Courses

We tell stories for many reasons: to entertain; to seduce; to complain; to think. This course draws upon the literatures and cultures of the romance languages to explore the role of narrative in our construction and understanding of the world.

Full details for ROMS 1102 - FWS: The Craft of Storytelling

What is a culture, and how do we know one when we see it?  This course draws upon the histories and texts of French, Spanish, Italian, and/or Portuguese speaking worlds to discuss issues of identity, difference, politics, place, and community.

Full details for ROMS 1108 - FWS:Cultural Identities; Cultural Differences

Some of the most important and intriguing thinkers, from the Middle Ages to postmodernity, have done their thinking in the romance languages.  This course explores a body of work that would be called philosophical by some, theoretical by others, and that, beyond these names, struggles to articulate fundamental concepts, problems, discourses, and situations.

Full details for ROMS 1113 - FWS: Thinking and Thought

In this class, students will learn about animal welfare and conservation through international films. We will discuss wildlife, companion, farm, and lab animals in conjunction with human cultures, politics, and geography. The course will cover various animal species in fiction films, documentaries, and animated movies. In some motion pictures, animals will be central, in other more peripheral. Students will learn how to compose a film review, assess sources, and write a critical essay. The class includes guest speakers and a field trip to Cornell Teaching & Research Barns. All films are digital for students to watch in their free time

Full details for ROMS 1120 - FWS: Animals in Global Cinema

Marx, never reading Freud, produced analysis of ideology and fetishism as class struggle; Freud, barely mentioning Marx, produced critique of socialism and communism. Freudo-Marxism began 1920s: Austria/Germany (Adler, Gross, Reich); Russia/USSR Bakhtin Circle (Vološinov). Subsequently: Fromm, Marcuse, Horkheimer, Adorno, Fanon, C. L. R. James, Lacan, Althusser, Timpanaro, Deleuze & Guattari, Derrida, Castoriadis, Kofman, Karatani, Žižek, Kordella, Butler—across frontiers. Recent titles: The Capitalist Unconscious (Tomsic), The Invention of the Symptom (Bruno), Marxism and Psychoanalysis (Pavon-Cuellar), Marxism in Latin America from 1909 to the Present (Löwy), Marx and Freud in Latin American Politics, Psychology, and Religion in Times of Terror (Bosteels), The Fetish Revisited: Marx, Freud, and the Gods Black People Make (Matory). We begin with Marx and Freud.

Full details for ROMS 4255 - Freudo-Marxism: Theory and Praxis

Full details for ROMS 4261 - Topics in 20th C. Philosophy

The seminar will explore relations between the tangible effects of climate on urban, infrastructural, and ecological landscapes in the Caribbean and lived experiences of climate as mediated through literature, film, and other expressive forms. Topics will range from historical accounts of climate as 'catastrophe' – the effects of hurricanes, volcanoes, and earthquakes– to colonial histories of coerced labor, to climate as a more general horizon in the constitution of Caribbean worlds. The seminar draws on the work of anthropologist Anna Tsing, interpreting the industrialized-urbanized ecological territory in terms of "capitalist ruination" which, nonetheless, holds possibilities for other modes of environmentality, as the hazards effected by climate change fundamentally disrupt and transform the very urbanity constituted through colonial and later resource extractive appropriations.

Full details for ROMS 4334 - Caribbean Worlds: Landscape, Labor and Climate Imaginaries

Focuses on language teaching as facilitation of learning, thus on the learner's processing of language acquisition and the promotion of reflective teaching. Pedagogical approaches will be addressed from a learner-centered perspective involving effective language learning strategies and analysis.

Full details for ROMS 5070 - Methodology of Romance Language Learning and Teaching

Marx, never reading Freud, produced analysis of ideology and fetishism as class struggle; Freud, barely mentioning Marx, produced critique of socialism and communism. Freudo-Marxism began 1920s: Austria/Germany (Adler, Gross, Reich); Russia/USSR Bakhtin Circle (Vološinov). Subsequently: Fromm, Marcuse, Horkheimer, Adorno, Fanon, C. L. R. James, Lacan, Althusser, Timpanaro, Deleuze & Guattari, Derrida, Castoriadis, Kofman, Karatani, Žižek, Kordella, Butler—across frontiers. Recent titles: The Capitalist Unconscious (Tomsic), The Invention of the Symptom (Bruno), Marxism and Psychoanalysis (Pavon-Cuellar), Marxism in Latin America from 1909 to the Present (Löwy), Marx and Freud in Latin American Politics, Psychology, and Religion in Times of Terror (Bosteels), The Fetish Revisited: Marx, Freud, and the Gods Black People Make (Matory). We begin with Marx and Freud.

Full details for ROMS 6255 - Freudo-Marxism: Theory and Praxis

Full details for ROMS 6261 - Topics in 20th C. Philosophy

The seminar will explore relations between the tangible effects of climate on urban, infrastructural, and ecological landscapes in the Caribbean and lived experiences of climate as mediated through literature, film, and other expressive forms. Topics will range from historical accounts of climate as 'catastrophe' – the effects of hurricanes, volcanoes, and earthquakes– to colonial histories of coerced labor, to climate as a more general  horizon in the constitution of Caribbean worlds. The seminar draws on the work of anthropologist Anna Tsing, interpreting the industrialized-urbanized ecological territory in terms of "capitalist ruination" which, nonetheless, holds possibilities for other modes of environmentality, as the hazards effected by climate change fundamentally disrupt and transform the very urbanity constituted through colonial and later resource extractive appropriations.

Full details for ROMS 6334 - Caribbean Worlds: Landscape, Labor and Climate Imaginaries

The aim of this course is to investigate the relationship between history and images, by considering, the work of an outstanding representative of twentieth-century critical theory.  Siegfried Kracauer left a rich body of works spanning from the sociology of mass culture to film criticism and the philosophy of history.  This seminar will analuze his theory of images by following his intellectual trajectory from Europe to the United States.  We will read his early essays on photography an reification, as well as his well-known works on film theory and history (From Caligari to Hitler, Theory of Film; and History: The Last Things Before the Last).  Thus, we will inscribe Kracauer into his historical and intellectual context, shaped by other thinkersof images such as Th. W. Adorno, W. Benjamin, E. Panofsky, and M. Schapiro.

Full details for ROMS 6350 - Images and History: Siegfried Kracauer

FREN 1210-1220 is a two-semester sequence. This is the second half of the sequence designed to provide a thorough grounding in French language and an introduction to intercultural competence. French is used in contextualized, meaningful, and critical thinking activities to provide practice in speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Development of analytical skills for grammar leads students toward greater autonomy as language learners. Students continue developing their writing skills by writing and editing compositions. Readings are varied and include literary texts and a short novel.

Full details for FREN 1220 - Elementary French

FREN 1230 is an all-skills course designed to improve oral communication, listening comprehension, and reading ability, to establish a groundwork for correct writing, and to provide a substantial grammar review. The approach in the course encourages the student to see the language within the context of its culture.

Full details for FREN 1230 - Continuing French

This intermediate-level course is designed for students who want to focus on their speaking and writing skills. Emphasis is placed on strengthening of grammar skills, expansion of vocabulary and discourse levels to increase communicative fluency and accuracy. The course also provides continued reading and listening practice as well as development of effective language learning strategies.

Full details for FREN 2090 - French Intermediate Composition and Conversation I

This advanced-intermediate course is highly recommended for students planning to study abroad as it aims to develop the writing and speaking skills needed to function in a French speaking university environment. A comprehensive review of fundamental and advanced grammatical structures is integrated with the study of selected texts (short stories, literary excerpts, poems, articles from French periodicals, videos) all chosen for thematic or cultural interest. Students write weekly papers, participate in class discussions of the topics at hand, and give at least one oral presentation in class.

Full details for FREN 2095 - French Intermediate Composition and Conversation II

In this course, furthering oral communication skills and writing skills is emphasized. A comprehensive review of fundamental and advanced grammatical structures is integrated through a variety of topics such as social unrest and inequality, immigration crisis, social and geopolitical issues within and outside the Eurozone, post-Brexit, cutting-edge technology, media, environment, and pop-culture via short stories, literary excerpts, videos, poems, and articles fromFrench magazines or newspapers, all chosen for thematic or cultural interest. Students write weekly papers (essays and translations), have daily conversations focusing on the topics at hand, and give at least one presentation in class.

Full details for FREN 2180 - Advanced French

This course, designed to follow FREN 2095, introduces students to an array of literary and visual material from the French and Francophone world.  It aims to develop students' proficiency in critical writing and thinking, as well as presenting students with the vocabulary and tools of literary and visual analysis.  Each section of FREN 2310 will have a different focus-for example, colonialism and the other, or the importance of women and sexual minorities in French and Francophone history, performance in literature and film, or image and narrative-but all sections of FREN 2310 will emphasize through writing assignments and in-class discussions, the development of those linguistic and conceptual tools necessary for cultural and critical fluency.

Full details for FREN 2310 - Introduction to French and Francophone Literature and Culture

This course designed to follow FREN 2095, introduces students to key cinematic techniques used in analysis of films and to major movements in the twentieth century French cinema.  Students will view a broad range of French and Francophone films spanning from 1945-2004 that includes canonical as well as contemporary works.  Topics studied include: the evolution of gender representation in French and Franophone films, the depiction of decolonization, and the films de banlieu genre.  The class will combine discussion, presentations, class scene analysis and readings from journalistic and film criticism texts, and will be conducted in French.

Full details for FREN 2320 - Introduction to French and Francophone Film

In this course, both seminar and workshop, students discuss writing about translation, mostly in French, and practice translating from French to English.  The theoretical texts studied represent a variety of perspectives and the French texts translated, a variety of literary and non-literary genres.  Students will investigate ways of addressing various types of difficulties they encounter in the process of translating across languages and cultures with the aim of developing their own principled approach to translating.

Full details for FREN 3160 - Translating French: Theory and Practice

This course is designed to teach ways of reading and understanding works created from the Romantic period to the present day, in their cultural context. A range of texts from various genres is presented, and students refine their analytical skills and their understanding of various methodologies of reading. Texts by authors such as Balzac, Baudelaire, Cixous, Duras, Genet, Mallarmé, Michaux, Proust, Rimbaud, Sarraute, and Sartre.

Full details for FREN 3210 - Readings in Modern French Literature and Culture

Modern capitalism is intimately connected to the ethics of play. Through French and Francophone literature, this course explores a host of capitalist players and the vexed moral questions they raise from casino gamblers and roulette addicts to bankers who invented speculative finance by domesticating fortune through probability, a middle-class founded on ruinous debts, and hustlers who create an informal economy in order to make their own luck in the capitalist game. Readings may include: Balzac, Flaubert, Zola, Guitry, Mabanckou, Carrere, among others.

Full details for FREN 3295 - Bankers, Gamblers, Hustlers

Beginning in the early days of silent cinema, a rich tradition of what are called "city films," combines technological innovation with the exploration of specific urban spaces. Students in this class will learn how to think about the possibilities of limits of cinema as a way of "knowing" a city and its cultures, including linguistic cultures. This course will be offered in English and is open to all students. The focus will be on the relationship between the cinema and the development of urban centers, including Madrid, Rome, Paris, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, and Venice.

Full details for FREN 3485 - Cinematic Cities

When Jean-Jacques Rousseau introduced the concept of the "general will" in his classic text The Social Contract, he made what was then an unprecedented and scandalous claim: that the people as a whole, and not an individual agent, could be the subject of political will and self-determination. This claim was all the more revolutionary in that historically "the people" [ie peuple] named those poor masses who had no political representation, and who were subjects of the state only to the extent that they were subject to the will of a sovereign monarch. What then is "the people," and how is it constituted as a collective subject? How does a people speak, or make its will known? Can that will be represented or institutionalized? Do all people belong to the people? How inclusive is the social contract? This course will examine crucial moments in the constitution of the people from the French Revolution to the present day, considering the crisis of political representation they have alternately exposed or engendered and the forms of the social contract to which they have given rise. Our discussions will range from major political events (the French and Haitian Revolutions, the Paris Commune, colonialism and decolonization, May '68) to contemporary debates around universalism, secularism, immigration, and "marriage for all". Readings by Rousseau, Robespierre, L'Ouverture, Michelet, Marx, Freud, Arendt, Balibar, and Rancière.

Full details for FREN 3780 - What is a People? The Social Contract and its Discontents

Guided independent study of special topics.

Full details for FREN 4200 - Special Topics in French Literature

Consult director of undergraduate studies for more information.

Full details for FREN 4300 - Honors Work in French

The seminar will explore relations between the tangible effects of climate on urban, infrastructural, and ecological landscapes in the Caribbean and lived experiences of climate as mediated through literature, film, and other expressive forms. Topics will range from historical accounts of climate as 'catastrophe' – the effects of hurricanes, volcanoes, and earthquakes– to colonial histories of coerced labor, to climate as a more general horizon in the constitution of Caribbean worlds. The seminar draws on the work of anthropologist Anna Tsing, interpreting the industrialized-urbanized ecological territory in terms of "capitalist ruination" which, nonetheless, holds possibilities for other modes of environmentality, as the hazards effected by climate change fundamentally disrupt and transform the very urbanity constituted through colonial and later resource extractive appropriations.

Full details for FREN 4334 - Caribbean Worlds: Landscape, Labor and Climate Imaginaries

Seemingly timeless concepts of natural sex and gender have a history. In fact, they have many histories, some of which are only just starting to be written. This class examines the relationship between the (human and non-human) natural world and concepts of sex-gender variance in pre- modernity. It asks: How might crossing pre-modern conceptions of sex and gender with those of our contemporary moment lead us to approach cultural objects from the past differently? And what can pre-modern sources reveal about the histories behind the sex-gender diversity of today's natural world? We will pursue these questions through readings of contemporary scholarly literature on the topic and through the analysis of historical examples comprised of visual and textual materials studied in translation.

Full details for FREN 4689 - Sex, Gender, and the Natural World in Medieval Culture

How does psychoanalysis conceive the human, and what does it offer humanity at the crossroads where we find ourselves today? These questions animate the work of Haitian-Quebecois psychoanalyst Willy Apollon, who in recent years has developed the Freudian metapsychology away from its traditional focus on neurosis, the ego, and Oedipus Complex. Apollon advances that the clash of different civilizations that is so ubiquitous today attests not only to their decline, but to the emergence of something that transcends all civilizations. Beyond the man and the woman that cultureproduces to assure its own reproduction, or the specific iteration of the human that each civilization promotes as superior to all the others, he argues that pyschoanalysis must place itself in the service of this (re)emergent humanity. Works studied include Freud, Fanon, Lacan and Safouan as well as recent scholarship by Lucie Cantin, Sheldon George, and Ranjana Khanna.

Full details for FREN 6250 - Psychoanalysis and the Human

Designed for those with little or no background in French. Aims primarily to develop skill in reading French. Covers grammar basics, extensive vocabulary, and strategies for reading in a foreign language. Some flexibility in selecting texts according to fields of interest.

Full details for FREN 6300 - French Reading for Graduates

The seminar will explore relations between the tangible effects of climate on urban, infrastructural, and ecological landscapes in the Caribbean and lived experiences of climate as mediated through literature, film, and other expressive forms. Topics will range from historical accounts of climate as 'catastrophe' – the effects of hurricanes, volcanoes, and earthquakes– to colonial histories of coerced labor, to climate as a more general  horizon in the constitution of Caribbean worlds. The seminar draws on the work of anthropologist Anna Tsing, interpreting the industrialized-urbanized ecological territory in terms of "capitalist ruination" which, nonetheless, holds possibilities for other modes of environmentality, as the hazards effected by climate change fundamentally disrupt and transform the very urbanity constituted through colonial and later resource extractive appropriations.

Full details for FREN 6334 - Caribbean Worlds: Landscape, Labor and Climate Imaginaries

Guided independent study for graduate students.

Full details for FREN 6400 - Special Topics in French Literature

Seemingly timeless concepts of natural sex and gender have a history. In fact, they have many histories, some of which are only just starting to be written. This class examines the relationship between the (human and non-human) natural world and concepts of sex-gender variance in pre- modernity. It asks: How might crossing pre-modern conceptions of sex and gender with those of our contemporary moment lead us to approach cultural objects from the past differently? And what can pre-modern sources reveal about the histories behind the sex-gender diversity of today's natural world? We will pursue these questions through readings of contemporary scholarly literature on the topic and through the analysis of historical examples comprised of visual and textual materials studied in translation.

Full details for FREN 6689 - Sex, Gender, and the Natural World in Medieval Culture

This introductory course provides a thorough grounding in all the language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing, with practice in small groups.

Full details for ITAL 1110 - Elementary Italian In Rome I

This is a fast-paced, introductory course designed for students with some basic knowledge of the language. This introductory course provides a thorough grounding in all language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing, with practice in small and large groups. Interactive lectures cover grammar and cultural information.

Full details for ITAL 1202 - Italian II

The learning objectives of this course are, first, to introduce students to some of the crucial moments in the history of Italian figurative arts, architecture and fashion design, but also to a range of social issues relevant for understanding the more recent tendencies in art and design in modern Italy; second, to help students refine the way they speak and write about art, architecture and design through a review of the grammatical and lexical structures of Italian and a reinforcement of idiomatic expressions that will increase their ability to discuss, evaluate, analyze and compare issues of relevance to the field of art, architecture and desgn.

Full details for ITAL 1213 - Italian for Art, Architecture and Fashion Design

An intensive elementary Italian language course. This 6-credit course covers material presented in ITAL 1201 and ITAL 1202 in just one semester. It's offered to students who cannot study Italian in the Fall, but can only do it in the Spring semester.

Full details for ITAL 1401 - Intensive Elementary Italian

An intermediate-level course that aims to further develop intercultural, reading, listening, speaking, and writing abilities in ITAL 2201. Students will be guided in perfecting their communication skills, improving their cultural proficiency, and developing a critical eye toward printed and visual material drawn from literature, history, politics, science, and arts in the Italophone world. Conversation skills will be practiced in daily discussions and in individual or group projects and presentations. A variety of written assignments will help students increase the range, accuracy, and stylistic appropriateness of their writing. Review of select grammar topics is part of this course, as is reading a short contemporary novel.

Full details for ITAL 2202 - Italian IV

This course, which is at the core of the major and minor in Italian, is designed to give students a basic grounding in some of the most important facets of Italian culture, including cinema, literature, art, and food.  Students will trace the development of Italian national identity in literary and cinematic texts as well as across Italian photography and cuisine.  Readings will include selections from the works of Primo Levi, Roberto Saviano, and Leonardo Sciascia.  Students will also view films by directors such as Rossellini, de Sica, Antonioni, Bertolucci, and Sergio Leone, becoming familiar along the way with genres in Italian national cinema.  By the end of the semester, students will have a working knowledge of the effects of geographic and national fragmentation on political life in post-Risorgimento Italy, understand the so-called Southern Question and the fraught relationship between the Italian South and wealthier Northern regions, and gain different perspectives on political life today in Italy.

Full details for ITAL 2204 - The Cinematic Eye of Italy

Beginning in the early days of silent cinema, a rich tradition of what are called "city films," combines technological innovation with the exploration of specific urban spaces. Students in this class will learn how to think about the possibilities of limits of cinema as a way of "knowing" a city and its cultures, including linguistic cultures. This course will be offered in English and is open to all students. The focus will be on the relationship between the cinema and the development of urban centers, including Madrid, Rome, Paris, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, and Venice.

Full details for ITAL 3485 - Cinematic Cities

Guided independent study of special topics.

Full details for ITAL 4200 - Special Topics in Italian Literature

The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us of the relation between biological and the political, power and resistance, and life and death.  Fifty years ago, the philosopher Michel Foucault offered two terms to describe it: biopolitics and biopower.  In this introduction to both, we take up Foucault's writings on biopolitics in a series of interdisciplinary contexts, including but not limited to the philosophical, anthropological, and political.  In addition to Foucault, w will be reading elaborations on what has been called "the biopolitical paradigm" from writers as diverse as Agamben, Arendt, Arif, Biehl, Butler, Esposito, Fassin, Mbembe, and Sloterdijk.  Questions to be asked include how to describe relation between biopolitics and racism and in what ways has the pandemic altered our understanding of biopolitics.

Full details for ITAL 4250 - Introduction to Biopolitics

Consult director of undergraduate studies for more information.

Full details for ITAL 4300 - Honors in Italian Literature

The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us of the relation between biological and the political, power and resistance, and life and death.  Fifty years ago, the philosopher Michel Foucault offered two terms to describe it: biopolitics and biopower.  In this introduction to both, we take up Foucault's writings on biopolitics in a series of interdisciplinary contexts, including but not limited to the philosophical, anthropological, and political.  In addition to Foucault, w will be reading elaborations on what has been called "the biopolitical paradigm" from writers as diverse as Agamben, Arendt, Arif, Biehl, Butler, Esposito, Fassin, Mbembe, and Sloterdijk.  Questions to be asked include how to describe relation between biopolitics and racism and in what ways has the pandemic altered our understanding of biopolitics.

Full details for ITAL 6250 - Introduction to Biopolitics

Guided independent study for graduate students.

Full details for ITAL 6400 - Special Topics in Italian Literature

In this course, students continue to work on their four language skills: listing, speaking, reading, and writing as well as cultural competence. We focus on practical communication. The instructor uses communicative language teaching (CLT) with an emphasis on structured input.

Full details for POLSH 1132 - Elementary Polish II

In this class, students master their language skills: oral communication, listening and reading comprehension as well as creative and formal writing. Students also deepen their cultural competence. Classroom discussions include issues of contemporary Poland and various aspects of Polish culture. Students have writing assignments and one oral presentation in class.

Full details for POLSH 2103 - Advanced Polish I

Second semester introduction to the Lusophone (Portuguese speaking) world.  Emphasis is given to the development of language skills (e.g., speaking, listening, reading, and writing), as well as the appreciation and awareness of Global Portuguese-speaking cultures, prompting students to make comparisons to their own culture.

Full details for PORT 1220 - Elementary Portuguese II

This is a course designed to intermediate students to enhance their oral and written communication skills in Portuguese while engaging a broad range of topics related to Afro-Luso-Brazilian culture. Along with the textbook, students will read a short-essay book, be exposed to a number of films and critically reflect and discuss the films and readings. Students will continue to build their knowledge on grammar and vocabulary as well as Global Portuguese culture and language diversity.

Full details for PORT 2020 - Intermediate Portuguese for Spanish Speakers II

Few areas of cultural expression can rise to the importance of music in Brazilian life. This seminar-style course employs discussion, critical reading and listening – and hands-on music-making – to investigate Brazilian culture, history, and politics through the lens of its music. Samba will be a significant focus, but we will also discuss a range of additional regional and national styles. Along with two class meetings per week, our "discussion" will coincide with rehearsals for Deixa Sambar, Cornell's Brazilian ensemble. The course will be taught in English. Music experience is not necessary, but engagement in music-making is an integral part of the course.

Full details for PORT 3480 - Brazilian Culture through its Music

In this course, we will discuss innovative Brazilian narrative, poetry, and essays from the 20th century to the present. Some of the topics, literary movements, and debates to be addressed will include modernism, the representation of the Northeast region, Amazonian cosmogonies, speculative fiction, environmental issues, literary responses to dictatorship, issues of race, social inequality, and gender, and the relationship between the center and the periphery. Some authors to be discussed are Raul Bopp, Patrícia Galvão, Rubem Fonseca, João Guimarães Rosa, Clarice Lispector, and Ana Paula Maia.

Full details for PORT 4485 - 20th-21st Century Brazilian Literature

This course aims to prepare graduate students with written Portuguese sources in their field(s) of specialization. We will cover the essentials of Portuguese grammar, acquire a basic reading vocabulary, and practice strategies for translation and using context and knowledge of derivational morphology to determine word meanings.

Full details for PORT 6300 - Portuguese Reading for Graduates

In this course, we will discuss innovative Brazilian narrative, poetry, and essays from the 20th century to the present. Some of the topics, literary movements, and debates to be addressed will include modernism, the representation of the Northeast region, Amazonian cosmogonies, speculative fiction, environmental issues, literary responses to dictatorship, issues of race, social inequality, and gender, and the relationship between the center and the periphery. Some authors to be discussed are Raul Bopp, Patrícia Galvão, Rubem Fonseca, João Guimarães Rosa, Clarice Lispector, and Ana Paula Maia.

Full details for PORT 6485 - 20th-21st Century Brazilian Literature

While building language proficiency and accuracy through communicative activities, the course encourages students to actively interact with one another. The instructor facilitates communication and provides feedback and language learning strategies that guide students to take responsibility of their own learning and become active participants in the process. The course also introduces students to the many peoples and cultures of the Spanish-speaking world, prompting them to make comparisons with their own culture. Additionally, lectures provide students with opportunities to reflect on relevant grammar topics and assist students in developing language learning strategies. Class discussions are conducted entirely in Spanish. After 1220, students may take SPAN 1230, SPAN 2070, or SPAN 2090 depending on their LPS score.

Full details for SPAN 1220 - Elementary Spanish II

SPAN 1230 is the third course in the Spanish language sequence. It is designed to help students progress from the "novice high" level to the "intermediate mid" level in speaking, listening, reading and writing.  The course is structured around four thematic units: fashion and art; the natural world; personal relationships; and health. In each unit, we will learn the vocabulary and grammar constructions that are necessary to talk about the unit's topic. Particular emphasis will be placed on the skill of giving and defending opinions. Throughout the semester, we will discuss and analyze a wide variety of art from the Hispanic world, including songs, fashion, visual arts, TV shows, films, performance art, newspaper articles, documentaries, film shorts and podcasts. The overall goal of this course is to develop students' ability to comprehend authentic materials in Spanish and formulate nuanced opinions about those materials.

Full details for SPAN 1230 - Continuing Spanish

This innovative topics course focuses on oral communication in Spanish for students concurrently enrolled in courses offering special projects abroad or short term study abroad trips. Emphasis is placed on developing speaking and listening skills and strategies in a culturally relevant context. It is intended for students with limited or no knowledge of Spanish and active class participation is required.

Full details for SPAN 1501 - Strategies for Spanish Abroad

This innovative course focuses on basic oral communication in Spanish. Emphasis is placed on developing speaking and listening skills and strategies in a culturally relevant context. It is intended for students with limited or no knowledge of Spanish and active class participation is required.

Full details for SPAN 1502 - Conversational Skills for Spanish in Global Contexts

Designed to expand bilingual Heritage students' knowledge of Spanish by providing them with ample opportunities to develop and improve each of the basic language skills, with a particular focus on writing vocabulary. The heritage student has at least one parent of Hispanic origin and grew up speaking Spanish at home; s/he also finished high school here in the US. After this course, students may take SPAN 2095.

Full details for SPAN 2000 - Spanish for Heritage Speakers

Provides a conversational grammar review, with dialogues, debates, compositions, and authentic readings on health-related themes. Special attention is given to relevant cultural differences and how cultural notions may affect medical care and communication between doctor and patient. The objective of 2070 is to provide practice in real-life application, such as taking a medical history, calming a patient, and how to speak to a Hispanic patient in a culturally acceptable manner. After this course, a student may take or SPAN 2095.

Full details for SPAN 2070 - Intermediate Spanish for the Medical and Health Professions

This intermediate course develops accurate and idiomatic oral and written expression in a cultural context. Students achieve a higher level of syntactical and lexical competence through reading and discussing literary texts and viewing films. Particular emphasis is on writing and editing academic essays with peer/instructor feedback. Classes are in Spanish and the language is actively used in oral presentations and communicative, creative, and critical-thinking activities. Students review grammar structures on their own, with clarification and support of the instructor. After this course, students may take SPAN 2095.

Full details for SPAN 2090 - Intermediate Spanish I (Composition and Conversation)

This advanced-intermediate course is designed to prepare students for study abroad and is required for any Cornell CASA program in a Spanish speaking country.  It also serves as an entryway into the major, and advanced-level courses. Students study stylistics, analyze and discuss texts, view films, and acquire advanced reading strategies. Continued emphasis is on writing and editing academic essays with peer and instructor feedback. Classes are in Spanish, and the language is actively used in oral presentations and communicative, creative, and critical-thinking activities. Students review grammar structures on their own, although the instructor may clarify as needed.

Full details for SPAN 2095 - Spanish Intermediate Composition and Conversation II

This advanced course will focus on spoken Spanish in its formal and informal registers, regional dialects, and pronunciations.  Authentic texts from across different genres of film, newspapers, fiction, songs, and essays will be used to develop all skills with emphasis on oral production, as well as intercultural and pragmatic competence.  Students will further their fluency and accuracy by engaging in activities that might include debates, oral presentations, and interviews.

Full details for SPAN 2130 - Advanced Spoken Spanish

Introductory survey of modern Spanish literature. Students develop their analytical skills and learn basic literary concepts such as genre (drama, lyric, short story, and novel) and style (romanticism, realism, etc.) as well as male/female perspectives and the translation of literature to film language. The survey introduces students to Spain's cultural complexity through readings of works by authors representative of its diverse linguistic and literary traditions.

Full details for SPAN 2140 - Modern Spanish Survey

Readings and discussion of representative texts of the 19th and 20th centuries from various regions of Latin America. Among the authors considered are Sarmiento, Hernández, Martí, Darío, Agustini, Cortázar, García Márquez, Poniatowska, and Valenzuela.

Full details for SPAN 2150 - Contemporary Latin American Survey

This course, which is required for the major, is designed to help the learner develop increased accuracy and sophistication in writing in Spanish for academic purposes and continued oral practice in Spanish. To this end, there will be ample writing and revising practice, with a focus on specific grammatical and lexical areas, customized to the needs of the students enrolled in the course.  All writing will be based on a particular theme relating to Latin America with a focus on film, literary texts, newspaper readings and conducting an interview.

Full details for SPAN 2180 - Advanced Spanish Writing Workshop

Interdisciplinary course offered every spring. Topics vary by semester, but readings always focus on current research in various disciplines and regions of Latin America. The range of issues addressed include the economic, social, cultural, and political trends and transitions in the area. In the weekly meetings, instructors and guest lecturers facilitate student discussions. Students taking the course are required to participate in all class discussions and write a research paper in their chosen focus area.

Full details for SPAN 2200 - Perspectives on Latin America

Interdisciplinary course offered every spring.  Topics vary by semester, but readings always focus on current research in various disciplines and regions of Latin America. The range of issues addressed include the economic, social, cultural, and political trends and transitions in the area.  In the weekly meetings, instructors and guest lecturers facilitate student discussions.  Students taking the course are required to participate in all class discussions and write a research paper in their chosen focus area.

Full details for SPAN 2205 - Perspectives on Latin America in Spanish

This 1-credit optional course aims to expand the students' vocabulary, and advance their speaking and reading skills as well as enhance their knowledge and deepen their cultural understanding by supplementing non-language courses throughout the University.

Full details for SPAN 3020 - Spanish Language Across the Curriculum (LAC)

Focuses on the practice of narrative writing in Spanish. Explores what makes a novel and a short story work, paying close attention to narrative structure, plot, beginnings/endings, character development, theme, etc. Students read classic novels and short stories as points of departure for the discussion. Because the course is a workshop, students are expected to write their own fiction.

Full details for SPAN 3170 - Creative Writing Workshop (in Spanish)

In Imagined Communities (1983), Benedict Anderson famously argued that nations are "imagined political communities." Taking Anderson's claim as a point of departure, this course explores the different cultural, political, and social mechanisms at play in the act of imagining a nation, and the ways in which art shapes and challenges how a nation imagines itself. We will focus on Venezuelan literature, film, and historically defined its national identity: oil. As we discuss works of Venezuelan literature, film and performance in dialogue with the vast theoretical corpus that engages with oil's philosophical, economic, and social dimensions, we will ask: How do natural resources shape a nation's identity? How does oil transform nations into "magical states"? What are the challenges of narrating, representing, and living with oil?

Full details for SPAN 3355 - Oil Fictions

Beginning in the early days of silent cinema, a rich tradition of what are called "city films," combines technological innovation with the exploration of specific urban spaces. Students in this class will learn how to think about the possibilities of limits of cinema as a way of "knowing" a city and its cultures, including linguistic cultures. This course will be offered in English and is open to all students. The focus will be on the relationship between the cinema and the development of urban centers, including Madrid, Rome, Paris, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, and Venice.

Full details for SPAN 3485 - Cinematic Cities

This course examines the politics of fashion in Spain from the 18th-21st centuries, exploring such topics as textile trade and Spanish empire, ethnicity and national garb, fashion and gender norms, as well as contemporary debates around cultural appropriation.

Full details for SPAN 3620 - Fashion Victims

As globalization draws the Americas ever closer together, reshaping our sense of a common and uncommon American culture, what claims might be made for a distinctive, diverse poetry and poetics of the America? How might we characterize its dominant forms and alternative practices? What shared influences, affiliations, concerns and approaches might we find and what differences emerge? Ranging across North and South America, Central America and the Caribbean, this course will place in conversation such figures as Poe, Stein, Eliot, Pound, Williams, Neruda, Vallejo, Borges, Parra, Césaire, Walcott, Bolaño, Espada, Waldrop, Vicuña, Hong, and Rankine.

Full details for SPAN 3800 - Poetry and Poetics of the Americas

Guided independent study of special topics. For undergraduates interested in special problems not covered in courses.

Full details for SPAN 4200 - Special Topics in Spanish Literature

Consult director of undergraduate studies for more information.

Full details for SPAN 4300 - Honors Work II

Fil-Hispanic literature and art has historical been a neglected area of study in Spanish departments. This course provides a survey of the Philippines' most influential cultural producers in Spanish beginning in the nineteenth-century. We will also look at how Filipino and Spanish writers, intellectuals, and state actors imagined the relationship between Spain and Philippines during and after the colonial period.

Full details for SPAN 4330 - Spain and the Philippines

The course will explore medieval culture through the five senses, emphasizing how the differences with our own knowledge and practice of the sensorium produce sets of questions and avenues for thought, attuning ourselves both to our sensorial environment and to the premodern imagination.  Moving between theoretical texts-philosophy, cognition, theology, perception-and case studies-literature, but also architecture, music, stained glass, manuscripts, etc. - we will examine the conceptualization and interpretation of the sensorium and experiment with ways of reconstructing or refreshioning the medieval in the modern.

Full details for SPAN 4380 - The Medieval Senses

In this course, we will discuss innovative Brazilian narrative, poetry, and essays from the 20th century to the present. Some of the topics, literary movements, and debates to be addressed will include modernism, the representation of the Northeast region, Amazonian cosmogonies, speculative fiction, environmental issues, literary responses to dictatorship, issues of race, social inequality, and gender, and the relationship between the center and the periphery. Some authors to be discussed are Raul Bopp, Patrícia Galvão, Rubem Fonseca, João Guimarães Rosa, Clarice Lispector, and Ana Paula Maia.

Full details for SPAN 4485 - 20th-21st Century Brazilian Literature

This course takes the genre of melodrama as a point of departure for exploring its influence on modern and contemporary Spanish cinema. How have classical forms of melodrama, from Greek tragedy to French revolutionary theater to Hollywood, been incorporated into but also contested and revised within Spanish cinematic production? What tropes have been carried over from other cultural contexts? Which ones have been "lost in translation" and why? What are the unique aesthetic qualities of Spanish melodrama? How do melodramatic forms relate to subversion, critique and queerness? These are some of the questions we'll take up in our weekly discussions.

Full details for SPAN 4580 - Melodrama and Cinema

Fil-Hispanic literature and art has historical been a neglected area of study in Spanish departments. This course provides a survey of the Philippines' most influential cultural producers in Spanish beginning in the nineteenth-century. We will also look at how Filipino and Spanish writers, intellectuals, and state actors imagined the relationship between Spain and Philippines during and after the colonial period.

Full details for SPAN 6330 - Spain and the Philippines

Guided independent study for graduate students. For graduates interested in special problems not covered in courses.

Full details for SPAN 6400 - Special Topics in Spanish Literature

In this course, we will discuss innovative Brazilian narrative, poetry, and essays from the 20th century to the present. Some of the topics, literary movements, and debates to be addressed will include modernism, the representation of the Northeast region, Amazonian cosmogonies, speculative fiction, environmental issues, literary responses to dictatorship, issues of race, social inequality, and gender, and the relationship between the center and the periphery. Some authors to be discussed are Raul Bopp, Patrícia Galvão, Rubem Fonseca, João Guimarães Rosa, Clarice Lispector, and Ana Paula Maia.

Full details for SPAN 6485 - 20th-21st Century Brazilian Literature

This class considers planetary crisis from a Latin American perspective, attending specifically to the colonial imposition of extractivism and its continuation in the twentieth and twenty-first century as a primary path to national development.  The concept of extractivism offers a material and figurative analytic for thinking about the appropriation and commodification of life. We will explore how Latin American visual art, literature, and film lay bare extractivism's normalization of violence and offer ways of conceptualizing life otherwise, moving away from the singular logic of capital and toward the proliferation of plural ways of conceptualizing the planet.

Full details for SPAN 6800 - Extractivism to Postextractivism in Latin American Culture

This course is an introductory survey of Latin American gender debates, feminist movements, and theories from the turn of the 20th century to today.  Taking a regional perspective, we will examine the various defining strains of Latin American feminist tradition(s): 1) mass movements, activism, and mothers; 2) crossovers with anticolonial, indigenous, anticapitalist and environmental struggles; 3) local critiques of the patriarchy and diversity, and transgender theories.

Full details for SPAN 6925 - Latin American Feminisms