Spanish Course Descriptions
Spanish Language and Introductino to Literature
Spanish 110
- First-Year Spanish
Full course for one year. A balanced study of written and oral
aspects of Spanish. Includes an introduction to reading.
Conference.
Spanish 210
- Second-Year Spanish
Full course for one year. An intermediate-level study of grammar,
composition, conversation. Emphasis on reading: essays, theater,
short stories, and poetry. Prerequisite: equivalent of one year of
college Spanish. Conference.
Spanish 321
- Theory and Practice of Hispanic Literature
Full course for one semester. This course is designed to give
students a theoretical, historical, and cultural framework for the
more advanced study of Spanish and Spanish American literature. It
will include considerations of genre, reception, and critical
theory. Students will be responsible for undertaking close readings
of the texts as well as research projects. Prerequisite: Spanish
210 or equivalent. Conference.
Early Modern Literature and Culture
Spanish 343
- Don Quixote and Narrative Theory
Full course for one semester. This course will consist of a close
reading of Cervantes’ masterpiece in conjunction with the works of
theorists such as Wayne Booth, Michel Foucault, Gyorgy Lukács, Ruth
El Safar, Leo Spitzer, and Robert Alter, who have written about
Don Quixote in the development and exploration of their
various "theories of the novel." To better understand the context
of Don Quixote, we will begin with a careful consideration
of political, cultural, and historical aspects of the Spanish
Golden Age. We will end the semester with student presentations
that focus on adaptations and appropriations of Don Quixote
in modern narrative. Prerequisite: Spanish 321 or equivalent with
consent of the instructor. Conference. Cross-listed as Literature
344. Not offered 2005-06.
Spanish 347
- Court and Stage in Early Modern Spain
Full course for one semester. This course reflects upon the
theatrical nature of absolutist power in sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century Spain. Monarchical authority is constructed as
a carefully crafted spectacle both in the court and in the public
space of the church and the square. The examination of a corpus of
conduct manuals aimed at the education of the king and his
courtiers will allow us to think about the link between politics
and manners within the confines of the royal palace. In the
external sphere, the theatre becomes an essential vehicle of
propaganda and control. The study of a series of plays will reveal
divergent perspectives on the legitimacy of monarchical authority.
Representations of rulership vary from official visions that
emphasize the connection with a divine order to those that point to
the fictitious foundations of power. Readings include works by Lope
de Vega, Calderón de la Barca, Francisco de Quevedo, Baltasar
Gracián, and Diego de Saavedra Fajardo. Prerequisite: Spanish 321
or equivalent with consent of the instructor. Conference. Not
offered 2005-06.
Spanish 353
- Chronicling America
Full course for one semester. The early chronicles of the
exploration and conquest of the "New World" initiate Spanish
American literature and have left an enduring mark as well on the
development and transformations of this literary tradition. This
course focuses on the chronicle form at two critical junctures. In
the first part of the course, we trace the constitution of a
particularly Spanish American colonial discourse through a reading
of early chronicles, including Columbus’s letters, mestizo
and ladino histories, and chronicle-novels. The second part
of the course examines how problems raised by these early works are
taken up in recent texts that lay claim to, parody, or shatter the
chronicle form. Prerequisite: Spanish 321 or equivalent with
consent of the instructor. Conference.
Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Literature and Culture
Spanish 355
- Search for Identity in Latin America
Full course for one semester. The independence of Mexico and Cuba
and their later revolutions provide a framework from which to study
the most significant instances in the definition of a political and
cultural identity. Of central concern will be the relationship
between ruling elites and subaltern groups, as it appears in
political documents, manifestos, novels, short stories, poems, and
films. Particular attention will be paid to the voices and
representations of gauchos, indios, and
negros. Prerequisite: Spanish 321 or equivalent with consent
of the instructor. Conference. Not offered 2005-06.
Spanish 358
- Modern Spanish American Theater
Full course for one semester. This course reads modern theater in
the context of a more general theatricality manifested in Spanish
American politics. We will focus on the dramatic revision of
history, the difficult and ambiguous staging of "disappearance,"
and on how theatricality underpins and subverts notions of
revolution and political orders. The course will include European
and Spanish American dramatic theory and works by playwrights
Armando Discépolo, Emilio Carballido, Rosario Castellanos, Griselda
Gambaro, José Triana, and others. Readings in Spanish.
Prerequisite: Spanish 321 or equivalent with consent of the
instructor. Conference. Not offered 2005-06.
Spanish 362
- Twentieth-Century Spanish American Prose
Full course for one semester. Reading of modern Spanish American
authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Elena Garro, Juan Rulfo, Gabriel
García Márquez, Elena Poniatowska, Julio Cortázar, José Donoso,
Marta Brunet, and Carlos Fuentes. This course continues the
concerns of Spanish 353, focusing on the ways in which problems of
writing, knowledge, and power are resituated by modern Spanish
American authors. Prerequisite: Spanish 321 or equivalent with
consent of the instructor. Conference. Not offered 2005-06.
Spanish 370
- Peninsular Modernism
Full course for one semester. After Spain lost its last colonies
(Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines) in 1898, it entered into a
period of social and political reforms that also affected
literature and the plastic arts. Although this period of political
transformation and artistic freedom was shut down by the rise of
fascism in the 1930s, for many artists creating during the long
years of Franco’s dictatorship it became a point of reference, a
"silver age" to rival Spain’s "golden age" of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. Focusing on the period of 1890--1920, this
course will examine how modernism reacts to late nineteenth century
realism and naturalism, proposing a new vision of reality through
the use of existing genres and the development of new ones. In
addition to the study of seminal texts by Galdós, Valle-Inclán,
Unamuno, Pío Baroja, Antonio Machado, and Azorín, we will examine
works by the architect Gaudí; artists such as Santiago Rusiñol,
Picasso, and Juan Gris; and the composer Manuel de Falla.
Prerequisite Spanish 321 or consent of instructor. Conference. Not
offered 2005-06.
Spanish 373
- The Avant-Gardes
Full course for one semester. This course will explore the
aesthetic revolution waged by the Spanish and Latin American
avant-gardes at the beginning of the twentieth century. Focusing on
manifestos, poems, paintings, films, and theatrical works, we shall
consider diverse ways in which Futurism, Ultraism, Creationism, and
Surrealism declare war on "bourgeois" art forms. Presenting a
utopian view of modernity, these movements react against both the
weight of tradition and the alienation of the individual in the
industrialized world. Particular attention will be paid to the link
between avant-gardist poetics and the different political
ideologies, such as communism and fascism. Prerequisite: Spanish
321 or equivalent with consent of the instructor. Conference.
Spanish 375
- Modern Peninsular Drama
Full course for one semester. One of the central tensions in
dramatic texts is the tension between verbal language and visual
imagery. This course will examine this tension as it is made
explicit in a series of twentieth century Spanish dramas that
incorporate works of art--from both "real" and imagined artists--on
stage. Topics to be considered include censorship, ekphrasis, the
iconization of language, and the limits of verbal and visual
expression. Dramas will include works by Valle-Inclán, García
Lorca, Alberti, Arrabal, Buero Vallejo, Grau, and Pedrero.
Prerequisite: Spanish 321 or consent of the instructor. Conference.
Not offered 2005-06.
Spanish 377
- Contemporary Spanish Fiction
Full course for one semester. This course will study narratives and
films produced in Spain after 1975, the year in which Francisco
Franco died and his totalitarian regime ended. Conference
discussion will revolve around the changes that characterize the
post-Franco era: the rise of regional autonomies (Cataluña, el País
Vasco, Galicia), the emergence of a fluid conception of gender, and
the creation of new forms of popular art. Particular attention will
be given to the "movida," the period of social and cultural
transformation that is celebrated in the films of Pedro Almodóvar
and others. Readings will include works by Carmen Martín Gaite,
Lourdes Ortiz, Rosa Montero, Eduardo Mendoza, and Marina Mayoral.
We will also study films by Almodóvar, Víctor Erice, and José Juan
Bigas Lunas. Prerequisite: Spanish 321 or equivalent with consent
of instructor. Conference. Not offered 2005-06.
Spanish 381
- Literature and Culture of Argentina from Independence to the Present
Full course for one semester. In the framework of an Argentinean
cultural history, this course analyzes the relationship between
aesthetics, ethics, and politics. A series of nineteenth- and
twentieth-century texts, both fictional and nonfictional, will
serve to trace the trajectory from a political use of literature to
the emergence of an autonomous intellectual sphere. The course is
organized around the topics of "civilization and barbarism";
gauchos, frontiers, and "the desert"; the Generation of 1880
and immigration; Peronism and anti-Peronism; and militarism and
democracy. Prerequisite: Spanish 321 or equivalent with consent of
the instructor. Conference.
Spanish 383
- Cuba: Literature and Society
This course studies nineteenth- and twentieth-century Cuban
literature in terms of its formulation of a political and cultural
identity. Taking as a point of departure narratives on slavery, we
shall discuss how the concept of race operates in different
authorial projects and genres: political manifestoes of the
independence (Martí), essays on nationhood (Guerra y Sánchez,
Araquistain, Ortiz, Mañach), black poetry (Guillén), and marvelous
realism (Carpentier). The focus will then move to the cultural
influence of the revolution of 1959 and the creation of two
divergent poetics. Along with politically engaged literature
(Desnoes, Fernández Retamar), we will examine works that,
emphasizing their autonomy, present a metaphysical, universal, and
ludic vision of Cubanidad (Lezama Lima, Cabrera Infante,
Severo Sarduy). The course will conclude with some reflections on
the thematic recurrence of exile and diaspora (Arenas, Pérez
Firmat). Prerequisite: Spanish 321 or equivalent with consent of
the instructor. Conference. Not offered 2005-06.
Spanish 385
- Baroque and Neo-Baroque
Full course for one semester. The discovery of what came to be
known as the Americas represented a radical disruption to the
concept of world order then held by Europe. The history of the
Americas began as a kind of distortion to the very concept of
order, a fact that became evident in the process of colonization,
in which order was imposed with a baroque cruelty and despair. In
the twentieth century, a group of writers approached the
distortions of the baroque as a way of opening the continent’s
oppressive orders to make room for the possibility of revolution
that would be at once aesthetic and social. This course will begin
with a series of texts on the baroque (including Wölfflin,
Maravall, Benjamin, Góngora), and will then move to
twentieth-century considerations of the baroque as the definitive
style of Latin American experience and expression. We will
concentrate on the writings of José Lezama Lima, Severo Sarduy, and
Néstor Perlongher. Readings in Spanish. Prerequisite: Spanish 321
or equivalent with consent of the instructor. Conference. Not
offered 2005-06.
Spanish 387
- Essay, Race and Nation in Latin American
Full course for one semester. This course focuses on an essay
tradition that reflects on questions related to modernity. The
chronicles of the Cuban José Martí on the United States serves as
an introduction to a series of themes and categories: democracy,
popular culture, aesthetic autonomy and heteronomy, spiritualism,
anomie, consensus, and race, that are relevant to the study of the
other authors. The reading of the primary texts--Rodó, Ortiz,
Vasconcelos, Blanco, Lugones, Mariátegui and Arguedas--is
accompanied by the study of theoretical essays originating in other
traditions: Baudelaire, Tocqueville, Renan, Eagleton, Hobsbawm and
H.L.Gates Jr. The principal axis of this course is the relationship
between the aesthetic and the political, tracing an itinerary that
goes from the appeal to beauty in consensual practices to their
most elitist and authoritarian manifestations. Emphasis is on how
the authors formulated a model nation which stood as an alternative
to that proposed by the liberal elite of the nineteenth century.
Readings in Spanish. Prerequisite: Spanish 321 or equivalent with
consent of the instructor. Conference.
Spanish 390
- Crime and Literature in Spanish America
Full course for one semester. The notion of crime constitutes a
point of articulation joining religious, philosophical, juridical,
journalistic, historiographical, scientific, psychoanalytical, and
other discourses. For this reason, it provides a particularly rich
point of departure for the study of cultural production. This
course focuses on the various ways in which crime has figured in
Spanish American writing. Texts may include accounts of
transvestite nuns and "deluded" mystics, detective novels, and
literary or journalistic treatments of the drug trade and the
criminal state apparatus. We will also consider filmic
representations of crime. Theoretical readings address the
development and function of penal, judicial, governmental, and
medical institutions. Readings in Spanish. Prerequisite: Spanish
321 or equivalent with consent of instructor. Conference. Not
offered 2005-06.
Spanish 393
- Special Topics in Peninsular Literature and Culture: Spanish Poetry from the Cancionero Tradicional to the Contemporary Lyric
Full course for one semester. This course will present a survey of
Spanish poetry from the ballads and cancionero poems of the oral
tradition, through the Golden Age, Romanticism, and the modern era.
Poets such as Garcilaso de la Vega, Fray Luis de León, Góngora,
Quevedo, Espronceda, Rosalia de Castro, Bécquer, Machado, and Lorca
will be studied, as well as poets of the Spanish Civil War and of
contemporary feminism. Students will develop an understanding of
the different literary periods by investigating the variations in
poetry as a genre in relation to other cultural and historical
discourses. Social protest, poetic voice, spirituality,
self-reference, feminism, temporality, and alienation will be among
the topics addressed in the poems we examine, and the methods and
terminology of literary analysis will be presented in context.
Presentations on the visual arts and film will complement lectures
on the poetry, and creative writing and performance components will
be included. Prerequisite: Spanish 321 or equivalent with consent
of the instructor. Conference. Not offered 2005-06.
Spanish 395
- Special Topics in Spanish American Literature and Culture
Political Film in Latin America
Full course for one semester. This course will examine the
relationship between film and social change in Latin America. We
will discuss the prominent role film has played in certain
countries in creating an awareness about socioeconomic issues. Film
movements such as the "Third Cinema," the "Imperfect Cinema," and
the "Cinema of Hunger" will be studied as aesthetic, cultural, and
ideological phenomena linked to the dissident movements in Latin
America. Some of the topics to be discussed include dictatorships,
political repression, violence, exile, and revolutions as they are
"projected" in cinematographic production. Filmmakers to be
considered include Fernando Solana and Octavio Getino (Argentina),
Jorge Sanjines (Bolivia), Patricio Guzman (Chile), Tomás Gutiérrez
Alea (Cuba), and Luis Estrada (Mexico). Prerequisite: Spanish 321
or equivalent with consent of the instructor. Conference.
Voices of Modern Latin American Poetry
Full course for one semester. This course will focus on the major
figures of modern Latin American poetry such as Cesar Vallejo,
Pablo Neruda, and Octavio Paz, but we will also include
lesser-known poets. We will examine the interaction of various
contradictory forces in their work: tensions between indigenous
traditions and the European avant-garde, between lyric voice and
silence, between social protest and spirituality, and between
alienation and love. The theme of exile--voluntary exile,
involuntary exile, and inner exile--will also be examined, as will
be notions of gender, of the nation, and of modernity. This course
will emphasize the techniques of close reading of poetic texts, and
lectures will be complemented by presentations on the aesthetic and
historical context of the works we study. Creative writing and
performance components will be included. Prerequisite: Spanish 321
or equivalent with consent of the instructor. Conference.
Spanish 400
- Junior Seminar: Church and State in Early Modern Spanish Culture
Full course for one semester. This course examines the relationship
between politics and culture in sixteenth and seventeenth-century
Spain. More specifically, the organizing theme is the convergence
of absolutist monarchical power and religious authority, as
formulated or contested in various cultural productions: poems,
comedias, autos sacramentales, novellas, conduct manuals, court
correspondence, pictorial emblems, and paintings. The
construction of and resistance to a theocratic imperial order are
analyzed from different theoretical perspectives. The idea of early
modern culture as an instrument of ideological state control is
discussed in the light of Marxist criticism; through new
historicist approaches the expression of dissent and subjectivity
are considered; the ritual aspects of baroque arts and letters are
examined in the framework of Gadamerian hermeneutics; scholarship
in the history of the book serves as a basis for the discussion of
the links between symbolic representation and concrete social
practices; and the interconnectedness of visual and written works
is studied in the light of response theory approaches to elite and
popular art. This course includes a substantial research project.
Readings in Spanish. Prerequisites: Spanish 321 and one other
literature course taught in Spanish or equivalent with consent of
instructor. Conference.
Spanish 470
- Thesis
One-half or full course for one semester or one year.
Spanish 481
- Independent Reading
One-half or full course for one semester. Prerequisite: approval of
instructor and division.
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