Spanish W3300
Advanced Language through Content
Fall 2013
Section Topics
Section 001
Gay Culture in Contemporary Spain
Francisco Rosales-Varo
TR 11:40am - 12:55pm
In this W SPAN 3300 course, designed within the framework of the teaching of Advanced Spanish through Content, we will try to answer the following questions:
1. How can we define the concepts of queer and culture in contemporary Spain?
2. What kind of social conditions determine queer culture in contemporary Spain?
3. How did this new situation create a new gay-queer sensibility, if there is such?
4. What kind of new documents would represent this new culture?
5. What methodology of analysis can we use to interpreter with due accuracy queer communication in contemporary Spain?
Section 002
Chronicles of the Indies and their Contemporary Afterlife
David Colmenares Gonzalez
MW 10:10am - 11:25am
The Spanish encounter with unknown lands and their native populations produced a fascinating and largely underexplored body of writing. Ambitious soldiers, erudite historians, pious friars, and petty adventurers wrote with an astonishing variety of objectives. Together they created a literature rich in anthropological insight, aesthetic value, and intellectual prowess. We will approach the Chronicles of the Indies both as literary devices and ambitious intellectual projects aimed at making sense of the New World. The course will additionally follow these texts as they gave rise to and continually nourished Latin American cultures up to the present day, contributing to the imaginary processes of nation building, literary and artistic production, as well as counter-hegemonic political projects. To this end the course places special emphasis on contemporary film, music, literature and political discourses: we will read, for example, Lope de Aguirre´s letter to the king of Spain alongside Werner Herzog´s Aguirre and the Wrath of God, and Bartolomé de Las Casas history of the destruction of the Indies alongside the political fictions of Zapatista leader Sub-Comandante Marcos. Students will develop analytic and writing skills through class discussion, written assignments, and a final research paper.
Section 003
Travel Writing: From XV Century Travelogues to Contemporary Tourist Guides
Mariana Velazquez
TR 10:10am - 11:25am
Travel literature has overlapped with other genres according to its specific fulfilled functions throughout its history. Our present view towards this literature corresponds to traditional approaches, which have shaped its consolidation as a genre. To understand the enlargement of the travel narrative corpus, we will explore transformations, intersections, experiences, conceptions of space, and subjects that have had an influence in its configuration. We will delve into the concept of the journey and its development by analyzing different sources such as travelogues, diaries, epistles, films, documentaries, and other visual and textual materials in Spanish from the XV century to the present day. The course will pay attention to student's development in analytical and writing skills through class discussions, compositions, oral presentations, and a final research project.
Section 004
Exploring the New World: Hispanic Expeditions of the XV-XVI Centuries
Miguel Ibanez Aristondo
MW 11:40am - 12:55pm
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the history of Iberian expansion in the Americas and Asia as seen through diaries, chronicles, maps, and cartographic literature. We will discuss the relationship between early Spanish ideas of the world and the origins of European colonialism in a new global context. We will study a selection of texts and illustrations of the most important political, economic, and scientific expeditions in the age of discovery: Christopher Columbus, Magellan, Hernán Cortés, Francisco Pizarro, Miguel López de Legazpi, Francisco Hernández, and others. Students will examine the concept of a global Renaissance in particular geographical cases: the Caribbean, Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe--exploring the impact of interaction and analyzing the hybrid visual or textual productions produced in this new geographical and political context.
In addition to class discussions and compositions, students will prepare oral presentations and written responses related to the course materials (texts, pictures and objects) with a set of central questions about them: How did transoceanic expeditions of the fifteenth and sixteenth century initiate a transformation of the planet's economy, culture and science? How did people observe and represent a New World never before depicted? How did they come to write a new history for this New World? How did they represent and study the new objects found in these new
Section 005
Nation and Politics: 20th Century Mexican Narratives
Adrián Espinoza
TR 4:10pm - 5:25pm
The objective of this course is twofold: to provide an introduction to the ideas of modernity, politics and nation in 20th century Mexico while exposing the students to the works of some of the main literary figures of the country. The course seeks to approach the idea of the consolidation of a modern Mexican nation through the examination of some of the key events its modern history and their literary representations. We will focus on a selection of essays, short stories, movies and novel fragments. Through them the students will take on the examination of Mexico´s history in the 20th century while engaging with advanced Spanish grammar and academic writing in Spanish. The course will examine periods; events and expressions like the Revolution, the Tlatelolco massacre, Muralism, and the Zapatista uprising and will include readings by authors such as Campobello, Páz, Azuela, Pacheco, Revueltas, and Bolaño among others. Students are expected to participate in class discussions and activities. Course grading will include one class presentation, four compositions, midterm and a final research project.
Section 006
The Inquisitions of the Spanish Empire
Nicole Hughes
MW 6:10pm - 7:25pm
This course introduces students to the Spanish Inquisition and the other inquisitorial institutions of the far-reaching Spanish empire. Ferdinand and Isabella formally introduced the Spanish Inquisition in 1480 in their newly united territories, and the creation of it coincided with what many consider the birth of Spain. This course is particularly interested in the way the various inquisitorial institutions of the New World, the Philippines, and other parts of the empire in Europe expressed Spanish global ambitions shortly thereafter. To fully appreciate the Spanish Inquisition's centralizing role on the peninsula, one must also consider the other inquisitorial institutions throughout the empire as agents of globalization, some of which mediated Iberian interaction with non-western cultures and laid the foundations for colonial societies.
Students will read inquisitorial trials, inquisitor's manuals, treatises on witch hunting, as well as literary representations of inquisitorial forms of persecution in novels and plays. They will also consider the revival of the Black Legend in contemporary culture, the afterlife of the inquisition in modern systems of interrogation and punishment, and cultural representations of inquisition, including Mel Brooks and Monty Python. The course is designed to introduce students to this topic and considerable time will be dedicated along the way to polishing their written and oral skills in Spanish. Students will write critical responses to the readings, participate in writing workshops, and present on a topic of their choice.
Section 007
Gritos y silencios: Culture and Authoritarianism in Twentieth-Century Latin America and Spain
Leigh Shadko
MW 4:10pm - 5:25pm
From the Iberian Peninsula to the Southern Cone, the twentieth century witnessed the rise -- and fall -- of authoritarian regimes in many parts of the Spanish-speaking world. This course will examine the ways in which writers, filmmakers and visual artists, both locally and in exile, responded to and reflected on the authoritarian experience and the troubled transition to democracy. Students will develop their language skills by engaging in class discussion, preparing oral presentations and written responses to course material, and completing a final research project.
Section 008
Translating Cultures
Javier Pérez-Zapatero
TR 2:40pm - 3:55pm
Through special attention to translation theory and practice in the context of an examination of the issue of multiculturalism in New York, the course aims to increase critical skills, awareness of formal/informal registers, and command of academic writing structures among native speakers with varying degrees of previous language instruction. For heritage speakers of Spanish only.
Section 009
Inmigración hispana y las políticas educativas en los Estados Unidos
Maria Lozano
TR 11:40am - 12:55pm
El curso tiene como base el estudio de la inmigración hispana a los
Estados Unidos. Comenzaremos con una vista histórica de los
movimientos migratorios en EEUU en general, para luego centrarnos en las leyes migratorias que ha afectado a los hispanos. El curso
finalizará con una vista a las políticas educativas de los estados en
los que el inglés es la única lengua de enseñanza en las escuelas y
las cuales limitan el uso de otras lenguas en el salón de clases.