Spanish W3300
Advanced Spanish through Content
Spring 2010
Section Topics
Section 001
Cultura: An Online Cross-Cultural Dialogue
Jesus Suárez-García (Barnard)
An online cross-cultural exchange with students from León, Spain, focusing on an exploration and comparison of the values, attitudes and assumptions of Spanish and US societies. Students communicate through forums, read cultural materials and discuss and analyze their findings. Development of advanced language skills: expressing opinions, forming hypotheses, and supporting arguments.
Section 002
Creative Writing: An Approximation to 20th-Century Short Genres in Latin America
Juan Álvarez
This course-workshop proposes an introduction to critical reflection and to the creative practices of four short forms essential to the Latin American literary tradition of the twentieth-century: the short story, the chronicle, the argumentative essay, and the parodic/humorous essay, which will constitute the four modules of the course. Each one of the genres will be approached through its representative productions, as well as through the formal theorizations that the authors have developed for those genres. For example, the Latin American short story will be explored side by side with decalogues, prologues, and other similar texts that are part of the cultural negotiation implied in the practice itself. Students will engage in a discussion of content and form in class and will produce creatively, within a workshop format, texts in each of the genres addressed.
Section 003
This World and the Next
Helene de Aguilar
The English text to Bach's cantata "Nun danket alle Gott" invokes divine protection "in this world and the next". This course explores diverse Spanish and Hispanoamerican images of and ideas about the afterlife (e.g. the Day of the Dead in Mexico) and the relationship between the two worlds. What determines our future fate? What will the 'next world' be like? Readings include anonymous medieval romances and two major plays, "El gran teatro del mundo" by the seventeenth-century playwright Calderón de la Barca and "La dama del alba", by his twentieth-century compatriota Alejandro Casona. Also included in the syllabus are brief passages from religious texts representative of differing belief systems; a short story by the Mexican novelist and intellectual historian Carlos Fuentes; a museum visit, cartoons by Posada, a movie and some wonderful music. Students will take charge of classroom discussions. There will be numerous but short compositions, allowing for maximum practice and rapid improvement in writing skills without the intimidating pressure of more formal papers.
Section 004
Borges: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Ben Johnson
In this course we will examine the startling ways in which Jorge Luis Borges reduces, reuses, and recycles literary traditions and forms. Besides studying the work of Borges himself, we will employ our notions of Borgesian re-reading and re-writing to interpret a series of texts by authors as old as Cervantes and as new as César Aira. Key to our efforts will be a careful consideration of genre and style, which will serve students well as they work on their writing skills in Spanish.
Section 005
Caribbean Identities
Perla Rozencvaig
An examination of the cultural history of each national society using work from literature, film, and music. Particular emphasis will be placed on the political and socioeconomic differences of each country. Readings include interviews, speeches, texts from and about the historical-political context, poetry, and short stories.
Section 006
Exile, Errancy, and Nation in Spanish Culture
Ana Méndez-Oliver
This course will explore the notions of exile and errancy in relation to the idea of nation, home and patria in Medieval and Early Modern Spanish texts as well as in some modern cultural productions. We will examine how the construction of the Spanish nation occurs through a process of exclusion of certain communities, the Jewish and Moriscos, that were conceived as contaminating the nation. Throughout the semester we will look into different portrayals of Jewish and Moriscos figures in works such as the Libro de buen amor, edicts of the Jewish and Morisco expulsion, some selections of Aljamiado literature, Quevedo, Cervantes, and Juan Goytisolo, among others. All pre-modern texts will be read in modernized Spanish versions.
Section 007
The Cultural Productions of Indigenismo
Olga Rodríguez
This course will explore some of the problems of representation in literature, visual arts, films and political discourses that emerged with the Conquest in the confrontation between Spaniards and indigenous communities. Through these materials we will analyze the place of the ‘indio’ in literary and political projects during the Colonial and Republican periods in the Southern Cone. We will concentrate on issues like religion, gender, class, economy, and finally on the emergence of more radical political projects such as Sendero Luminoso in Peru and Movimiento Al Socialismo in Bolivia.
Section 008
The Problem of Modernity in Contemporary Spain
Óscar Useche
Civil war, economic disaster, political instability and dictatorial authoritarianism have marked Spain’s recent history, and reinforced the profound tensions between modernization and national identity. Having as background the most important turning points in the contemporary history of Spain: Monarchy Restoration, Primo de Rivera’s Dictatorship, Second Republic, Civil war, Franco’s dictatorship and transition to democracy, this course will examine the connections between the changes in intellectual thought and the tensions generated by modernization in different contexts: religion, science, economy, and politics.
Section 009
Gay Culture in Contemporary Spain
Javier Pérez-Zapatero
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?