezzo, Guido Guinizzelli, Bonagiunta Orbicciani, Guido Cavalcanti, Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio, among others. Taught in Italian.
ITAL 23625 Middle Ages on Film
This course will explore cinematic representations of the European middle ages. Ranging from the silent era to the present day, from arthouse pictures to swashbuckling epics, we will consider the uses of medievalism in the modern imagination. Where do these cultural fantasies come from? How do they change over time? How do they relate to the academic disciplines of history and medieval studies? And what role does cinema play in these questions? Screenings will be complemented with readings both from medieval source documents and from contemporary film and cultural theory. Works discussed will include "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1929), "The Flowers of Saint Francis" (Roberto Rossellini, 1950), "The Seventh Seal" (Ingmar Bergman, 1957), "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975), "Braveheart" (Mel Gibson, 1995), and "Hard to be a God" (Aleksei German, 2014), among others. Taught in English.
ITAL 25125 Different Traditions of the Detective Story and Neorealism in Literature and Cinema
The course will analyze the rise and the development of the detective story in the American and Italian traditions, focusing in particular on the works of Leonardo Sciascia (1921-1989). We will investigate Sciascia’s take on the detective story tradition as well as how he used this particular genre to overcome Neorealism. Taught in English.
ITAL 26500 Renaissance Demonology
In this course we analyze the complex concept of demonology according to early modern European culture from a theological, historical, philosophical, and literary point of view. The term 'demon' in the Renaissance encompasses a vast variety of meanings. Demons are hybrids. They are both the Christian devils, but also synonyms for classical deities, and Neo-platonic spiritual beings. As far as Christian theology is concerned, we read selections from Augustine's and Thomas Aquinas's treatises, some complex exorcisms written in Italy, and a recent translation of the infamous "Malleus maleficarum," the most important treatise on witch-hunt. We pay close attention to the historical evolution of the so-called witch-craze in Europe through a selection of the best secondary literature on this subject, with special emphasis on Michel de Certeau's "The Possession at Loudun." We also study how major Italian and Spanish women mystics, such as Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi and Teresa of Avila, approach the issue of demonic temptation and possession. As far as Renaissance Neoplatonic philosophy is concerned, we read selections from Marsilio Ficino's "Platonic Theology" and Girolamo Cardano's mesmerizing autobiography. We also investigate the connection between demonology and melancholy through a close reading of the initial section of Robert Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" and Cervantes's short story "The Glass Graduate" ("El licenciado Vidriera"). Course taught in English.
KREY 12201 Kreyòl for Speakers of Romance Languages I
This course is intended for speakers of other Romance Languages to quickly develop competence in spoken and written Kreyol (Kreyòl Ayisyen). In this introductory course, students learn ways to apply their skills in another Romance language to master Kreyol by concentrating on the similarities and differences between the two languages. Although familiarity with a Romance language is strongly recommended, students with no prior knowledge of a Romance Languages, and heritage learners, are also welcome.
KREY 12301 Kreyòl for Speakers of Romance Languages II
This course is intended for speakers of other Romance Languages, to quickly develop competence in spoken and written Kreyol (Kreyòl Ayisyen). In this intermediate-level course, students learn ways to apply their skills in another Romance language to master Kreyol by concentrating on the similarities and differences between the two languages. This course offers a rapid review of the basic patterns of the language and expands on the material presented in KREY 12201. Although familiarity with a Romance language is strongly recommended, students with no prior knowledge of a Romance language, and heritage learners, are also welcome.
KREY 12201 or consent of instructor.
KREY 21100 Lang, Sosyete ak Kilti Ayisyèn I
This advanced-level course will focus on speaking and writing skills through the study of a wide variety of contemporary texts and audiovisual materials. It will provide students with a better understanding of contemporary Haitian society. Students will review problematic grammatical structures, write a number of essays, and participate in multiple class debates. Taught in Kreyòl.
KREY 12300, 12301 or consent of instructor
KREY 21200 Lang, Sosyete ak Kilti Ayisyèn II
This advanced-level course will focus on speaking and writing skills through a wide variety of texts, audiovisual materials, and cultural experiences. We will study a wide range of Haitian cultural manifestations (e.g., visual arts, music, gastronomy). Students will also review advanced grammatical structures, write a number of essays, participate in multiple class debates, and take cultural trips to have a comprehensive learning experience with Haitian language and culture. Taught in Kreyòl.
KREY 21100 or consent of instructor.
KREY 21600 Francophone Caribbean Culture and Society: Art, Music, and Cinema
This course provides an interdisciplinary survey of the contemporary Francophone Caribbean. Students will study a wide range of its cultural manifestations (performing arts like music and dance, literature, cinema, architecture and other visual arts, gastronomy). Attention is also paid to such sociolinguistic issues as the coexistence of French and Kreyòl, and the standardization of Kreyòl. Taught in English.
KREY 29300 Language Identity and Power in French-Creolophone Contexts
This course examines the concept of language identity (i.e., the language[s] people employ to represent themselves) in multilingual Creolophone communities, particularly in Haiti. This course also examines the relationships between language identity, learning, language use, and literacy development in these societies. By the end of the course, students will be able to explain: 1) what language identity in multilingual Creolophone community reveal about speakers and their language attitudes; 2) how context and mode of communication can impact language identity and language use; 3) literacy acquisition and achievement in Creole communities; and 4) how Creolophones' learning and literacy development are affected by language policies and ideologies. A final project will require students to design and conduct a preliminary sociolinguistic study based on students' interests in the French-Creolophone world. Taught in English.
Knowledge of French and Kreyòl will be helpful, but not required.
PORT 10100 Beginning Elementary Portuguese I
This sequence is intended for beginning and beginning/intermediate students in Portuguese. It provides students with a solid foundation in the basic patterns of spoken and written Portuguese (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, phonetics, sociocultural norms) to develop their speaking, listening, writing, and reading skills. Although the three courses constitute a sequence, there is enough review and recycling at every level for students to enter the sequence whenever it is appropriate for them. This course is intended for students who have no previous knowledge of Portuguese and for students who need an in-depth review of the basic patterns of the language.
PORT 10200 Beginning Elementary Portuguese II
This course is a rapid review of the basic patterns of the language and expands on the material presented in PORT 10100.
PORT 10100 or placement
PORT 10300 Beginning Elementary Portuguese III
This course expands on the material presented in PORT 10200, reviewing and elaborating the basic patterns of the language. Successful completion of PORT 10300 fulfills the competency requirement
PORT 10200 or placement
PORT 12200 Portuguese For Spanish Speakers
This course is intended for speakers of Spanish to develop competence quickly in spoken and written Portuguese. In this intermediate-level course, students learn ways to apply their Spanish language skills to mastering Portuguese by concentrating on the similarities and differences between the two languages. Students with a placement of 20100 or higher in any of the other Romance Languages are eligible to take PORT 12200 for completion of the College Language Competency Requirement
SPAN 10300 or consent of instructor.
PORT 12200 Portuguese For Spanish Speakers
This course is intended for speakers of Spanish to develop competence quickly in spoken and written Portuguese. In this intermediate-level course, students learn ways to apply their Spanish language skills to mastering Portuguese by concentrating on the similarities and differences between the two languages. Students with a placement of 20100 or higher in any of the other Romance Languages are eligible to take PORT 12200 for completion of the College Language Competency Requirement
SPAN 10300 or consent of instructor.
PORT 14100 Portuguese for Speakers of Romance Languages
This course helps students quickly gain skills in spoken and written Portuguese by building on their prior working knowledge of another Romance language (Spanish, French, Catalan or Italian). By relying on the many similarities with other Romance languages, students can focus on mastering the different aspects of Portuguese, allowing them to develop their abilities for further study. This class covers content from PORT 10100 and 10200.
20100 in another Romance language or consent of instructor.
PORT 14500 Portuguese for the Professions: Intensive Business Portuguese
This is an accelerated language course that covers vocabulary and grammar for students interested in working in a business environment where Portuguese is spoken. The focus of this highly interactive class is to develop basic communication skills and cultural awareness through formal classes, readings, discussions, and writings. PORT 14500 satisfies the Language Competency Requirement.
PORT 10200, SPAN 20100, or consent of instructor.
PORT 20100 Intermediate Portuguese
This course is a general review and extension of all basic patterns of the language for intermediate students. Students explore selected aspects of Luso-Brazilian tradition through a variety of texts. This course is intented for intermediate students.
PORT 10300, 12200 or placement
PORT 20500 Cultura do Mundo Lusófono
In this course students will explore the culture of the Lusophone world through the study of a wide variety of contemporary literary and journalistic texts from Brazil, Portugal, Angola and Mozambique, and unscripted recordings. This advanced language course targets the development of writing skills and oral proficiency in Portuguese. Students will review problematic grammatical structures, write a number of essays, and participate in multiple class debates, using authentic readings and listening segments as linguistic models on which to base their own production.
PORT 20100 or consent of the instructor.
PORT 20600 Composição e Conversação Avançada
The objective of this course is to help students acquire advanced grammatical knowledge of the Portuguese language through exposure to cultural and literary content with a focus on Brazil. Students develop skills to continue perfecting their oral and written proficiency and comprehension of authentic literary texts and recordings, while also being exposed to relevant sociocultural and political contemporary topics. Students read, analyze, and discuss authentic texts by established writers from the lusophone world; they watch and discuss videos of interviews with writers and other prominent figures to help them acquire the linguistic skills required in academic discourse. Through exposure to written and spoken authentic materials, students learn the grammatical and lexical tools necessary to understand such materials as well as produce their own written analysis, response, and commentary. In addition, they acquire knowledge on major Brazilian authors and works.
PORT 20100 or consent of instructor.
PORT 21500 Curso de Aperfeiçoamento
This course helps students develop their skills in understanding, summarizing, and producing written and spoken arguments in Portuguese through readings and debates on various issues of relevance in contemporary Luso-Brazilian societies. Special consideration is given to the major differences between continental and Brazilian Portuguese. In addition to reading, analyzing, and commenting on advanced texts (both literary and nonliterary), students practice and extend their writing skills in a series of compositions.
PORT 20200, PORT 20600 or consent of instructor
PORT 21600 Exploring the Lusophone World: New Perspectives in Portuguese Language and Culture
This course aims to enhance linguistic abilities and cultural awareness of students of Portuguese by providing opportunities for structured discussion, analysis, and exploration of issues relevant to language use in academic, professional, and social settings. Through a variety of literacy-oriented exercises, including all modes of communication and related to different topics and genres, students continue to develop their proficiencies, cross-cultural knowledge, and general language ability. Students will explore, analyze, and discuss a variety of global topics as can be observed through the unique lenses of the cultures of Lusophone countries and communities. To develop both their linguistic and intercultural competence, linguistic skills will be honed through a variety of cultural products that allow the students to reflect on the practices and perspectives of the target society, as well as their own. These products will range from readings, multimedia content (videos and films), and Virtual Reality videos and images specifically created for this course. This course fosters the development of writing skills and oral proficiency in Portuguese. Students will review problematic grammatical structures, write several essays, and participate in multiple class debates on topics related to literature, politics, history, and popular culture. It builds linguistic proficiency to address issues of increasingly theoretical complexity and engage in critical thinking.
PORT 20600, PORT 21500 or instructor consent
PORT 27200 Introduction to Brazilian Culture
This course provides a survey of Brazilian culture through its literature, music, cinema, visual arts, and digital culture. Through these different media, we will discuss topics such as urban development, racial issues, gender issues, modernity, deforestation, and internal migrations, besides samba, bossa nova, Tropicália, funk, and visual arts movements, among others. Authors may include Machado de Assis, Oswald de Andrade, Clarice Lispector, Caetano Veloso, Angélica Freitas, Glauber Rocha, Conceição Evaristo, and Karim Aïnouz. Taught in English. Students may do the assignments and readings in Portuguese.
SPAN 10100 Beginning Elementary Spanish I
SPAN 10100 is the initial segment of the introductory-level course sequence in Spanish language and Hispanic culture, and presupposes no previous exposure to Spanish. The introductory course sequence in Spanish has two main objectives: 1) to enable students to understand simple texts and dialogues and communicate successfully with highly proficient speakers about everyday, concrete topics; and 2) to build students' transcultural competence via exposure to different aspects of Spanish-speaking cultures. Using a task-based approach, the course will provide students with a solid foundation in the basic patterns of spoken and written communication in Spanish (grammar, syntax, vocabulary, sociolinguistic norms), with emphasis on all four linguistic skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing).
SPAN 10100 Beginning Elementary Spanish I
SPAN 10100 is the initial segment of the introductory-level course sequence in Spanish language and Hispanic culture, and presupposes no previous exposure to Spanish. The introductory course sequence in Spanish has two main objectives: 1) to enable students to understand simple texts and dialogues and communicate successfully with highly proficient speakers about everyday, concrete topics; and 2) to build students' transcultural competence via exposure to different aspects of Spanish-speaking cultures. Using a task-based approach, the course will provide students with a solid foundation in the basic patterns of spoken and written communication in Spanish (grammar, syntax, vocabulary, sociolinguistic norms), with emphasis on all four linguistic skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing).
SPAN 10100 Beginning Elementary Spanish I
SPAN 10100 is the initial segment of the introductory-level course sequence in Spanish language and Hispanic culture, and presupposes no previous exposure to Spanish. The introductory course sequence in Spanish has two main objectives: 1) to enable students to understand simple texts and dialogues and communicate successfully with highly proficient speakers about everyday, concrete topics; and 2) to build students' transcultural competence via exposure to different aspects of Spanish-speaking cultures. Using a task-based approach, the course will provide students with a solid foundation in the basic patterns of spoken and written communication in Spanish (grammar, syntax, vocabulary, sociolinguistic norms), with emphasis on all four linguistic skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing).
SPAN 10200 Beginning Elementary Spanish II
SPAN 10200 is the second segment of the introductory-level course sequence in Spanish language and Hispanic culture. The introductory course sequence in Spanish has two main objectives: 1) to enable students to understand simple texts and dialogues and communicate successfully with highly proficient speakers about everyday, concrete topics; and 2) to build students' transcultural competence via exposure to different aspects of Spanish-speaking cultures. Using a task-based approach, the course will provide students with a solid foundation in the basic patterns of spoken and written communication in Spanish (grammar, syntax, vocabulary, sociolinguistic norms), with emphasis on all four linguistic skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing).
SPAN 10100 or placement
SPAN 10200 Beginning Elementary Spanish II
SPAN 10200 is the second segment of the introductory-level course sequence in Spanish language and Hispanic culture. The introductory course sequence in Spanish has two main objectives: 1) to enable students to understand simple texts and dialogues and communicate successfully with highly proficient speakers about everyday, concrete topics; and 2) to build students' transcultural competence via exposure to different aspects of Spanish-speaking cultures. Using a task-based approach, the course will provide students with a solid foundation in the basic patterns of spoken and written communication in Spanish (grammar, syntax, vocabulary, sociolinguistic norms), with emphasis on all four linguistic skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing).
SPAN 10100 or placement
SPAN 10200 Beginning Elementary Spanish II
SPAN 10200 is the second segment of the introductory-level course sequence in Spanish language and Hispanic culture. The introductory course sequence in Spanish has two main objectives: 1) to enable students to understand simple texts and dialogues and communicate successfully with highly proficient speakers about everyday, concrete topics; and 2) to build students' transcultural competence via exposure to different aspects of Spanish-speaking cultures. Using a task-based approach, the course will provide students with a solid foundation in the basic patterns of spoken and written communication in Spanish (grammar, syntax, vocabulary, sociolinguistic norms), with emphasis on all four linguistic skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing).
SPAN 10100 or placement
SPAN 10300 Beginning Elementary Spanish III
SPAN 10300 is the third and final segment of the introductory-level course sequence in Spanish language and Hispanic culture. The introductory course sequence in Spanish has two main objectives: 1) to enable students to understand simple texts and dialogues and communicate successfully with highly proficient speakers about everyday, concrete topics; and 2) to build students' transcultural competence via exposure to different aspects of Spanish-speaking cultures. Using a task-based approach, the course will provide students with a solid foundation in the basic patterns of spoken and written communication in Spanish (grammar, syntax, vocabulary, sociolinguistic norms), with emphasis on all four linguistic skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing).
Instructor(s): Staff Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Prerequisite(s): SPAN 10200, SPAN 14100, or placement.
SPAN 10300 Beginning Elementary Spanish III
SPAN 10300 is the third and final segment of the introductory-level course sequence in Spanish language and Hispanic culture. The introductory course sequence in Spanish has two main objectives: 1) to enable students to understand simple texts and dialogues and communicate successfully with highly proficient speakers about everyday, concrete topics; and 2) to build students' transcultural competence via exposure to different aspects of Spanish-speaking cultures. Using a task-based approach, the course will provide students with a solid foundation in the basic patterns of spoken and written communication in Spanish (grammar, syntax, vocabulary, sociolinguistic norms), with emphasis on all four linguistic skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing).
SPAN 10200, SPAN 14100, or placement.
SPAN 10300 Beginning Elementary Spanish III
SPAN 10300 is the third and final segment of the introductory-level course sequence in Spanish language and Hispanic culture. The introductory course sequence in Spanish has two main objectives: 1) to enable students to understand simple texts and dialogues and communicate successfully with highly proficient speakers about everyday, concrete topics; and 2) to build students' transcultural competence via exposure to different aspects of Spanish-speaking cultures. Using a task-based approach, the course will provide students with a solid foundation in the basic patterns of spoken and written communication in Spanish (grammar, syntax, vocabulary, sociolinguistic norms), with emphasis on all four linguistic skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing).
SPAN 10200, SPAN 14100, or placement.
SPAN 12001 Intensive Spanish I
This intensive, three-quarter sequence brings students with no prior background in Spanish to Advanced-Low levels in all four skills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening), thus preparing students to take third-year level courses in the language. Learners who are starting Spanish late in their college careers or who wish to move forward swiftly will gain skills corresponding to two full years of study by completing the entire sequence. Although the three classes constitute a sequence, students may enter the sequence whenever it is appropriate for them based on prior courses or placement exam results. Students may also exit the sequence after any given class and continue in the appropriate course in the Elementary or Intermediate Spanish track. NOTE: Each course is 200 units and corresponds in workload to taking two courses. SPAN 12001 is the equivalent of SPAN 10100 and SPAN 10200.
SPAN 12002 Intensive Spanish II
This intensive, three-quarter sequence brings students with no prior background in Spanish to advanced-low levels in all four skills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening), thus preparing students to take third-year level courses in the language. Learners who are starting Spanish late in their college careers or who wish to move forward swiftly will gain skills corresponding to two full years of study by completing the entire sequence. Although the three classes constitute a sequence, students may enter the sequence whenever it is appropriate for them based on prior courses or placement exam results. Students may also exit the sequence after any given class and continue in the appropriate course in the Elementary or Intermediate Spanish track. NOTE: Each course is 200 units and corresponds in workload to taking two courses. SPAN 12002 is the equivalent of SPAN 10300 and SPAN 20100.
PAN 10200, SPAN 12001, SPAN 14100, or placement into SPAN 10300.
SPAN 12003 Intensive Spanish III
This intensive, three-quarter sequence brings students with no prior background in Spanish to advanced-low levels in all four skills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening), thus preparing students to take third-year level courses in the language. Learners who are starting Spanish late in their college careers or who wish to move forward swiftly will gain skills corresponding to two full years of study by completing the entire sequence. Although the three classes constitute a sequence, students may enter the sequence whenever it is appropriate for them based on prior courses or placement exam results. Students may also exit the sequence after any given class and continue in the appropriate course in the Elementary or Intermediate Spanish track. NOTE: Each course is 200 units and corresponds in workload to taking two courses. SPAN 12003 is the equivalent of SPAN 20200 and SPAN 20300.
SPAN 20100, SPAN 12002, or placement into SPAN 20200
SPAN 20100 Language, History, and Culture I
This course is the first segment of the intermediate-level course sequence in Spanish language and Hispanic cultures. In this course, students build on the speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills that were acquired previously to communicate and discuss topics of local, national, and international interest. These topics include cultural identities, representation in media industry, human rights and current issues pertaining to education and the job market, with a special emphasis on how they operate in the Spanish-speaking world. SPAN 201 has three main objectives: 1) to express more nuanced ideas orally and in writing in grammatically accurate, lexically rich, and sociolinguistically appropriate Spanish; 2) to demonstrate listening and reading comprehension of authentic texts in a variety of social and academic contexts; and 3) to help students build on their intercultural competence by identifying the beliefs and practices of Spanish-speaking individuals and cultures and comparing them with their own worldview.
SPAN 10300 or placement
SPAN 20100 Language, History, and Culture I
This course is the first segment of the intermediate-level course sequence in Spanish language and Hispanic cultures. In this course, students build on the speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills that were acquired previously to communicate and discuss topics of local, national, and international interest. These topics include cultural identities, representation in media industry, human rights and current issues pertaining to education and the job market, with a special emphasis on how they operate in the Spanish-speaking world. SPAN 201 has three main objectives: 1) to express more nuanced ideas orally and in writing in grammatically accurate, lexically rich, and sociolinguistically appropriate Spanish; 2) to demonstrate listening and reading comprehension of authentic texts in a variety of social and academic contexts; and 3) to help students build on their intercultural competence by identifying the beliefs and practices of Spanish-speaking individuals and cultures and comparing them with their own worldview.
SPAN 10300 or placement
SPAN 20100 Language, History, and Culture I
This course is the first segment of the intermediate-level course sequence in Spanish language and Hispanic cultures. In this course, students build on the speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills that were acquired previously to communicate and discuss topics of local, national, and international interest. These topics include cultural identities, representation in media industry, human rights and current issues pertaining to education and the job market, with a special emphasis on how they operate in the Spanish-speaking world. SPAN 201 has three main objectives: 1) to express more nuanced ideas orally and in writing in grammatically accurate, lexically rich, and sociolinguistically appropriate Spanish; 2) to demonstrate listening and reading comprehension of authentic texts in a variety of social and academic contexts; and 3) to help students build on their intercultural competence by identifying the beliefs and practices of Spanish-speaking individuals and cultures and comparing them with their own worldview.
SPAN 10300 or placement
SPAN 20102 Language, History, and Culture for Heritage Speakers I
The curricular development of this first course in a two-course intermediate sequence for heritage learners of Spanish will target all communicative competencies. The weekly modules will help the student improve their language skills on all fronts and are designed from informal, mostly communicative (emails), to formal and well-structured (academic essays). The focus of this course is not on grammar per se, but grammar and style have an important role as we go along. There will be eight weekly writing assignments, which will receive instructor feedback. The student will also have a portfolio of work at the end; this portfolio will be presented to the class during the last week as a final project.
SPAN 10300 or SPAN 10402 or placement. Open only to heritage speakers.
SPAN 20102 Language, History, and Culture for Heritage Speakers I
The curricular development of this first course in a two-course intermediate sequence for heritage learners of Spanish will target all communicative competencies. The weekly modules will help the student improve their language skills on all fronts and are designed from informal, mostly communicative (emails), to formal and well-structured (academic essays). The focus of this course is not on grammar per se, but grammar and style have an important role as we go along. There will be eight weekly writing assignments, which will receive instructor feedback. The student will also have a portfolio of work at the end; this portfolio will be presented to the class during the last week as a final project.
SPAN 10300 or SPAN 10402 or placement. Open only to heritage speakers.
SPAN 20200 Language, History, and Culture II
This course is the second segment of the intermediate-level course sequence in Spanish language and Hispanic cultures. In this course, students build on the speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills that were acquired previously to communicate and discuss topics of local, national, and international interest. These topics include society and technology, creativity and leisure in the post-pandemic era, bilingualism and multicultural communities and environmental ethics, with a special emphasis on how they operate in the Spanish-speaking world. SPAN 202 has three main objectives: 1) to express more nuanced ideas orally and in writing in grammatically accurate, lexically rich, and sociolinguistically appropriate Spanish; 2) to demonstrate listening and reading comprehension of authentic texts in a variety of social and academic contexts; and 3) to help students build on their intercultural competence by identifying the beliefs and practices of Spanish-speaking individuals and cultures and comparing them with their own worldview.
SPAN 20100 or placement
SPAN 20200 Language, History, and Culture II
This course is the second segment of the intermediate-level course sequence in Spanish language and Hispanic cultures. In this course, students build on the speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills that were acquired previously to communicate and discuss topics of local, national, and international interest. These topics include society and technology, creativity and leisure in the post-pandemic era, bilingualism and multicultural communities and environmental ethics, with a special emphasis on how they operate in the Spanish-speaking world. SPAN 202 has three main objectives: 1) to express more nuanced ideas orally and in writing in grammatically accurate, lexically rich, and sociolinguistically appropriate Spanish; 2) to demonstrate listening and reading comprehension of authentic texts in a variety of social and academic contexts; and 3) to help students build on their intercultural competence by identifying the beliefs and practices of Spanish-speaking individuals and cultures and comparing them with their own worldview.
SPAN 20100 or placement
SPAN 20200 Language, History, and Culture II
This course is the second segment of the intermediate-level course sequence in Spanish language and Hispanic cultures. In this course, students build on the speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills that were acquired previously to communicate and discuss topics of local, national, and international interest. These topics include society and technology, creativity and leisure in the post-pandemic era, bilingualism and multicultural communities and environmental ethics, with a special emphasis on how they operate in the Spanish-speaking world. SPAN 202 has three main objectives: 1) to express more nuanced ideas orally and in writing in grammatically accurate, lexically rich, and sociolinguistically appropriate Spanish; 2) to demonstrate listening and reading comprehension of authentic texts in a variety of social and academic contexts; and 3) to help students build on their intercultural competence by identifying the beliefs and practices of Spanish-speaking individuals and cultures and comparing them with their own worldview.
SPAN 20100 or placement
SPAN 20300 Language, History, and Culture III
This course is the third segment of the intermediate-level course sequence in Spanish language and Hispanic cultures. In this course, students build on the speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills that were acquired previously to communicate and discuss topics of local, national, and international interest. These topics include human rights and social inclusion, indigenous peoples and communities, rural-urban transformations, and borders as liminal spaces with a special emphasis on how they operate in the Spanish-speaking world. SPAN 203 has three main objectives: 1) to express more nuanced ideas orally and in writing in grammatically accurate, lexically rich, and sociolinguistically appropriate Spanish; 2) to demonstrate listening and reading comprehension of authentic texts in a variety of social and academic contexts; and 3) to help students build on their intercultural competence by identifying the beliefs and practices of Spanish-speaking individuals and cultures and comparing them with their own worldview.
SPAN 20200 or placement
SPAN 20300 Language, History, and Culture III
This course is the third segment of the intermediate-level course sequence in Spanish language and Hispanic cultures. In this course, students build on the speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills that were acquired previously to communicate and discuss topics of local, national, and international interest. These topics include human rights and social inclusion, indigenous peoples and communities, rural-urban transformations, and borders as liminal spaces with a special emphasis on how they operate in the Spanish-speaking world. SPAN 203 has three main objectives: 1) to express more nuanced ideas orally and in writing in grammatically accurate, lexically rich, and sociolinguistically appropriate Spanish; 2) to demonstrate listening and reading comprehension of authentic texts in a variety of social and academic contexts; and 3) to help students build on their intercultural competence by identifying the beliefs and practices of Spanish-speaking individuals and cultures and comparing them with their own worldview.
SPAN 20200 or placement
SPAN 20300 Language, History, and Culture III
This course is the third segment of the intermediate-level course sequence in Spanish language and Hispanic cultures. In this course, students build on the speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills that were acquired previously to communicate and discuss topics of local, national, and international interest. These topics include human rights and social inclusion, indigenous peoples and communities, rural-urban transformations, and borders as liminal spaces with a special emphasis on how they operate in the Spanish-speaking world. SPAN 203 has three main objectives: 1) to express more nuanced ideas orally and in writing in grammatically accurate, lexically rich, and sociolinguistically appropriate Spanish; 2) to demonstrate listening and reading comprehension of authentic texts in a variety of social and academic contexts; and 3) to help students build on their intercultural competence by identifying the beliefs and practices of Spanish-speaking individuals and cultures and comparing them with their own worldview.
SPAN 20200 or placement
SPAN 20302 Language, History, and Culture for Heritage Speakers II/III
The curricular development of this second course in a two-course intermediate sequence for heritage learners of Spanish will target all communicative competencies. The weekly modules will help the student improve their language skills on all fronts and are designed from informal, mostly communicative (emails), to formal and well-structured (academic essays). The focus of this course is not on grammar per se, but grammar and style have an important role as we go along. There will be eight weekly writing assignments, which will receive instructor feedback. The student will also have a portfolio of work at the end; this portfolio will be presented to the class during the last week as a final project.
SPAN 20102 or SPAN 20200 or placement. Open only to heritage speakers or with consent of instructor.
SPAN 20302 Language, History, and Culture for Heritage Speakers II/III
The curricular development of this second course in a two-course intermediate sequence for heritage learners of Spanish will target all communicative competencies. The weekly modules will help the student improve their language skills on all fronts and are designed from informal, mostly communicative (emails), to formal and well-structured (academic essays). The focus of this course is not on grammar per se, but grammar and style have an important role as we go along. There will be eight weekly writing assignments, which will receive instructor feedback. The student will also have a portfolio of work at the end; this portfolio will be presented to the class during the last week as a final project.
SPAN 20102 or SPAN 20200 or placement. Open only to heritage speakers or with consent of instructor.
SPAN 20302 Language, History, and Culture for Heritage Speakers II/III
The curricular development of this second course in a two-course intermediate sequence for heritage learners of Spanish will target all communicative competencies. The weekly modules will help the student improve their language skills on all fronts and are designed from informal, mostly communicative (emails), to formal and well-structured (academic essays). The focus of this course is not on grammar per se, but grammar and style have an important role as we go along. There will be eight weekly writing assignments, which will receive instructor feedback. The student will also have a portfolio of work at the end; this portfolio will be presented to the class during the last week as a final project.
SPAN 20102 or SPAN 20200 or placement. Open only to heritage speakers or with consent of instructor.
SPAN 20304 Spanish for the Professions
This course is designed as an alternative to SPAN 20300 for students aspiring to use Spanish in a professional context. Students will expand their lexical and cultural knowledge of their chosen professional area through two course-long projects (a blog/vlog and a mini research project), and will hone linguistic skills relevant to any workplace environment. In order for 20304 to serve as preparation for the following course in the sequence (SPAN 20401, the textbook used and the vocabulary and grammatical topics covered in SPAN 20300 and 20304 are identical.
SPAN 20200 or consent of instructor
SPAN 20305 Legal Spanish: Public Interest Law in the US
This course brings students to high-intermediate levels in reading, speaking, and listening for the practice of public interest law in the US. Learners will build proficiency around relevant topic areas so that they can read, listen, explain, present and solicit information related to rights, client history / interviews, procedural language, legal actions, etc. Focus is on communication and strategy instruction. The final exam is a proficiency test offered through the University of Chicago Office of Language Assessment that yields a certificate and a proficiency rating on students' transcripts. This class will follow the College's academic calendar with flexibility for law students' schedules.
One year of university-level Spanish or equivalent.
SPAN 20310 Chicago Habla Español
Chicago is known to have multiple, diverse Spanish-speaking communities. In this course, students will use these communities as their classroom to analyze and debate current issues confronting the LatinX experience in the United States and Midwest. In parallel, class instruction will reinforce and expand students' grammatical and lexical proficiency in a manner that will allow students to engage in real-life activities involving speaking, reading, listening and writing skills. This intermediate-high language course targets the development of writing skills and oral proficiency in Spanish and is designed as an alternative to SPAN 20300. Students will review problematic grammatical structures, write a number of essays, and participate in multiple class conversations using authentic readings and listening segments as linguistic models on which to base their own production. At the end of class, students are expected to produce an individual project.
SPAN 20200 or placement
SPAN 20401 Gramática avanzada y cultura contemporánea para la argumentación I
This course is the first segment of the third-year (advanced) Spanish language sequence. It aims to strengthen all four linguistic skills, advanced argumentation, critical thinking and transcultural competence via discussion of press articles, short stories, films, and recorded interviews with native speakers from a variety of regions. Grammatical structures, syntactic patterns and vocabulary known to be problematic for English speakers will be reviewed and practiced. Controversial topics in politics, contemporary culture and modern Spanish and Latin American history will be debated and discussed orally and in writing through a formal debate, several argumentative essays, weekly posts on online discussion boards, class discussions, and summaries of texts and audios assigned. Students will also be asked to formulate well-supported arguments on these topics, and to reflect on similarities and contrasts between their own culture and those of the Spanish-speaking world.
SPAN 20300 or consent of instructor
SPAN 20402 Curso de redacción académica para hablantes nativos
This advanced language course helps students achieve mastery of composition and style through the acquisition of numerous writing techniques. A wide variety of literary and non-literary texts are read. Through writing a number of essays and participating in class discussions, students are guided in the examination of linguistic structures and organization of several types of written Spanish discourse. This course also enhances awareness of the cultural diversity within the contemporary Spanish-speaking world and its historical roots.
SPAN 20302 or placement. Open to native and heritage speakers.
SPAN 20402 Curso de redacción académica para hablantes nativos
This advanced language course helps students achieve mastery of composition and style through the acquisition of numerous writing techniques. A wide variety of literary and non-literary texts are read. Through writing a number of essays and participating in class discussions, students are guided in the examination of linguistic structures and organization of several types of written Spanish discourse. This course also enhances awareness of the cultural diversity within the contemporary Spanish-speaking world and its historical roots.
SPAN 20302 or placement. Open to native and heritage speakers.
SPAN 20501 Gramática avanzada y cultura contemporánea para la argumentación II
This course is the second segment of the third-year (advanced) Spanish language sequence. It aims to strengthen all four linguistic skills, advanced argumentation, critical thinking and transcultural competence via discussion of press articles, short stories, films, and recorded interviews with native speakers from a variety of regions. Grammatical structures, syntactic patterns and vocabulary known to be problematic for English speakers will be reviewed and practiced. Controversial topics in politics, contemporary culture and modern Spanish and Latin American history will be debated and discussed orally and in writing through a formal debate, several argumentative essays, weekly posts on online discussion boards, class discussions, and summaries of texts and audios assigned. Students will also be asked to formulate well-supported arguments on these topics, and to reflect on similarities and contrasts between their own culture and those of the Spanish-speaking world. This course is the equivalent of SPAN 20500
SPAN 20400 or consent of instructor
SPAN 20501 Gramática avanzada y cultura contemporánea para la argumentación II
This course is the second segment of the third-year (advanced) Spanish language sequence. It aims to strengthen all four linguistic skills, advanced argumentation, critical thinking and transcultural competence via discussion of press articles, short stories, films, and recorded interviews with native speakers from a variety of regions. Grammatical structures, syntactic patterns and vocabulary known to be problematic for English speakers will be reviewed and practiced. Controversial topics in politics, contemporary culture and modern Spanish and Latin American history will be debated and discussed orally and in writing through a formal debate, several argumentative essays, weekly posts on online discussion boards, class discussions, and summaries of texts and audios assigned. Students will also be asked to formulate well-supported arguments on these topics, and to reflect on similarities and contrasts between their own culture and those of the Spanish-speaking world. This course is the equivalent of SPAN 20500
SPAN 20400 or consent of instructor
SPAN 20602 Discurso académico para hablantes nativos
The goal of this advanced conversation course is to help students identify and acquire the mechanisms necessary to engage in academic discourse. Throughout the course, students will participate in debates, lectures, and seminars. In addition, they will conduct a formal interview with a Spanish speaker. The topics of the different activities will be selected by the students according to their specializations at the University, but they will always try to establish a relationship with the Spanish-speaking world. All activities will expose the student to different styles of discourse and academic vocabulary. To also encourage spontaneous and informal conversation, six student-led get-togethers will be organized on a variety of topics. At the end of the course, students will know how to express themselves orally following the established academic conventions.
SPAN 20302 or placement. Open only to native and heritage speakers with consent of instructor.
SPAN 20602 Discurso académico para hablantes nativos
The goal of this advanced conversation course is to help students identify and acquire the mechanisms necessary to engage in academic discourse. Throughout the course, students will participate in debates, lectures, and seminars. In addition, they will conduct a formal interview with a Spanish speaker. The topics of the different activities will be selected by the students according to their specializations at the University, but they will always try to establish a relationship with the Spanish-speaking world. All activities will expose the student to different styles of discourse and academic vocabulary. To also encourage spontaneous and informal conversation, six student-led get-togethers will be organized on a variety of topics. At the end of the course, students will know how to express themselves orally following the established academic conventions.
SPAN 20302 or placement. Open only to native and heritage speakers with consent of instructor.
SPAN 20702 Advanced Spanish through Latin American Food Culture
In this advanced Spanish language course, students will delve into Spanish-language materials focusing on Latin American foodways and the associated social issues. While advancing their proficiency in Spanish, participants will explore Latin America's history, evolution, and culinary traditions within the U.S. context through theme-based projects. Students will gain insights by immersing themselves in a diverse cross-cultural landscape and into the impact of food on various aspects of society, including celebrations, family dynamics, social relationships, politics, and economics. Moreover, students will connect with their identity in the diverse environment, encouraging them to get involved with Chicago's lively Latin American communities. Students will understand that food is not merely a means of survival but a profound expression of culture and society. In this advanced Spanish course, language proficiency intertwines with a rich exploration of Latin American culinary heritage.
SPAN 20300 or Instructor Consent
SPAN 21100 Las regiones del español
This sociolinguistic course expands understanding of the historical development of Spanish and awareness of the great sociocultural diversity within the Spanish-speaking world and its impact on the Spanish language. We emphasize 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 sociocultural aspects of the Spanish language, and to recognizing phonological differences between dialects. We also examine the impact of indigenous cultures on dialectical aspects. The course includes literary and nonliterary texts, audio-visual materials, and visits by native speakers of a variety of Spanish-speaking regions.
SPAN 20300 or placement
SPAN 21100 Las regiones del español
This sociolinguistic course expands understanding of the historical development of Spanish and awareness of the great sociocultural diversity within the Spanish-speaking world and its impact on the Spanish language. We emphasize 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 sociocultural aspects of the Spanish language, and to recognizing phonological differences between dialects. We also examine the impact of indigenous cultures on dialectical aspects. The course includes literary and nonliterary texts, audio-visual materials, and visits by native speakers of a variety of Spanish-speaking regions.
SPAN 20300 or placement
SPAN 21101 Basque Culture and Society
Straddling the border of southern France and northern Spain, the Basque Country is the home of a complex national community without a state -but with a language that is unrelated to any other in the world and is perhaps the most remarkable feature of their cultural identity. Through the analysis of a wide variety of texts and artifacts, this course will give students the the background to navigate through different dimensions of Basque culture (traditions, gastronomy, music, the language) as well as the history that has marked the development of Basque society (including the so-called Basque Conflict). Taught in English. Prior knowledge of Basque language or culture not required.
SPAN 21150 El español en los Estados Unidos
This sociolinguistic course expands understanding of both the historical and the contemporary development of Spanish in parts of the United States, and awareness of the great sociocultural diversity within the Spanish-speaking communities in the United States and its impact on the Spanish language. This course emphasizes the interrelationship between language and culture as well as ethno-historical transformations within the different regions of the United States. Special consideration is given to identifying lexical variations and regional expressions exemplifying diverse sociocultural aspects of the Spanish language, and to recognizing phonological differences between dialects. We also examine the impact of English on dialectical aspects. The course includes sociolinguistic texts, audio-visual materials, and visits by native speakers of a variety of Spanish-speaking regions in the United States.
SPAN 20300
SPAN 21610 Catalan Culture and Society: Art, Music, and Cinema
This course provides an interdisciplinary survey of contemporary Catalonia. We study a wide range of its cultural manifestations (architecture, paintings, music, arts of the body, literature, cinema, gastronomy). Attention is also paid to some sociolinguistic issues, such as the coexistence of Catalan and Spanish, and the standardization of Catalan. The course will be conducted in English.
SPAN 21705 Iberian Literatures and Cultures: Medieval and Early Modern
This course explores Spanish language, literature, and culture focusing on premodern Iberian texts and artifacts. We will start by anonymous "Cantar de Mio Cid," the first great vernacular epic in the Middle Ages, and we will end in Maria de Zayas's "Novelas ejemplares," one of the finest expressions of European early modern short story. Between these two literary works we will talk about music, painting, witchcraft, conversion, and the Inquisition as milestones of a five-century span. In this time Spanish consolidates as a written language, while numerous political and religious conflicts mark the struggle for hegemony in the Iberian Peninsula. In addition to enhancing your knowledge of Iberian cultural history and improving your close reading and critical thinking skills, this course is designed to continue building on your linguistic competence in Spanish. Taught in Spanish. This course is the equivalent of SPAN 21703.
SPAN 20300 or consent of instructor.
SPAN 21805 Iberian Literatures and Cultures: Modern and Contemporary
This is a survey of the literatures and cultures of Spain from the 19th to the 21st centuries. The course offers an introduction to key historical moments of Spanish modernity, including the age of liberalism and the end of the empire, the Civil War and the Spanish exile, and the fight for democracy and equality in the Transition period and in the present day. Through literature, film, and the visual arts we will discuss topics such as the rivalry of competing national projects, the creative tension between tradition and avant-garde, the relationship between languages, literature, and society, and the struggles of women, among others. We will study towering cultural figures such as Emilia Pardo Bazán, Federico García Lorca, Mercè Rodoreda, Pablo Picasso, or Luis Buñuel, among many others. In addition to enhancing your knowledge of Iberian cultural history and improving your close reading and critical thinking skills, this course is designed to continue building on your linguistic competence in Spanish. Taught in Spanish. This course is the equivalent of SPAN 21803.
SPAN 20300 or consent of instructor.
SPAN 21905 Latin American Literatures and Cultures: Colonial and 19th-Century
This course introduces students to the writing produced in Hispanic and Portuguese America during the period marked by the early processes of European colonization in the sixteenth century through the revolutionary movements that, in the nineteenth century, led to the establishment of independent nation-states across the continent. The assigned texts relate to the first encounters between Indigenous, Black, and European populations in the region, to the emergence of distinct ("New World") notions of cultural identity (along with the invention of new racial categories), and to the disputes over the meaning of nationhood that characterized the anti-colonial struggles for independence. Issues covered in this survey include the idea of texts as spaces of cultural and political conflict; the relationships between Christianization, secularization, and practices of racialization; the transatlantic slave trade; the uses of the colonial past in early nationalist projects; and the aesthetic languages through which this production was partly articulated (such as the Barroco de Indias, or "New World baroque," Neoclassicism, Romanticism, and Modernismo, among others). In addition to enhancing your knowledge of Latin American cultural history and improving your close reading and critical thinking skills, this course is designed to continue building on your linguistic competence in Spanish. Taught in Spanish.
SPAN 20300 or consent of instructor.
SPAN 21905 Latin American Literatures and Cultures: Colonial and 19th-Century
This course introduces students to the writing produced in Hispanic and Portuguese America during the period marked by the early processes of European colonization in the sixteenth century through the revolutionary movements that, in the nineteenth century, led to the establishment of independent nation-states across the continent. The assigned texts relate to the first encounters between Indigenous, Black, and European populations in the region, to the emergence of distinct ("New World") notions of cultural identity (along with the invention of new racial categories), and to the disputes over the meaning of nationhood that characterized the anti-colonial struggles for independence. Issues covered in this survey include the idea of texts as spaces of cultural and political conflict; the relationships between Christianization, secularization, and practices of racialization; the transatlantic slave trade; the uses of the colonial past in early nationalist projects; and the aesthetic languages through which this production was partly articulated (such as the Barroco de Indias, or "New World baroque," Neoclassicism, Romanticism, and Modernismo, among others). In addition to enhancing your knowledge of Latin American cultural history and improving your close reading and critical thinking skills, this course is designed to continue building on your linguistic competence in Spanish. Taught in Spanish.
SPAN 20300 or consent of instructor.
SPAN 21950 "Dark Stairways of Desire": Lusting beyond the Norm in Contemporary Catalan Literature
Although we can find a significant number of authors exploring queer desire and identities throughout the history of Catalan Literature (from lesbian scenes in Joanot Martorell's "Tirant lo blanc" to expanding gender identities in Maria Aurèlia Capmany's "Quim/Quima"), more recent Catalan Literature is blooming with queerness and non-normative lust. This course will give an overview of contemporary Catalan works influenced by feminist and queer debates from the seventies on. Beginning with renowned poet Maria Mercè Marçal's only novel, "The Passion According to Rennée Vivien," winner of several of the most prestigious literary awards for Catalan Literature, we will go on to discover 21st-century works by Eva Baltasar and Anna Punsoda. We will also read poems, short stories and excerpts from authors such as Maria Sevilla, Mireia Calafell, Raquel Santanera, Sebastià Portell, Sil Bel and Ian Bermúdez, among others. Taught in English.
SPAN 22005 Latin American Literatures and Cultures: 20th and 21st Centuries
This course will survey some of the main literary and cultural tendencies in Latin America from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present. We will pay special attention to their aesthetic dimensions, as well as the socio-historical and political conditions that made them possible, and in which they simultaneously intervened. Questions to be studied might include the innovations of the Modernist and avant-garde movements, fantastic literature, the novel of the so-called "Boom," cultural production associated with revolutionary movements, military dictatorships, and the Cold War, as well as new currents in literary and theatrical practices. Likewise, the course will foreground some of the following concepts relevant to the study of this production: modernity and modernization; development and neoliberalism; neo-colonialism and empire; cultural autonomy and ideas of poetic and cultural renewal; the epic vs. the novel; realism and non-verisimilitude; and performativity, among others. In addition to enhancing your knowledge of Latin American cultural history and improving your close reading and critical thinking skills, this course is designed to continue building on your linguistic competence in Spanish. Taught in Spanish. This course is the equivalent of SPAN 22003.
SPAN 20300 or consent of instructor.
SPAN 22005 Latin American Literatures and Cultures: 20th and 21st Centuries
This course will survey some of the main literary and cultural tendencies in Latin America from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present. We will pay special attention to their aesthetic dimensions, as well as the socio-historical and political conditions that made them possible, and in which they simultaneously intervened. Questions to be studied might include the innovations of the Modernist and avant-garde movements, fantastic literature, the novel of the so-called "Boom," cultural production associated with revolutionary movements, military dictatorships, and the Cold War, as well as new currents in literary and theatrical practices. Likewise, the course will foreground some of the following concepts relevant to the study of this production: modernity and modernization; development and neoliberalism; neo-colonialism and empire; cultural autonomy and ideas of poetic and cultural renewal; the epic vs. the novel; realism and non-verisimilitude; and performativity, among others. In addition to enhancing your knowledge of Latin American cultural history and improving your close reading and critical thinking skills, this course is designed to continue building on your linguistic competence in Spanish. Taught in Spanish. This course is the equivalent of SPAN 22003.
SPAN 20300 or consent of instructor.
SPAN 22424 Between History and Fiction: Race, Modernity, and Revolution in the Hispanic Caribbean
This course will introduce students to twentieth-century historical fiction from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. Reflecting on the ambiguous contours between history and fiction, we will use literature and film to illuminate cultural debates of Hispanic Caribbean modernity. How do literary and filmic representations of a historical past reflect on the present moment? What is fiction’s relationship to archives and history? What can these fictional emplotments teach us about the crafting of national narratives? Particular attention will be given to questions of race and revolution – understood for our purposes as the constitutive vectors of Caribbean modernity – in the texts studied. Authors and filmmakers to be discussed may include Alejo Carpentier, Tomás Gutierrez Alea, Humberto Solás, Rita Indiana, Rosario Ferré, José Luis González, and Luis López Nieves, among others. Taught in Spanish.
SPAN 23225 Decolonizing the Classics: Adaptive Performance in the Americas
In this course, we will examine postcolonial performances of "classical" literary texts across the Americas that engage with transnational histories of imperialism, neoliberalism, migration, exile, and political and gendered violence. From the revolutions and dictatorships of the 1960s-70s, through the transitions to democracy, to the queer and feminist movements of the early 21st century, we will study contemporary adaptations of canonical authors such as Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. The position of these authors, texts, and characters in the literary canons of the Americas has allowed them to achieve circulation in both "high" and "low" culture, through modes of performance including film and television, live theater and dance, opera, popular music, drag, burlesque, and digital media. From the US-Mexico borderlands to the Southern Cone, these adaptations raise questions of national and postcolonial identity, gender and sexuality, and collective trauma and memory. We will use the theoretical frameworks of performance, decoloniality, and canonicity to think of adaptive performances as an act of deconstruction and remaking, and to trace how artists in the Americas respond to these historical legacies through embodied practice. The course will be taught primarily in Spanish, but will also include components in English, Spanglish, and optional readings in Portuguese.
SPAN 23325 Indigenous Feminisms of Latin America
This course examines how early modern visual and textual sources partook in the formation of gender and race differences in the Americas. We will explore colonial documents drawing on the work of contemporary Indigenous Feminist thinkers, such as Gloria Anzaldúa, Lorena Cabnal, Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, Yásnaya Aguilar, among others. Reading the colonial archive while thinking about contemporary Indigenous perspectives can help us bridge the past to the present and discuss issues concerning the underrepresentation of Indigenous women in the archive, language politics, communal identities, and Indigenous epistemologies while being particularly attentive to the rhetorical strategies deployed by colonial texts. Along the way, we will have in perspective how contemporary indigenous women resist, negotiate, and denounce the state, corporate, and patriarchal establishments. In this course, students will engage with primary sources of the colonial period in Latin America as they engage in debates surrounding gender and race in our present moment. Understanding these debates and the history surrounding them is crucial to participating in informed discussion, research, and activism regarding issues of colonialism, race, and gender discrimination of today. Students will participate in class discussions, write weekly responses, lead, and moderate academic-style presentations, and produce a final research paper. Taught in Spanish.
SPAN 23380 Latinx/Northern Mexico Life Writing
Life writing (a generic term to describe a vast range of texts: from biography and autobiography to memoirs, letters, journals, diaries, etc.) has been richly practiced by Latin American/ Latinx authors in Northern Mexico and the US. This course examines select works by these authors. We analyze key terms to discuss this literature (life, writing, self, identity, fiction, storytelling, history) as well as the approaches taken by different authors. Readings by Javier Zamora, Justin Torres, Cristina Rivera Garza, Valeria Luiselli, Gloria Anzaldúa, and more.
Reading proficiency in Spanish required.
SPAN 23425 Crime Fiction (17th-20th century)
This course focuses on literary accounts of crime in the Hispanic world from the 16th century to the 21st century. We will ask ourselves how fictional and nonfictional pieces have shaped our perception of criminality throughout time. In particular, we will concentrate on how literary discourse complicates and enriches political and legal discourses around figures such as outlaws, murderers, and victims. Among other texts, our corpus will range from 17th-century true crime journalism to 20th-century horror short stories written by Jorge Luis Borges and Roberto Bolaño. In doing so, we will uncover the complicated relationship between literature, politics, and the law in different historical periods. Apart from improving your reading skills and critical thinking, this course is designed to keep developing your linguistic abilities in Spanish. Taught in Spanish.
SPAN 23501 Alone in the Mountains: Tales of Freedom and Violence in Contemporary Catalan Literature
From witches to "goges" ("water women"), Catalan folklore shows a tradition of women living on their own in the mountains, liberated from societal conventions. These women are portrayed as fascinating yet threatening figures. This ancient imagery has permeated contemporary literature, manifested in novels that depict women who remove themselves from "civilization" to inhabit rural areas of Catalunya, seeking freedom and having to confront at the same time societal norms, abusive partners or even their own personal demons. The mountains, far from ideal and peaceful, are an untamed and often brutal space in which human lives hold no greater value than those of goats, mushrooms, rivers. In this course we shall engage with four novels authored by women: "Solitude (1904) by Victor Català, "Stone in a Landslide" (1984) by Maria Barbal, "When I Sing Mountains Dance" (2019) by Irene Solà, and "Alone" (2021) by Carlota Gurt. Through the analysis of these literary works, we aim to delve into Catalan culture and explore its literary archetypes, while establishing significant connections among these texts and their place in modern and contemporary literature. Taught in English, but students seeking credit for the HLBS major/minor must do part of the readings and written work in Catalan or Spanish as necessary for their degree.
SPAN 23525 Film and Resistance in Latin America
This course explores how Latin American cinema reacted to the changing political contexts of the region during the second half of the 20th century. Using the 1950s as a starting point, when the establishment of the constitution of Puerto Rico in 1952 and the success of the Cuban revolution in 1959 brought new models for state-sponsored experimental cinema, we will see movies that mix documentary and fiction in a manner that the aesthetics of film language are used as an expression of a collective political subjectivity. The relationship between Latin America and the United States will be crucial for this analysis because it points to the colonial/postcolonial context of the fight against imperialism that is manifest in these movies. In this regard, we will see cinema related to the processes of resistance during and after the dictatorships in Argentina, Brazil and Chile, and the ways the precarious economies of Colombia, Perú and Puerto Rico required the development of new ways of cinematographic self-representation at the turn of the 21st century. The emphasis will be on experimental film, focusing on their guerilla production strategies and the aesthetic innovations that are explored in these movies. Some of the filmmakers we will discuss are Raúl Ruiz (Chile), Luis Ospina (Colombia), Santiago Álvarez (Cuba), Amílcar Tirado (Puerto Rico), Gianfranco Annichini (Perú), Albertina Carri (Argentina) y Eduardo Coutinho (Brazil); among others. Taught in Spanish.
SPAN 25025 Mexican Cinema
This course is intended as an overview of Mexican cinema, from its famed "Golden Age" in the 1940s and 1950s, up to contemporary productions. The aim is to reflect simultaneously on Mexican culture, history, and society, and on the language of film and its interpretation. Our goal is to expand what we know about Mexico through the way its cinema has tackled questions of difference (class, gender, regional, and race-based), modernization, political unrest, inequality, violence, and love. Crucial to our academic setting, we will ask what films offer as objects of knowledge in their own right, and not merely as illustrations. What does it mean to analyze a film? What are the tools we use to read and write about them as cultural products? We will consider classic fiction features along short, experimental, and documentary films. Works discussed include Él (Luis Buñuel, 1953), Macario (Roberto Gavaldón, 1960), Canoa (Felipe Cazals, 1975), Perfume de violetas (Marisa Sistach, 2001), Tempestad (Tatiana Huezo, 2016), among others.
SPAN 27025 Discourses of Femicide in Contemporary Latin America
Femicide, or the gender-motivated killing of women and girls, has garnered increasing attention in twenty-first century Latin America, which has some of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world. Latin American activists, performers, writers, and filmmakers have attempted to reckon with the impacts of femicide in the cultural sphere, seeking to not only identify the social, historical, and political roots of gender violence, but also advocate for justice and mourn those they have lost. This course will discuss prevailing discourses of femicide in the region, addressing the roles of activism, journalism, literature, and film in both shaping and responding to these discourses. Texts will include memoirs like Cristina Rivera Garza's El invencible verano de Liliana (2021), documentaries like Lourdes Portillo's Señorita extraviada (2001), as well as fiction, such as Roberto Bolaño's "La parte de los crímenes" from the novel 2666 (2004). Taught in Spanish.
SPAN 20300 or consent of instructor.
SPAN 27925 Escritura creativa en español: cómo escribir ficción
In this course we will delve into the basic features of writing fiction. We will develop notions of structure, time, character and tone. We will also reflect about the different genres we find in fiction. Classes will have the dynamic of a writing workshop: materials will be shared in advance and discussed by the instructor with the input of the rest of the class. If you have always wanted to start writing fiction in Spanish, this class is for you. Taught in Spanish.
SPAN 28300 Poéticas Afrocaribeñas
En este curso haremos una revisión panorámica de la producción poética afrocaribeña desde sus primeras expresiones conocidas en el siglo XIX hasta el presente. ¿Qué condiciones culturales y políticas han dado cuenta de su surgimiento y desarrollo? ¿Qué sistemas tropológicos y repertorios temáticos la han caracterizado? ¿En qué medida esta poesía ha sido vehículo para pensar las identidades raciales de la zona e instrumento de resistencia en coyunturas de violencia extrema y cuáles han sido sus disidencias? Entre los materiales a estudiar se encuentra la obra de sujetos esclavizados y de afrodescendientes libres victimizados por el colonialismo esclavista (entre ellos Juan Francisco Manzano y Plácido); las experimentaciones vanguardistas de Nicolás Guillén y Luis Palés Matos y de sus seguidores Emilio Ballagas y Manuel del Cabral; y las reformulaciones feministas de esta tradición avanzadas por poetas contemporáneas tales como la cubana Nancy Morejón y la puertorriqueña Mayra Santos Febres. Taught in Spanish.
LACS 28300, RDIN 28300
FREN 21700/FREN 31700 Le Roman de la Rose
The "Roman de la Rose" (mid-13th century), a sprawling, encyclopedic summa composed by two separate authors, was arguably the single most influential vernacular text of the Middle Ages. Whether they hated or admired it, subsequent writers could not escape the long shadow cast by this magisterial œuvre. And, as Kate Soper's recent opera adaptation of the "Rose" demonstrates, this labyrinthine work remains a source of creative inspiration. In this course we will read the "Rose" together. Each student will choose a critical lens (e.g. gender and sexuality, animal and/or ecocritical studies, ethics and philosophy, reception studies, manuscript studies, text & image, etc.) to structure their engagement with the text, and together we will collaborate to chart a rich and diverse set of interpretive paths through this complex work. All registered students will attend the cours magistral (taught in English). In addition, all registered students will select and attend either the French discussion section, or the critical theory section. Students are welcome to attend both.
For French majors/minors, FREN 20500, 20503 or a previous literature course taught in French.
FREN 23333/FREN 33333 Reading French for Research Purposes
Reading French for Research Purposes prepares students to read and do research using scholarly texts in French. Students will build on their fundamental knowledge of French grammar and the most common vocabulary terms used in scholarly writing, while developing reading comprehension skills and working intensively with academic texts in their areas of research specialty. Students who perform well in FREN 33333/23333 will be able to synthesize key points, arguments and evidence in scholarly texts into their own research. The course also includes practice of skills necessary to pass the Academic Reading Comprehension Assessment (ARCA) in French, administered by the Office for Language Assessment (OLA). Undergraduate students have the option of taking the ARCA, or completing a final assignment in which they identify, cite, and describe the relevance of multiple French secondary texts in their discipline or to a specific project. Note: this course can be counted on a case-by-case basis and with approval from the French Undergraduate Adviser.
PQ for 23333: FREN 10300 or 13333, placement into FREN 20100, or instructor consent. PQ for 33333: FREN 10300 or 13333, placement into FREN 20100, or the equivalent of one year college-level introductory French.
FREN 24555/FREN 34555 Ecological Explorations of the Francophone World
The environmental humanities - that is, the study of nature through humanistic disciplines such as literature and history - has long been dominated by texts and theories from privileged sections of Europe and North America. However, alternative understandings of our natural world, including the role of living beings within it, have always existed. In this course, we will explore how contemporary francophone literature can renew, expand and complicate our perceptions of the oceans, deserts, mangroves and forests that surround us. Particular attention will be paid to questions of race, gender, language and indigeneity; course material may include theoretical texts, fiction, poetry, songs, podcasts, film, graphic novels and social media material. Taught in English or French, based on course composition
For students seeking French credit, FREN 20500 or equivalent.
FREN 25910/FREN 35910 Racine
Racine's tragedies are often considered the culminating achievement of French classicism. Most famous for his powerful re-imaginings of Greek myth (Phèdre, Andromaque), his tragic universe nevertheless ranged considerably wider, from ancient Jewish queens to a contemporary Ottoman harem. We will consider the roots (from Euripides to Corneille) of his theatrical practice as well as its immense influence on future writers (from Voltaire to Proust, Beckett, and Genet). Course taught in French. All work in French for students seeking FREN credit; written work may be in English for those taking course for TAPS or FNDL credit.
At least one French literature course, 21700 or higher.
FREN 26333/FREN 36333 La poésie maghrébine d'expression française
Depuis son émergence vers le milieu des années 1930, la poésie maghrébine d'expression française a accompagné les bouleversements politiques dans les trois pays du Maghreb et influencé la production romanesque des écrivains maghrébins. Dans les années 1960, des expériences collectives majeures - telles que la revue Souffles au Maroc - placent la poésie au centre du projet de renouvellement culturel dans la région. A la suite de ces dynamiques de groupes, les poètes maghrébins développent des œuvres poétiques ancrées dans leurs expériences individuelles mais désormais ouvertes sur le monde. Des thématiques récurrentes telles que l'exil, l'errance, le désir de révolte et la quête de la liberté mobilisent des techniques poétiques aussi variées que la violence linguistique, le dialogue avec les mythes ou encore l'utilisation des ressources de l'oralité. En étudiant un corpus d'œuvres poétiques choisies du Maroc (Abdellatif Laâbi, Tahar Ben Jellou, Rachida Madani, Saïda Menebhi), de l'Algérie (Jean Sénac, Kateb Yacine, Assia Djebar) et de la Tunisie (Albert Memmi, Amina Saïd, Tahar Bekri), ce cours présente une introduction générale à la poésie maghrébine d'expression française. On analysera en particulier les formes, les procédés et les motifs poétiques permettant d'appréhender la figure du poète, sa représentation de la patrie, son discours politique ou encore son univers de représentations sensorielles et symboliques. Taught in French.
FREN 20500 or 20503 for undergraduates.
FREN 26680/FREN 36680 Literary Games: Oulipo and Onward
Does constraint foster creativity? Can wordplay carry political meaning? Is formal innovation divorced from lyrical expression? How do experimental literary movements respond to their sociopolitical moments and local contexts, and how do they transform when they travel across geographical and linguistic borders? We will consider these questions via the work of the longest-lived French literary group, the Oulipo (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle or Workshop for Potential Literature), examining its origins as a quasi-secret society in 1960 and its expansion into an internationally visible and multilingual collective (with members from Italy, Spain, Argentina, and the US). We will investigate debates about inspiration and authorship, copying and plagiarism, collective creation, multilingualism, constraint and translation, and the viability of the lyric subject. While considering antecedents (Edgar Allan Poe, Raymond Roussel), our readings will explore several generations of Oulipians (Raymond Queneau, Georges Perec, Italo Calvino, Michèle Métail, Anne Garréta, Frédéric Forte), and conclude with some very contemporary Oulipo-inspired writing from around the world (Christian Bök, Urayoán Noel, Mónica de la Torre, K. Silem Mohammed). Alongside critical essays, students will carry out short experiments with constraint and procedure, as well as translation exercises; and they will have the opportunity for dialogue with acclaimed writers and scholars who will visit our seminar.
Open to advanced undergraduates. Students who are taking the class for French credit will complete some readings and writings in French.
FREN 28900/FREN 38900 La Princesse de Clèves and the Genesis of the Modern Novel
Madame de La Fayette's 1678 novel represents a turning point in the international development of the psychological novel and historical fiction. Set in a Renaissance past of courtly international intrigue, the novel plumbs its characters' interiorized struggles with erotic desire, marriage, and adultery, forging a path for later novelists such as Flaubert, George Eliot, and Tolstoy. We will examine debates about its literary form and moral impact, as well as around gender and women's writing, placing the novel in a transnational context (Spanish, Italian, and English romances, drama, and moral philosophy) and its later reception, including film adaptations and its role in heated contemporary controversies around the place of the humanities in society. Students are encouraged to undertake individual comparative research projects in relation to the novel. Course taught in English but reading ability in French required. All work in French for students seeking FREN credit; written work may be in English for those taking course for CMLT, SCTH, or FNDL credit.
Consent of instructor required for undergrads; those seeking FREN credit must have completed at least one French literature course, 21700 or higher.
FREN 45000 Second-Generation Maghrebis in France: Immigration, Identity, and Belonging
France is home to the largest Muslim population in Western Europe, of which the majority is of North African descent. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, Maghrebi immigrants were subject to various forms of discrimination and violence. In recent years, ongoing debates on immigration and citizenship have shed light on the enduring legacies of French imperialism, along with the widely held perception of France’s failure to effectively integrate its African and Muslim minorities. This course explores how narrative works by second-generation Maghrebis respond to these debates by addressing questions about collective memory, socioeconomic inequalities, police brutality, intergenerational relationships, and the banlieue environment. Authors studied may include Mehdi Charef, Azouz Begag, Leïla Sebbar, Faïza Guène, and Kaoutar Harchi. Taught in English.
FREN 46000 Beyond the Blanks of History: When Women of Color Reclaim the Narrative
“History” is skewed and incomplete. It leaves out as much as it reveals. As they relegate past suffering to oblivion, historical omissions perpetuate the violence that they seek to hide. And this violence is often felt on multiple levels by women of color who find themselves imbricated within (neo)colonial, patriarchal, heteronormative, classist and ableist societal structures. In this course, we will situate ourselves at the intersection of literature, history and gender studies. We will explore the following questions together: Faced with the blind spots of history, how can literature function as an alternative archive that draws attention to the invisibilized stories of women of color? Simultaneously, how does literature sensitize us to the impossibility of fully knowing the past, no matter how hard we try? Course material may include theoretical texts, fiction, poetry, songs, podcasts, film, graphic novels and social media material. Potential examples include Saidiya Hartman’s “Venus in Two Acts” (2008), Gina Prince-Bythewood’s The Woman King (2022), Gaiutra Bahadur’s Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture (2013), Nathacha Appanah’s La Mémoire Délavée (2023), Lia Brozgal’s Absent the Archive: Cultural Traces of a Massacre in Paris, 17 October 1961 (2022), Marie Clements’ Bones of Crows (2022), and Natasha Kanapé Fontaine’s poetry. Taught in English. All course material will be available in English, though students are encouraged to engage with original materials. Work may be submitted in English, French or Spanish.
Advanced undergraduates with appropriate experience in the subject may petition for admission.
ITAL 22888/ITAL 32888 Narrative Frescos in Early Modern Italy
In this course we will observe different ways to tell a story through painting, and we will analyze strategies used by artists in early modern Italy to describe space and time in visual terms. Students will engage with different artists, from Giotto to Raphael and Pellegrino Tibaldi, and different cultural and geographic contexts, from Padua and Bologna to Florence, Venice, and Rome, over the span of about three centuries.Students will explore a wide range of visual examples and textual sources on various subject matters, from poetry to history, from the Bible to vernacular accounts about saints, from mythology to contemporary chronicles, in order to investigate what kind of stories were told on the walls of halls and courts of honor, private rooms, or public spaces, aiming at understanding why each of them was chosen. Complex projects such as narrative mural and ceiling paintings usually involved a tight collaboration among artists, patrons, and iconographic consultants, all figures with whom students will become familiar. We will also analyse the theory behind the comparison of poetry and painting ("ut pictura poesis", "as is painting so is poetry") by investigating the meaning and the reception of this ancient concept in early modern times, and its implications on the social role of the artist. Students will investigate the significance of narrative frescos in early modern times, while also asking questions about their value and impact today.
ITAL 22900/ITAL 32900 Vico's New Science
This course offers a close reading of Giambattista Vico's masterpiece, "The New Science" (1744) - a work that sets out to refute "all opinions hitherto held about the principles of humanity." Vico, who is acknowledged as the most resolute scourge of any form of rationalism, breathed new life into rhetoric, imagination, poetry, metaphor, history, and philology in order to promote in his readers that originary "wonder" and "pathos" which sets human beings on the search for truth. However, Vico argues, the truths that are most available and interesting to us are the ones humanity "authored" by means of its culture and history-creating activities. For this reason the study of myth and folklore as well as archeology, anthropology, and ethnology must all play a role in the rediscovery of man. "The New Science" builds an "alternative philosophy" for a new age and reads like a "novel of formation" recounting the (hi)story of the entire human race and our divine ancestors. In Vico, a prophetic spirit, one recognizes the fulfillment of the Renaissance, the spokesperson of a particular Enlightenment, the precursor of the Kantian revolution, and the forefather of the philosophy of history (Herder, Hegel, and Marx). "The New Science" remained a strong source of inspiration in the twentieth century (Cassirer, Gadamer, Berlin, Joyce, Beckett, etc.) and may prove relevant in disclosing our own responsibilities in postmodernity. Taught in English.
ITAL 23502/ITAL 33502 Boccaccio's Decameron
One of the most important and influential works of the middle ages—and a lot funnier than the "Divine Comedy." Written in the midst of the social disruption caused by the Black Death (1348), the "Decameron" may have held readers attention for centuries because of its bawdiness, but it is also a profound exploration into the basis of faith and the meaning of death, the status of language, the construction of social hierarchy and social order, and the nature of crisis and historical change. Framed by a storytelling contest between seven young ladies and three young men who have left the city to avoid the plague, the one hundred stories of Boccaccio’s "Decameron" form a structural masterpiece that anticipates the Renaissance epics, Chaucer’s "Canterbury Tales," and the modern short story. Students will be encouraged to further explore in individual projects the many topics raised by the text, including (and in addition to the themes mentioned above) magic, the visual arts, mercantile culture, travel and discovery, and new religious practices. Taught in English.
ITAL 24920/ITAL 34920 Primo Levi
Witness, novelist, essayist, translator, linguist, chemist, and even entomologist. Primo Levi is a polyhedral author, and this course revisits his work in all its facets. We will privilege the most hybrid of his texts: The Search for Roots, an anthology that collects the author's favorite readings--a book assembled through the books of the others, but which represents Levi's most authentic portrait. By using this work as an entry point into Levi's universe, we will later explore his other texts, addressing issues such as the unsettling relationship between survival and testimony, the "sinful" choice of fiction, the oblique path towards autobiography, and the paradoxes of witnessing by proxy. Taught in Italian.
Open to advanced undergrads with consent of instructor.
ITAL 25550/ITAL 35550 Machiavelli: Politics and Theater
Arguably the most debated political theorist of all time due to The Prince, Machiavelli genuinely aspired to be remembered for his creative prowess. He explored various literary genres, such as short stories, dialogues, satirical poetry, letter writing, and, notably, theater, where he demonstrated mastery with The Mandrake, an exemplary Renaissance comedy. This course aims to reintegrate these two aspects of Machiavelli: the serious politician and the facetious performer, a Janus-faced figure who serves as a precursor of both Hobbes and Montaigne. We will revive the image of this "Renaissance man," and, through him, shed light on his era and fellow humanists by restoring their intellectual unity of prescription and laughter. Indeed, we will discover that Machiavelli encourages us not to take things, including him and ourselves, too seriously! Taught in English.
ITAL 25800/ITAL 35800 Childhood and Fairy Tale in Bachelard, Benjamin, and Agamben
'The child' is a complex and fascinating notion that plays a crucial role in the writings of some of the major twentieth-century thinkers. The child is often linked to 'fairy tale,' as if one concept couldn't exist without the other. What constitutes a fairy tale, what is the difference between fairy tale, myth, and allegory, and who is the real narrator and listener of fairy tales are questions that can only be addressed through a second, fundamental query: What is 'the child'? What does 'the child' represent? What role does the imagination play in the formation of 'the child'? These issues are especially significant in the writings of Gaston Bachelard, Walter Benjamin, and Giorgio Agamben. Readings will include: Bachelard, "Poetics of Reverie: Childhood, Language, and the Cosmos"; Bachelard, "Air and Dreams. An Essay on the Imagination of Movement"; Bachelard, "The Flame of a Candle"; Benjamin, One-Way Street; Benjamin, "The Fireside Saga"; Benjamin, "Berlin Childhood around 1900"; Benjamin "Goethe's Elective Affinities,"; Benjamin, "The Storyteller"; Agamben, "Infancy and History"; Agamben, "Profanations"; Agamben, "Pulcinella or Entertainment for Children"; Agamben, "Pinocchio". We will also read an ample selection of classic fairy tales from Giambattista Basile ("The Tale of Tales"), the seventeenth-century French conteuses, The Brothers Grimm, Clemens Brentano, and Collodi's "Pinocchio." Taught in English.
ITAL 27125/ITAL 37125 Fiction, Nonfiction & Microhistory
The course will focus on one of the most important trends of Italian/European literature, that of creative nonfiction, and its connection(s) with microhistory as it has been theorized by, among others, Carlo Ginzburg. In doing so, we will first touch upon several narratological issues - e.g. whether it is possible to clearly distinguish between fiction and nonfiction writing - and reflect upon the problematic epistemological status of historiographical writing. We will furthermore analyze different nonfiction novels from Europe (J. Cercas, "Soldiers of Salamin"; E. Carrère, "The Adversary"; R. Saviano, "Gomorrah"), focusing on the similarities and differences between contemporary European nonfictional writings and the American tradition of New Journalism and the nonfiction novel. Taught in English.
Undergraduates must be in their third or fourth year.
PORT 25000/PORT 35000 The Amazon: Literature, Culture, Environment
From colonial travelers to contemporary popular culture, the Amazonian forest has been a source of endless fascination, greed and, more recently, ecological concern. The numerous actors that have been shaping the region, including artists, writers, scientists, anthropologists, indigenous peoples, and the extractive industry, among others, bring a multifaceted view of this region that has been described as the paradise on earth as much as a green hell. This course offers an overview of Amazonian history, cultures, and environmental issues that spans from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century. What are the major topics, works, and polemics surrounding the ways the Amazon has been depicted and imagined? How can the region's history help us understand the state of environmental policies and indigenous rights today? What can we learn about the Amazon from literature and film? What is the future of the Amazon in the context of Brazil's current political climate? From an interdisciplinary perspective, we will cover topics such as indigenous cultures and epistemologies, deforestation, travel writing, modern and contemporary literature, music, photography, and film, among others. Authors may include Claudia Andujar, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Euclides da Cunha, Susanna Hecht, Davi Kopenawa, the project Video in the Villages, among others. Taught in English. Materials available in English, Portuguese and Spanish.
RLLT 24550/RLLT 34550 Digital Texts I: Corpus Building and Corpus Statistics
The purpose of this course is to introduce students in the humanities to digital methodologies for the study of text. Students will not only learn how to construct a digital text collection, but also how to process text as data. Among the various digital approaches which will be introduced in class are concordances (retrieving occurrences of words), semantic similarity detection (finding similar passages across texts), sentiment analysis, or stylometry (analysis of literary style). The course will highlight how these approaches to text can provide new avenues of research, such as tracing intellectual influence over the longue durée, or uncovering the distinguishing stylistic features of an author, work, or literary movement. Students need no prior knowledge of such methods, and the course will aim at providing both the basics of computer programming in Python and to give students the necessary tooling to conduct a digital humanities project. The source material for the course will be drawn from literary sources, and students will be free (and encouraged) to use texts which are relevant to their own research interests. Students will need to bring a laptop to class.
RLLT 47000 Professional Academic Writing
This course is open to all RLL students and will be run as a workshop. The primary goal is to work on the Qualifying Paper with the objective of producing a piece of work that might, with subsequent revision, be submitted to an academic journal for publication. This course is also appropriate for anyone who wants to work on a dissertation proposal or chapter. We will cover all aspects of professional writing, from abstracts and grant proposals to revising manuscripts after readers' reports.
Open only to RLL students.
RLLT 48000 Academic Job Market Preparation
Advanced RLL graduate students will prepare and polish materials needed for applying to academic jobs: cover letter, CV, dissertation abstract, research statement, teaching statement, and diversity statement. In addition we will discuss best practices for first-round interviews and campus visits. The course is strongly recommended for students in their fifth and sixth years but open to other students.
RLLT 48800 Foreign Language Acquisition, Research and Teaching
This course provides students with a foundation in foreign language acquisition and sociolinguistic research pertinent to foreign language teaching, introduces current teaching methodologies and technologies, and discusses their usefulness in the classroom.
Designed primarily with RLL students in mind but open to others.
SPAN 22266/SPAN 32266 Witchcraft and the Cultural Imagination
This seminar takes as its focal point the vast range of conceptual, material, and visual artifacts that are produced by, and indeed help to construct, this enduring fascination with the figure of the witch, from the medieval past to the present. We will examine case studies from premodern Europe to Colonial North America to Indonesia, scrutinizing texts, films, and works of art. Rather than offering a standard history of witchcraft, we will explore the intersections of gender, labor, and representation that the figure of the witch makes specially available for study. Witchcraft constitutes a multifaceted phenomenon that aims to alter reality and the self through the use of various techniques, transmitted both orally and in writing. These techniques have often appeared culturally marked in terms of gender and belief. Witchcraft has for centuries been the business of women in societies where very few avenues existed for women to develop any sort of business. Students must attend first class to confirm enrollment.
SPAN 23333/SPAN 33333 Reading Spanish for Research Purposes
Reading Spanish for Research Purposes prepares students to read and do research using scholarly texts in Spanish. Students will build on their fundamental knowledge of Spanish grammar and the most common vocabulary terms used in scholarly writing, while developing reading comprehension skills and working intensively with academic texts in their areas of research specialty. Students who perform well in SPAN 23333/33333 will be able to comprehend difficult scholarly texts and begin using them in their own research. The course also includes practice of skills necessary to pass the Academic Reading Comprehension Assessment (ARCA) in Spanish, administered by the Office for Language Assessment (OLA). Undergraduate students have the option of taking the ARCA, or completing another final assignment to complete the course. Note: This course may fulfill the graduate language requirement in some departments.
PQ for 23333: SPAN 10200, 12001 or 14100, placement in SPAN 10300, or instructor consent. PQ for 33333: While there is currently no strict prerequisite for SPAN 33333, one year of introductory Spanish or the equivalent is highly recommended.
SPAN 33710 Text/Image/Territory in Nineteenth-Century Latin America
A partir de una serie de casos emblemáticos, en este seminario investigaremos las relaciones entre producción literaria, cultura visual y la formación de imaginarios territoriales en Hispanoamérica durante el siglo XIX. Nuestro objetivo no es tan solo examinar los principios y procedimientos estéticos e ideológicos mediante los cuales la nación pudo ser concebida como una unidad geográfica, con fronteras discernibles y características propias—ello principalmente en torno a la figura del "paisaje". También nos interesa examiner otros modos de espacialización que, si bien no del todo ajenos a la máquina simbólica del estado nacional, son sin embargo irreductibles a ella. Entre estos se encuentran, por ejemplo, las epistemologías cartográficas asociadas a las exploraciones científicas que se dispararon hacia todo lo largo y ancho del continente desde finales del siglo XVIII—y vinculadas al discurso de la Historia Natural—o simbolizaciones relativas a la idea de la propiedad privada sobre la tierra y sus medios de explotación y desarrollo (particularmente, para nuestro caso, al régimen de la propiedad esclavista con sus pretensiones de "excepción" y soberanía ante la ingerencia estatal). ¿Qué escenarios se produjeron a través de esas prácticas de representación territorial? ¿Con qué proyectos epistemológicos y/o (geo)políticos estuvieron asociadas? ¿Quiénes estuvieron convocados a habitar y a actuar, ya fuera real o simbólicamente, dentro y fuera de esos territorios imaginados? ¿Qué relaciones, si alguna, se establecieron allí entre temporalidad y espacialidad, y con qué efectos? Taught in Spanish.
SPAN 34299 Cervantes’s Don Quixote
In this course we will read Cervantes’s "Don Quixote" (1605, 1615), paying attention to narrative aesthetics, language, generic traditions, the politics of the novel, and the history of interpretation, among other aspects. While largely based on close textual analysis, our reading will be informed by thorough contextualization within the social, cultural, and intellectual history of early modern Spain, as well as by a select set of critical and theoretical approaches to the novel. Taught in Spanish.
SPAN 24770/SPAN 34770 Sex, Crime and Horror in Argentine Literature
This course examines the historical evolution of Argentine literature, cinema, and the visual arts through the study of three thematic currents that significantly influenced Argentina's cultural and socio-political experience with nation-building, modernization, and democracy: sex, crime, and horror. The primary objective of the course is to foster a critical exploration of how foundational works of Romanticism and Realism in the Río de la Plata, the Noir genre, and the Gothic tradition accounted for decisive changes in the social fabric of the country. Students will assess the role of sexuality, crime, and horror stories in the representation of momentous events in Argentine history, spanning from the revolutionary era in the nineteenth century to the contemporary period. Topics include the Wars of Independence, gaucho literature, indigenous resistance, the great migratory flows, the rise of the middle classes, Peronismo, Youth culture, military dictatorships, human rights violations, LGBT movements, and economic precarity in neoliberal times. Works by Esteban Echeverría, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Juana Manuela Gorriti, José Hernández, Lucio V. and Eduarda Mansilla, Eugenio Cambaceres, Leopoldo Lugones, Roberto Arlt, Jorge Luis Borges, Juan José Saer, Antonio Di Benedetto, Olga Orozco, Alejandra Pizarnik, Juan Gelman, Andrés Rivera, Silvina Ocampo, Horacio Quiroga, Rodolfo Walsh, Manuel Puig, Ricardo Piglia, Mariana Enríquez, Class discussions and reading materials in Spanish.Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, María Luisa Bemberg,
Reading proficiency in Spanish required.
SPAN 25555/SPAN 35555 The Amazon: Literature, Culture, Environment
From colonial travelers to contemporary popular culture, the Amazonian forest has been a source of endless fascination, greed and, more recently, ecological concern. The numerous actors that have been shaping the region, including artists, writers, scientists, anthropologists, indigenous peoples, and the extractive industry, among others, bring a multifaceted view of this region that has been described as the paradise on earth as much as a green hell. This course offers an overview of Amazonian history, cultures, and environmental issues that spans from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century. What are the major topics, works, and polemics surrounding the ways the Amazon has been depicted and imagined? How can the region's history help us understand the state of environmental policies and indigenous rights today? What can we learn about the Amazon from literature and film? What is the future of the Amazon in the context of Brazil's current political climate? From an interdisciplinary perspective, we will cover topics such as indigenous cultures and epistemologies, deforestation, travel writing, modern and contemporary literature, music, photography, and film, among others. Authors may include Claudia Andujar, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Euclides da Cunha, Susanna Hecht, Davi Kopenawa, the project Video in the Villages, among others. Taught in English. Materials available in English, Portuguese and Spanish.
SPAN 25660/SPAN 35660 US Imperialism and Cultural Practice in Latin America
This course examines the ways histories of US intervention in Latin America have been engaged in cultural practice. We assess the history of US intervention by reading primary documents alongside cultural artifacts including film, performance and visual art, song, music, and poetry. The course begins with the Cuban revolution and ends with the ongoing crisis in Puerto Rico. Taught in English.
SPAN 25770/SPAN 35770 Radical Readings: Latin American/Latinx
Since the 1970s, writers, artists, activists, and cultural critics based in Latin America and in the United States have produced radical writings to respond to concrete social and political circumstances. These writings ring especially relevant today, in our current, turbulent times. The course studies the rich, transformative tradition of radical, contemporary Latin American and Latinx thought. It studies earlier interventions by the likes of Paulo Freire and traces and resonance of these earlier writings in contemporary interventions by critics like Suely Rolnik. We read writings by Freire, Rolnik, Roberto Jacoby, Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, Ailton Krenak, Verónica Gago, and others, with an emphasis on 1) the context of production of each writing, 2) the form and shape each author gives to their written thought and, 3) the impact and resonance of these writings in our present moment. The course is also an experiment that seeks to confront the powers of engagement and understanding unleashed in long, uninterrupted stretches of reading.
Reading proficiency in Spanish required.
SPAN 26525/SPAN 36525 Literatura política en el Barroco: Espacios, géneros y lenguas de la propaganda en el mundo ibérico
A la pregunta, ¿qué se leía en la Edad Moderna?, la respuesta suele ser: Cervantes. Ciertamente su difusión es innegable, pero las lecturas también fueron muchas otras y no siempre responden a lo que hoy entendemos por literatura de creación: relaciones de sucesos, romances, coplas, sermones, pronósticos, etc., se leían y/o escuchaban en la intimidad del hogar o en la calle, en formato libro, pliego suelto, expuestas en una pared, etc. El curso se ocupa de la literatura política y propagandística en el Barroco, entendiendo la literatura como sinónimo de cultura escrita, por un lado, y la literatura política y propagandística, por otro, como aquella que sirve de vehículo para la opinión en un contexto de guerra. Aunque cualquier decisión en el ámbito público tiene un componente político, se debe considerar la propaganda como aquella destinada a diseminar una ideología de legitimación (o deslegitimación) bélica en un contexto de confrontación territorial (entre coronas y/o entre territorios), aunque se base en elementos que en principio pueden parecer diferentes (religión, lengua, tradiciones, etc.).
En esta asignatura vamos a: definir el género, identificar cuáles son estos textos, estudiarlos en su contexto y dilucidar su importancia en la transmisión de mensajes orientados ideológicamente. Se partirá principalmente de las obras que generaron varios conflictos bélicos en la Península y se trabajará con textos en todas las lenguas vernáculas peninsulares y en latín. Taught in Spanish.
SPAN 26780/SPAN 36780 Caribbean Music, Performance, and Popular Culture in the Age of Precarity: 1990 to the Present
This course explores the concept of precarity and its influence on artistic and cultural expressions within contemporary Caribbean popular culture, primarily from the 1990s to the present day. Precarity is broadly defined as the feeling or experience of instability resulting from various social, economic, political, and environmental factors, including structural adjustments, climate change (such as hurricanes and earthquakes), and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, among others. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of art in shaping popular responses to precarity, including significant events like mass protests, the Black Lives Matter and George Floyd protests, uprisings against the deportation of Haitians in the Dominican Republic, as well as interrelated international movements like #LifeinLeggings and #Metoo. The course delves into how Caribbean performance and popular music have engaged with these issues, with a focus on music genres like dancehall, wylers, soca, reggaetón, and the individual artistic works of Caribbean artists such as LaVaughn Belle, Helen Ceballos, Joiri Minaya, and others. These artists use their work to explore themes of precarity and to envision potential alternatives to the contemporary challenges of insecurity, touching on issues related to gender, sexuality, and race.
SPAN 38810 Empire, Slavery & Salvation: Writing Difference in the Colonial Americas
This course explores portrayals of human difference in literature, travel writing, painting, and autobiography from Spain, England, and the Americas. Students will become versed in debates surrounding the emergence of human distinctions based on religion, race, and ethnicity in the early modern era. Understanding these debates and the history surrounding them is crucial to participating in informed discussion, research, and activism regarding issues of race, empire, and colonialism across time and space. The course will be conducted in English, but advanced reading knowledge of Spanish is necessary.
SPAN 39220 Espacio y memoria en el cine español
This course aims to present, through the detailed analysis and discussion of a selection of films and documentaries, a critical examination of the relation between the representation of space and the recovery of traumatic memory in contemporary culture, with particular attention to the various perspectives (and conflicts) that emerge from the plurinational and multilingual configuration of the Spanish State. The course is also intended to provide a basic vocabulary (in Spanish) and strategies for the critical analysis of film. Taught in Spanish.
SPAN 43333 Waiting for the End of the World
From the beginning of its recorded history, humanity has always been equally fascinated and terrified with the representation of its own finitude. This class explores some of the cultural forms that the imagination of this finitude has inspired in religious, socio-political, and aesthetic terms, focusing on apocalyptic productions coming from the Iberian Middle Ages, such as Julian de Toledo, Beatus de Liebana, Gonzalo de Berceo, or Ramon Llull. Our goal will be to confront the nightmarish scenarios that different forms of society imagined for their ending. In doing so, we will discover that such scenarios for the end of the world, or, at least, the end of the world as humans conceive it, reveal deeply rooted forms of ideological violence, social exclusion, and fear of a chaotic and unpredictable universe. Ultimately, these forms of imagining the end of the world are the proof that it is inherent to the human condition to imagine itself as the center of its own universe, while suspecting that this exceptionality is nothing but wishful thinking. Class discussions and reading materials in Spanish.
SPAN 43900 Queerness and Disability in Latin American Literature and Culture, 1880-1930
With the rise of Latin American modernity, LGBTQ and crip populations were portrayed in literature, medical science, and visual culture as deviant. The discursive mechanisms to produce truths about bodies as normative or perverse, real or unreal, fit or disabled not only achieved authority in medicine, but also in numerous platforms where ableist heteronormativity was sedimented as a hegemonic way of life. Literature, theater, museums, the modern press, and the visual arts became semiotic territories for the production of racial, gender, sex, and psychophysical difference. But queer/crip/trans* and critical race theory have offered tools to critique the sexual hegemony and ableism of such patriarchal-colonial mindset. This graduate course introduces students to such debates in new Latin American critical studies, with a global perspective. Focusing on the cultural production of modern Latin America and the Caribbean, students will investigate and critique the somatic constructions of the so-called “deviant” in excerpts from novels, plays, chronicles, early films, and clinical studies. Texts by José Tomás de Cuéllar, Luis Montané Dardé, Leonidio Ribeiro, Eduardo Castrejón, Adolfo Caminha, Augusto D’Halmar, Rómulo Gallegos, José González Castillo, Elías Castelnuovo, Teresa de La Parra, Bernardo Arias Trujillo, Francisco de Veyga, Ofelia Rodríguez Acosta, among others. The course will be taught in Spanish and English.
SPAN 45000 Latin American Environmental Humanities
The environmental humanities have emerged in the past couple of decades as a crucial field to understand the multifaceted history of environmental thought and culture around the world as well as to grapple with the intractable challenges wrought by the current environmental crisis. In Latin America, the field has flourished in dialogue with Anglophone ecocriticism at the same time as it has expanded its thematic, theoretical, a critical reach. This course provides an overview of the environmental humanities in the context of Latin American literature and culture. We will delve into key concepts and problems in the field, from the debates on the Anthropocene and alternative terms to the cultural history of forests and deserts, subfields such as ecofeminism, plant studies, animal studies and energy humanities, as well as concepts particularly productive in the region such as (post)extractivism and multinaturalism. This course will combine primary sources, including works of literature, cinema and visual arts, with a robust attention to influential scholarship on the field. Taught in Spanish.