M.A. in Hispanic Cultural Studies

Below is a summary of the principal requirements of the M.A. in Hispanic Cultural Studies. For more information, contact the department's Director of Graduate Studies and the page on Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about graduate admissions.

I. Course work

Students enrolled in the Master's in Hispanic Cultural Studies program must complete satisfactorily a total of nine (9) course units in one year. Normally a student takes five courses during the fall semester and four in the spring. Classes are taught in Spanish and all requirements are in that language as well. Master's students can register in any course taught in the department at the graduate level.

Two courses are required of all students:

Spanish G9901, Graduate Seminar on Literary and Cultural Theory, and SPAN G9810, Supervised Independent Research for the Master's Essay.

The Graduate Seminar on Literary and Cultural Theory provides the students with an understanding of fundamental concepts, categories, and problems related to the study of cultural production in the Hispanic world. For Supervised Independent Research for the Master's Essay, see the description of the Master's Essay below.

The remaining courses are electives, four of which may be taken outside the department in related disciplines such as Anthropology, History, Women Studies, History of Art, Teacher's College, Music, etc. Two electives must be taken outside the department. For the departmental electives students choose among all of the courses taught by the graduate faculty.

Master's and Ph.D. students write two final papers per semester and they choose the courses for which they will write them. For the remaining courses they undertake a take-home examination or present a research exercise as a final requirement for the course.

II. Master's Essay

During the spring semester students devote time to the preparation of a Master's Essay that fulfills the research component for the Master's degree. To fulfill this requirement they expand and rewrite an essay that they wrote in the fall or propose a new topic for the exercise. In the latter instance they must receive approval for the topic from the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS).

The Master's Essay is written under the supervision of a faculty member and in the context of an independent study that carries the course designation SPAN G9810 (Supervised Independent Research for the Master's Essay). The essay is about 25 pages in length, is written in Spanish, and is evaluated by the adviser and a second faculty member chosen by the DGS.

A typical course of study for the Master's in Hispanic Cultural Studies would resemble the following:

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