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Graduate Course Descriptions

Fall 2008

Spanish 597LC - ST:XIX-XX Cuban Literature
This course is a survey of Cuban literature through the analysis and discussion of the main authors and tendencies, from the early Romanticism of the mid-1800s and the antislavery literature, to today's postrevolutionary works. We will study different authors, literary genres and topics of the Cuban imaginary such as "cubanía," "mestizaje," "transculturación," and "negritud."  This course explores Cuban literature in its double significance: as part of the development of Cuban society and as a construction of a specific aesthetic sensibility.  Therefore, studying the relationship between history, culture and literature will be a constant in this course, taking into consideration the different contexts that determine this dialogue (Africa, Spain, the United States of America and Latin America).  Nonetheless, emphasis will be given to the literary text as the highest expression of an artistic identity that refers to its own tradition.  The course will be taught in Spanish.

Spanish 597VT - Vanguardias Transatlánticas
Vanguardia and Generación del 27, manifestos, solidarities and exiles on both sides of the Atlantic.
This course explores the development of modern lyric poetry in Spanish America and Spain at the beginning of the twentieth century. Theoretical framing of the concepts of modernity and Avant Garde as well as issue of relative positions within the postcolonial landscape will serve as a starting point. After a quick survey of the achievements and lines of production established by modernista and generaión del noventa y ocho poetry, the course will continue with an in depth analysis of the production of key Latin American and peninsular poets of the so-called Avant Garde movements (vanguardias and generacioón del 27).  The course will focus on problems of location and dislocation, interrelations, tensions, ideological and poetic connections and interchange.  Poetry, as well as other cultural productions of the time (art, films, and literary publications) will be examined.  Discussions will include topics that affected this production such as identity issues, socially committed versus autonomous art, exile, the Civil War, Marxist ideologies etc.

Spanish 697CM - "Indigenous and Mestizo Chroniclers in early modern Peru"
This course aims at introducing the student to the study of ethnographies and chronicles penned by indigenous Latino and Mestizo writers in the Viceroyalty of Peru during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  After reading selections form early modern Spanish historians in order to better work out the differences, we will carefully examine the works of Andean writers focusing on their particular conceptions of time, space, gender, and ritual.  Furthermore, we will discuss critical works produced in the field of early modern Andean studies and subaltern studies.

Portuguese 597PT - Portuguese Travel Literature
This course, open to both undergraduate and graduate students, focuses on a group of Portuguese writers who, starting in the 1930s and extending through the 1990s, paid brief or extended visits to the United States and published their impressions of the country and its people, some of them paying particular attention to Portuguese immigrant communities in the west and east coasts. Writers include António Ferro, Ferreira de Castro, Joaquim Paço d' Arcos, Natália Correia, Fernando Namora, Dias de Melo, and Clara Pinto Correia.  Perspectives of the US range from the positive impressions by Ferro (Novo Mundo Mundo Novo; 1930; Hollywood, Capital das Imagens; 1931) to critical and satirical views by Paço d' Arcos (Floresta de Cimento 'Cement Forest'; 1953) and Namora (Cavalgada Cinzenta 'Grey Cavalcade'; 1977) to the vaunting of European 'superiority' by Natália Correia (Descobri que era europeia 'I discovered I was a European'; 1951).  Clara Pinto Correia's book, The Big Easy (1992), illustrates a more balanced view -- that of a writer who resided in the US for a number of years and did post-doctoral work in biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and at Harvard.  Two take-home exams for undergraduates; a major paper (20-25 pages) based on solid travel-literature theory and critical assessments of the works studied.  Prerequisite: Portuguese 311 or 320, or their equivalent.

Portuguese 597PW - Women Writers of Portugal
This course, open to both graduate and undergraduate students, focuses on female voices of contemporary Portugal as they explore through new discursive strategies issues related to gender construction and the ever-changing socio-historical space. The influence of women writers in shaping Portuguese literary canon. Readings by Agustina Bessa Luis, Fernanda Botelho, Lidia Jorge, Olga Goncalves, Teolinda Geraso, Clara Pinto Correia, Maria Velho da Costa, Maria Gabriels Llansol.
Requirements: undergraudates, two papers (7-8 pages); graduates, two papers (10-12 pages).
Prerequisites: A reading knowledge of Portuguese or consent of instructor.

Spanish 797SP: From Paper to Celluloid: Spanish Film                                  
Through a comparative approach, this class will study modern and contemporary Spanish literary works and their cinematic adaptations. It will address the fundamental differences between written words and visual image, measure the fidelity of the recreation and reflect upon the implications of ideology and gender for reinterpretation. Movies include the two versions of María Lejárraja's Canción de cuna, Juan de Orduña's and Josefina Molina's recreations of Machado's La Lola se va a los puertos, and Garci's adaptation of Galdós's El abuelo, among others.

Spring 2009

Spanish 597HA: “Discursos de Género y El Canon”
Durante el siglo XIX, el Liberalismo y el Romanticismo propiciaron considerablemente la escritura femenina de tal manera que entre las décadas de1840 y 1860 el panorama literario español se caracterizó por un evidente protagonismo de la mujer. En la segunda parte del siglo, sin embargo, dicho protagonismo fue menguando y la presencia femenina, en el canon literario, se fue haciendo cada vez más esporádica.

Esta clase se centrará en el canon masculino y su deconstrucción: en la lucha de la mujer española por apropiarse de un espacio literario desde el cual poder socavar la construcción de los moldes femeninos decimonónicos acuñados por el discurso literario hegemónico. A través de la lectura de textos del XIX y XX –textos canónicos de narrativa, poesía, teatro; así como tratados médicos, sociológicos y legales —estudiaremos: 1) la situación de la escritura femenina y el rol de la escritora frente a la sociedad; 2) la construcción y deconstrucción de modelos y estereotipos canónicos (la Carmen, el Don Juan, el ángel del hogar y la mujer fatal); 3) la relación entre escritura literaria y el incipiente movimento feminista.

Spanish 597HB: “U.S. Latino/a Literature & Culture”

Spanish 597HC: “Contemporary Catalan Fiction”
We will read and analyze some relevant works in contemporary Catalan fiction, such as El quadern gris, written by one of the finest Europeans prosists of his time, Josep Pla, or La plaça del Diamant, by Mercè Rodoreda, a novel that, according to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "is the most beautiful novel published in Spain after the Civil War". Other authors to be read are Baltasar Porcel, Jesús Moncada, Salvador Espriu, Quim Monzó and Albert Sánchez Piñol. This course will be a good chance not only to enjoy some excellent novels and short stories, but also to widen our perception and knowledge on Peninsular literatures. The course will be conducted in Spanish, and all the novels are available in either Spanish or English translation. We will even try to read some fragments in Catalan!

Spanish 697HA: “Topics in Second Language Acquisition”
This course presents an overview of core issues in Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Is SLA different from first language acquisition? How successful are SLA research projects that use theoretical frameworks inspired on first language acquisition research? Why do we need a theory of language to work with SLA? How can different linguistic theories influence SLA research? How can SLA contribute to research in general linguistics?
The course is divided into three parts. First we will examine current theories of language acquisition, and discuss how they are being used to explain SLA phenomena. Then, we will look at second language research methodology and design. Finally, we will examine some examples of SLA research in Spanish and other languages. By the end of the course students are expected to prepare a research proposal that could be used for later individual projects.

Spanish 797HA: “Imaginarios Femeninos en Latinoamérica”
Organization: Seminar
Content: The seminar will study Latin American women writers, inside and outside the canon. Exploration of their recurrent topics: body in poetry, re-writing of history, illness, authorship, autobiography, the “self” representation, among others. Some hypothesis about the writing of women from Latin America. Emphasis on the relationship between writing and the socio-cultural context of Modernity.
Requirement: Active and constant participation. Oral presentations. Annotated bibliography. Final paper (12-15 pages on a topic to be selected in consultations with the Professor).
Class will be conducted entirely in Spanish.
Percentage of Latin American Content: 99%

Spanish 797HB: “Spanish in the United States-Sociolinguistic aspect”
This course explores the Spanish spoken in the US and its variety throughout the
different geographical and social dialects in the country. The nature of the
changes that take place in the language of the subordinate group in a high
developed and complex society will be examined under the framework of the
sociolinguistic theory.
The course will prepare students to critically read and develop their own
research in the field. This seminar concentrates on collecting and analyzing
data and understanding the role played by the extra linguistic variables in the
motivation of linguistic change processes.

Portuguese 597HA: “Lusophone African Literature”
This course, open to both undergraduate and graduate students, focuses on some of the most representative authors and works of colonial and post-colonial Lusophone African literature (the literatures of Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe). Authors studied include Luandino Vieira, Agostinho Neto, Pepetela, and Ondjaki (Angola); Jorge Barbosa, Manuel Lopes, Baltasar Lopes, Corsino Fortes, and Germano Almeida (Cape Verde); Amílcar Cabral, Hélder Proença, Eunice Borges (Guinea-Bissau); Luís Bernardo Honwana, José Craveirinha, Luís Carlos Patraquim, and Mia Couto (Mozambique); Costa Alegre, Francisco José Tenreiro, Alda Espírito Santo (São Tomé and Príncipe). Theoretically, the course privileges a postcolonialist approach, although more traditional approaches will be utilized as well. Graduate students are expected to write a paper between 15 and 20 pages and a series or brief fichas or reviews. Undergraduate students will have two take-home exams. Prerequisite for the course is native or near native proficiency in Portuguese. Students who have taken at least one literature course before are most likely to do well in this course.

Portuguese 597HB: “Construction of Nation & Identity in Portuguese Narrative”
The course is open to both graduate and undergraduate students. The course examines the ways in which cultural identities are configured, shaped and represented in Portuguese narrative. The course will also focus on different models of cultural construction, and will address questions about the destiny and the nature of the nation, as well as its identity, genesis and future. Readings from some of the following writers: Luís de Camões, Fernão Mendes Pinto, Almeida Garrett, Alexandre Herculano, Eça de Queirós, Cardoso Pires, José Saramago, Lídia Jorge, António Lobo Antunes, Teolinda Gersão, Armando Silva Carvalho, Mário Cláudio, and João de Melo. Requirements: undergraduates, two papers or exams (7-8 pages); graduates, one long paper. Prerequisites: a reading knowledge of Portuguese or consent of instructor.

Portuguese 408 & 697: “Brazil in Film and Fiction”
For Undergraduates and Graduate students.
Class meets Tuesday & Thursday 4-6:30 p.m. In English. Most films in Portuguese, with English subtitles. An introduction to Brazilian culture through the study of significant feature films made in Brazil, accompanied by readings of some fiction and non-fictional works. Major themes include: cannibalism, colonialism, slavery, life in the backlands, religious syncretism, race and gender, music and sports, politics and the dictatorship, urban life. Weekly screening of films (on Tuesdays), and lectures/discussions (on Thursdays). Films will be selected from such directors as: Marcel Camus (“Black Orpheus”), Nelson Pereira dos Santos (“How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman” and “Vidas Secas”), Carlos Diegues (“Xica da Silva,” and “Quilombo”), Joaquim Pedro de Andrade ("Macunaima"), Glauber Rocha (“Black God White Devil” and “Antonio das Mortes”), Susana Amaral (“Hour of the Star”), Walter Salles (“Central Station”), Ruy Guerra (“Estorvo”), Bruno Barreto (“Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands” and “Four Days in September”), Sergio Bianchi ("Chronically Unfeasible"), Andre Klotzel (“Posthumous Memories of Bras Cubas”), Hector Babenco ("Carandiru"), Lucia Murat ("Brave Brazilian People"), Jose Henrique Fonseca ("Man of the Year"), Fernando Meirelles (“City of God”), and Jose Padilha ("Elite Squad").

Active class participation required. Mid-term and final exams; two papers (one short, and a longer final paper. (Graduate students will do more readings and written work.)