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

What kind of information do images - in photography, painting, and/or film - convey?  What kind of impact do they have on the minds and the bodies of their audiences?  This course foregrounds the role of visual culture in the societies where Spanish, French, Portuguese, and/or Italian is spoken, and it asks students to dwell upon how visual material interacts with spoken and written language.

Full details for ROMS 1109 - FWS: Image and Imagination

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

The comparative seminar explores pleasure and its relationship with neoliberalism. We will adopt an interdisciplinary approach and a historical trajectory, starting with the Ancient world through the contemporary. Our investigation of philosophical, literary, and filmic reflections on pleasure and neoliberalism will engage important concepts such as the market, subjectivity, race, gender, and queerness. We highlight and conceptualize how new/old media, literary, and other artistic productions facilitate the expression, the search for, and the achievement of pleasure. Through public speaking and deep attention to writing, you will refine your conceptual accounts of pleasure and neoliberalism and their mutual imbrication.

Full details for ROMS 4948 - Pleasure and Neoliberalism

This practicum is designed to better enable the TAs to meet the needs of their students in the understanding and acquisition of the linguistic forms, notions, and functions covered in their course.

Full details for ROMS 5080 - Pedagogy Practicum

The myth of landscape as a natural, external space for human contemplation, gradually ruined by technology, stubbornly refuses to die. How should we read works from a preindustrial past? Is there a precise moment in history when technology comes into what soil scientist Peter Haff calls the postcard picture of landscape? Reading in the original languages where possible, we will begin with foundational pastoral and bucolic texts from the classical, early modern, and Romantic periods before moving to contemporary science/speculative fictions. we will also read recent critical works on the "botanic turn," terraforming, posthuman ruins, and infrastructure.

Full details for ROMS 6000 - Landscape and Technology

Designed to give insight into how to formulate projects, conduct research, and publish one's work, the colloquium offers a venue for faculty-graduate student dialogue in a collegial, intellectual setting.  Meetings are biweekly, 2-3 hours, and are open to all students and faculty in Romance Studies, but required for first year students in the program.  Each meeting, two faculty members will be invited to discuss their scholarship and also a short text of their choice, to be distributed beforehand.

Full details for ROMS 6100 - Romance Studies Colloquium

The comparative seminar explores pleasure and its relationship with neoliberalism. We will adopt an interdisciplinary approach and a historical trajectory, starting with the Ancient world through the contemporary. Our investigation of philosophical, literary, and filmic reflections on pleasure and neoliberalism will engage important concepts such as the market, subjectivity, race, gender, and queerness. We highlight and conceptualize how new/old media, literary, and other artistic productions facilitate the expression, the search for, and the achievement of pleasure. Through public speaking and deep attention to writing, you will refine your conceptual accounts of pleasure and neoliberalism and their mutual imbrication.

Full details for ROMS 6948 - Pleasure and Neoliberalism

FREN 1210-FREN 1220 is a two-semester sequence.  FREN 1210 is the first 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 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 develop their writing skills by writing and editing compositions.  Readings are varied and include literary texts.  Daily preparation and active participation are required.

Full details for FREN 1210 - 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 conversation and composition French course is designed for students interested in business fields such as Hospitality, Business Management, and Marketing, those looking for an internship or a job in French-speaking businesses or students interested in exploring the language and cultures of the French-speaking business world.  The course will focus on improving oral and written skills through the acquisition of specific vocabulary and the review of essential grammatical structures commonly used in business.  Students will use authentic written, visual and listening materials and engage in interactive activities relevant to the professional world and its intercultural dimension.

Full details for FREN 2080 - French for Business

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

Working on pronunciation improves your ability to communicate in two ways. First, learning to distinguish and produce all of the sounds of French increases both your ability to understand the spoken language and your ability to make yourself understood when speaking. Second, it allows you to diminish the foreign accent that can distract some listeners and prevent you from getting your message across even if you speak quite fluently. This course focuses specifically on accent reduction and should interest anyone intending to use French in such professional arenas as international business, law, and project management, the import-export and hospitality industries, art restoration and curation, secondary and post-secondary teaching, or the performing arts. By the end of the semester students will achieve noticeably improved pronunciation, greater fluency, improved aural comprehension, and increased self-assurance in spoken French.

Full details for FREN 2092 - Pronunciation of Standard French

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

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

The French Revolution was one of the most dramatic upheavals in history, sweeping away centuries of tradition and ushering in the political and cultural modernity we arguably still live in today. Although often remembered for mass executions by guillotine and the rise of Napoleon, it was much more. Between 1789 and 1815, the French people experimented with virtually every form of government known to the modern world: absolutist monarchy, constitutional monarchy, representative democracy, radical left-wing republicanism, oligarchy, and right-wing autocracy. This course explores the rapidly changing political and social landscape of this extraordinary period, the evolution of political culture (the arts, theater, songs, fashion, the cult of the guillotine), and shifting attitudes towards gender, race, and slavery.

Full details for FREN 2860 - The French Revolution

Part theory, part textual analysis, and part creative writing, this course aims to help students develop a richer, more nuanced understanding and command of both the spoken and written language. As students refine their understanding of style and learn techniques for characterizing stylistic varieties, they apply these concepts both to the reading of a singular (and yet very plural) literary text. Raymond Queneau's Exercices de style, and to the writing of new exercices de style of their own. We also consider the relevance of stylistics to translation and of translation to Queneau's text.  Seminar-style participation in class discussions and activities is expected.

Full details for FREN 3120 - French Stylistics

This course will introduce students to some of the highlights of France's contributions throughout its long history in art, architcture, music, philosophy, political theory and literature to Western civilization.  We will consider works from the Middle Ages to the Revolution.  We will read texts from epic poems of the medieval period and study romanesque and gothic architecture.  The imposition of absolute monarchy will lead to discussion of Classicism idealized drama and painting.  Finally, we will introduce the important French thinkers of the Enlightenment whose political theories were in large part adopted by the farmers of the U. S. Constitution.  All this while keeping in mind Walter Benjamin's remarks on the often hidden cost of the great contributions of Western civilization."There is no document of civilization that is not at the same time a document of barbarism."  What and who was sacrificed in order to create French civilization?

Full details for FREN 3240 - French Classics

This course will offer an overview of theoretical and historical responses to bodily and cognitive difference. What was the status of people with (dis)abilities in the past, when they were called monsters, freaks, abnormal? How are all of these concepts related, and how have they changed over time? How have we moved from isolation and institutionalization towards universal design and accessibility as the dominant concepts relative to (dis)ability? Why is this shift from focusing on individual differences as a negative attribute to reshaping our architectural and more broadly social constructions important to everyone? Authors to be studied include: Georges Canguilhem, Michel Foucault, Lennard Davis, Tobin Siebers, David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder, and Jasbir Puar.

Full details for FREN 3520 - (Dis)ability Studies: A Brief History

The course is a survey of Feminist Islamic thinkers from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt, and their diaspora, featuring both French and Arabic texts in English translation. The purpose of the course is to critically explore the competing treatment of major gendered tropes in a Muslim context (the veil, the harem, polygamy, etc.) by North African thinkers, through their examination of qur'anic surats/hadiths, the evolution of tafsirs (tradion of qur'anic exegesis) as well as their conflicting approaches to secular western feminism. Readings might include: Fatema Mernissi, Asmaa Lamrabet, Qasim Amin, Naguib Mahfoud, Assia Djebar, Mona Eltahawy, and Nawal El-Saadawi.

Full details for FREN 3685 - Feminism and Islam in North Africa

The class is an introduction to reading and interpreting women's stories as they are represented, written, and at times erased before being recovered in French and Francophone history and cultures. The course will analyze several figures/icons/images from the Old Regime to our time. The goal of the course is to familiarize students with the analyses of different strategies and techniques of representation (esthetic, historical, scientific, autobiographical and fictional).  The corpus of works studied will include fictional and historical writing as well as paintings and films. Examples of such case studies could include: Joan of Arc, Marguerite de Valois, Marie-Antoinette, heroines of fairy tales, Camille Claudel, unknown women workers, or well known contemporary women authors such as Marguerite Duras, Marjane Satrapi, or Condé.

Full details for FREN 3710 - Women's Stories I

This course is a broad survey of theoretical and aesthetic works that have emerged within the context of postcolonial studies, decolonial and critical race theories in an attempt to grapple with trans-cultural forms of racial and national identity that characterize the conact zones produced both historically by colonialism, slavery, and indenture labor, and more recently by migration. The seminar will ask the following questions: How did theories of hybridity emerge in the colonial context, and how did they evolve in their postcolonial enunciation? How did Carribean and Indian Ocean intellectual traditions interact with and refute hybridity through respectively, Creoleness and Coolitude? How do more recent decolonial approaches rearticulate questions of race in settle colonial contexts

Full details for FREN 3930 - Hybridity, Creoleness, Coolitude

"Is love an art? Then it rquires knowledge and effort," writes Erich Fromm in the first chapter of The Art of Loving. His question (from 1956) is not a new one. This course engages with the long tradition of thinking about love as an art, not merely something one falls into or out of, but something one does or fails to do.  We'll start with Plato's Phaedrus Ovid's ironic Art of Love before proceeding to three great medieval depictions of love: Andreas Capellanus' On Love, Bernard of Clairvaux's On Loving God, and Chrétien de Troyes Lancelot. We'll also look at some of the more provocative modern arts of love, from Fromm to Foucault, Barthes to Gillian Rose.

Full details for FREN 4050 - The Art of Love

Guided independent study of special topics.

Full details for FREN 4190 - Special Topics in French Literature

A number of well-known French novels have been adapted, appropriated, and reimagined, giving them a life well beyond France and beyond the time in which they were produced. We will explore how one novel can serve various, sometimes contradictory, purposes in different times and cultures by examining the context in which it was written, the text itself, and the variations that have arisen over time.

Full details for FREN 4265 - One French Novel

Consult director of undergraduate studies for more information.

Full details for FREN 4290 - Honors Work in French

The myth of landscape as a natural, external space for human contemplation, gradually ruined by technology, stubbornly refuses to die. How should we read works from a preindustrial past? Is there a precise moment in history when technology comes into what soil scientist Peter Haff calls the postcard picture of landscape? Reading in the original languages where possible, we will begin with foundational pastoral and bucolic texts from the classical, early modern, and Romantic periods before moving to contemporary science/speculative fictions. we will also read recent critical works on the "botanic turn," terraforming, posthuman ruins, and infrastructure.

Full details for FREN 6000 - Landscape and Technology

"Is love an art? Then it rquires knowledge and effort," writes Erich Fromm in the first chapter of The Art of Loving. His question (from 1956) is not a new one. This course engages with the long tradition of thinking about love as an art, not merely something one falls into or out of, but something one does or fails to do. We'll start with Plato's Phaedrus Ovid's ironic Art of Love before proceeding to three great medieval depictions of love: Andreas Capellanus' On Love, Bernard of Clairvaux's On Loving God, and Chrétien de Troyes Lancelot.  We'll also look at some of the more provocative modern arts of love, from Fromm to Foucault, Barthes to Gillian Rose.

Full details for FREN 6050 - The Art of Love

Guided independent study for graduate students.

Full details for FREN 6390 - Special Topics in French Literature

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

The Jewish community of Rome is the oldest one in all of Europe, dating back to 200 B. C., and the authors of some of the most important twentieth century works of Italian literature are Jewish. In this course we will examine how some of these writers (Moravia, Bassani, Primo Levi, Carlo Levi, Ginzburg, Sereni, Bruck, Loewenthal, Janaczek, Elkann and Pipermo) have articulated the self against the background of the historical events that have shaped the past hundred years; two world wars and different social movements of the pre- and post- WWII eras. This seminar includes two film screenings.

Full details for ITAL 1113 - FWS: Writing Italy, Writing the Self: Jewish-Italian Lit and the Long 20th Century

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 1120 - Elementary Italian In Rome II

ITAL 1201 is a fast-paced, introductory-level course, designed for students with no previous knowledge of Italian.  Students will be guided in developing four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) in the context of everyday topics (school, housing, travel personal preferences, simple exchanges about past, future and possible events, etc.).  They will also be introduced to culturally acceptable modes of oral and written communication in Italian, some fundamentals of Italian history, and select current social and political issues.

Full details for ITAL 1201 - Italian I

This is an all-skills course designed to improve speaking and reading ability, establish a groundwork for correct writing, and provide a substantial grammar review.

Full details for ITAL 2110 - Italian Intermediate Composition and Conversation I in Rome

This course provides a review of composition, reading, pronunciation, and grammar review, as well as guided practice in conversation.  It emphasizes the development of accurate and idiomatic expression in the language.

Full details for ITAL 2130 - Italian Intermediate Composition and Conversation II in Rome

An intermediate-level course that aims to further develop intercultural, reading, listening, speaking, and writing abilities.   Students will be guided in perfecting their communications skills, improving their cultural proficiency, and developing a critical eye toward printed and visual material drawn from literature, history, politics, 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 parts of contemporary novels.

Full details for ITAL 2201 - Italian III

This course aims to introduce students to Italian literature mainly through readings in prose and poetry from the 20th and 21st century. The course includes significant practice in grammar, vocabulary building, and composition. Course Topic: Living Together in a multicultural society. Our principal reading will be Scontro di civiltà per un ascensore a piazza Vittorio, a 2006 award-winning novel by Algerian-Italian writer Amara Lakhous who came to Italy in 1995 as a political refugee; with this novel, he invites Italian readers to examine their 21st-century reality through the eyes of the immigrant.

Full details for ITAL 2203 - Languages-Literatures-Identities

This course will introduce students to sustained study of one Italian masterpiece (a literary, philosophical, historical, or scientific work, or a major achievement in the visual, performance, or media arts).

Full details for ITAL 2240 - One Italian Masterpiece I

This course is dedicated to studying important works of literature that address what it means, in the Renaissance, to strive for excellence as a man or as a woman, especially in the public sphere and in love.

Full details for ITAL 3580 - Creating Renaissance Man (and Woman)

Guided independent study of special topics.

Full details for ITAL 4190 - Special Topics in Italian Literature

Consult director of undergraduate studies for more information.

Full details for ITAL 4290 - Honors in Italian Literature

The myth of landscape as a natural, external space for human contemplation, gradually ruined by technology, stubbornly refuses to die. How should we read works from a preindustrial past? Is there a precise moment in history when technology comes into what soil scientist Peter Haff calls the postcard picture of landscape? Reading in the original languages where possible, we will begin with foundational pastoral and bucolic texts from the classical, early modern, and Romantic periods before moving to contemporary science/speculative fictions. we will also read recent critical works on the "botanic turn," terraforming, posthuman ruins, and infrastructure.

Full details for ITAL 6000 - Landscape and Technology

Guided independent study for graduate students.

Full details for ITAL 6390 - Special Topics in Italian Literature

This seminar will be dedicated to reading and analysis of Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron (1349-51), a masterpiece of Italian literature whose popularity has been renewed as it has been proclaimed "the 14th-century Italian book that shows us how to survive coronavirus" and the "medieval book to read while under quarantine."  Particular attention will be dedicated to: gender, social class, the ethical dimension of literature, and Boccaccio's refashioning of Italian, Latin, French, and Provencal source material.  Students can read the Decameron in the original Italian or in English translation.

Full details for ITAL 6450 - Decameron

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

Full details for POLSH 1131 - Elementary Polish I

In this course, students continue working on their ability to speak, write, read, and understand contemporary Polish.  Students will also enhance their intercultural competency.  The instructor uses communicative language teaching with emphasis on structured input.  Students use the textbook and workbook "Hurra!  Po polsku 2" supplemented by Polish-English chapter dictionaries.  This class covers chapters 1-10.  If a student is not sure of his or her language level, he or she can contact the Polish instructor, Ewa Bachminska, at eb583@cornell.edu.

Full details for POLSH 2033 - Intermediate Polish I

This course introduces students with no knowledge of Portuguese and with limited or no knowledge of Spanish 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 1210 - Elementary Portuguese I

This is an intensive introductory course for those who are native/near native speakers of Spanish.  Emphasis will be given in the development of the four skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing), as well as the appreciation and awareness of Portuguese-speaking cultures.  Students will engage with a broad range of topics related to Afro-Luso-Brazilian culture through art (e.g., painting, theater, cinema, literature, photography, dance sculpture, etc).

Full details for PORT 2010 - Intermediate Portuguese for Spanish Speakers I

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 for 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.

Full details for SPAN 1120 - Elementary Spanish: Review and Continuation

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 1210 students may take SPAN 1120 (fall) or SPAN 1220 (spring).

Full details for SPAN 1210 - Elementary Spanish I

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 low-intermediate course expands Heritage students' confidence and competence in Spanish by providing opportunities to build upon the conversational skills they have. Through literary texts, other readings, music, films and the visual arts students broaden their vocabulary, improve grammatical accuracy, develop writing skills and enrich their understanding of the cultures of the Spanish-speaking world. The heritage student grew up speaking Spanish and finished high school in the U.S. 

Full details for SPAN 1250 - Spanish for Heritage Speakers I

Full details for SPAN 1305 - FWS:Narrating the Spanish Civil War

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

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 explores major texts and themes of the Hispanic tradition from the 11th to the 17th centuries. We will examine general questions on literary analysis and the relationship between literature and history around certain events, such as medieval multicultural Iberia, the creation of the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century and the expulsion of the Jews in 1492; the encounter between the Old and the New Worlds; the 'opposition' of high and low in popular culture, and of the secular and the sacred in poetry and prose. Readings may be drawn from medieval short stories and miracle collections; chivalric romances, Columbus, Lazarillo de Tormes, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderón, and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, among others.

Full details for SPAN 2170 - Early Modern Iberian 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

An introduction to Spain's history, plural cultures, and present-day society. Through a series of key literary works, films, and other visual representations we will explore such topics as the place of tradition, religion, and the family in modern Spain. Our focus will be on the transformation of Spain from an authoritarian state under General Franco's dictatorship (1939-1975) into a remarkably diverse and pluralistic nation in which linguistic, cultural, political, and gender differences have been consecrated in a very progressive legislation. This course satisfies the main requirement for the minor in Spanish, may be used as an elective for the major, and is crucial to those planning to study abroad in Spain in the near future.

Full details for SPAN 2230 - Perspectives on Spain

This course offers a broad introduction to Iberian cultures from the Middle Ages to the present.  Focusing on three main themes-space, culture, and everyday life-our main objective throughout the term will be to explore different perspectives unique to the ever-evolving place we now call "Spain." The first half of the term will concentrate on aspects of space, culture, and everyday life in the medieval and early modern context, while the second half of the term will examine the same themes, questions, and concepts but from a modern and contemporary point of view using a wide variety of disciplines and media to explore them, from history, newspapers and music, to painting, film, and television.

Full details for SPAN 2235 - Perspectives on Spain 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)

Documentaries are born out of the necessity to capture the real and to tell a truth.  When we watch documentaries, we tend to comfortably rely on that claim and, often, take what they teach us as indisputable evidence of what reality is.  In this course, we will put into questions the "reality" that documentaries portray-and the possibility itself of portraying reality-by discussing a selection of Latin American documentaries that raise important issues regarding the ethics and politics of representation. In our discussions, we will critically engage with the boundaries of the cinematic frame and debate the ethical responsibilities of the filmmaker, the value and the political and social impact of the image, the role of the spectator, and the implications of filming and being filmed by an "other".

Full details for SPAN 3710 - Latin American Documentary

What can laughter do?  Upon reading a funny passage by Jorge Luis Borges, Michel Foucault observed that his ensuing laughter "shattered all the familiar landmarks of my thought."  The implication is that humor is an analytic: a way of revealing the relationships that underlie society.  This course will explore how laughter has been mobilized in Latin American literature and film to probe social hierachies and create community through shared pleasure.  We will study the affordances of comedy, satire, and the absurd, in connection with subjects that some might consider "no laughing matter."

Full details for SPAN 3750 - The Last Laugh: Humor in Latin American Literature and Film

What place does sin have in contemporary culture, from ethics to aesthetics?  How do we consider sin, as a condition, an act, a choice?  How does a particular community-religious, literary, ethnic-consider and use sin, for itself and against others?  What are the limits that sin establishes between different notions of the divine, of the self, and of the other?  How is sin used in literature or art to emphasize or condition behavior and interpretation?  As a brief historical and philosophical exploration of the concept of sin, we will trace the development of the list of seven deadly sins from Evagrius and Cassian to Gregory.  We will then explore the sins in a global Hispanic context through critical essays, works of art, literature, and film, and perhaps include a brief digression into music.

Full details for SPAN 3795 - Sin:Theory and Practice

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

Full details for SPAN 4190 - Special Topics in Spanish Literature

Consult director of undergraduate studies for more information.

Full details for SPAN 4290 - Honors Work I

Topic: Writing Through the Forest in Search of Trees. Hello, Humanities Student! Are you a plotter or a pantser? Not sure? Come and join us to find out, and to gain valuable insight into what kind of a writer you are, and how to manage that writer most effectively and productively. This theme-centered methods seminar, through a communal focus on trees, woods, glens, and copses in the pre-modern world, will hone in on the most indispensable tool in the humanist's belt: writing. From the generation of ideas, to their organization into an outline (or a blueprint, or whatever euphemism we, as a group or as individuals, decide to apply to the initial, tangled pile of yarn) to the first draft. Followed by frank and constructive criticism of the initial draft as a group and in pairs, and then on to the part that all students—really, all humanists…okay, all writers—find to be the greatest struggle: "Your paper has some good ideas, but it really needs a rewrite." Now what do you do? As we write, and rewrite, we will also read widely. In addition to primary sources, scholarly articles and essays, we will include criticism, personal essay, theory, excerpts from fiction, and more, in an effort to open students' writing up to a myriad of possibilities for persuasive and compelling written communication.

Full details for SPAN 4570 - Methods in Medieval

In this course, we will take an inter-and multidisciplinary approach that examines works of fiction, film, performance, and photography to explore how specters intervene in and mold the social, political, and cultural landscape of contemporary Latin America.  We will discuss how different spectral figures challenge official narratives of memory, ground political authority, complicate transitions and endings, and fuel social movements and revolutions.  As we engage with overlapping times, uncanny spaces, and restless bodies, we will also consider how spectrality shapes is shaped by the development of new media, the contemporary resurgence of populist discourse, the global migration crisis, and the urgency of ecological concerns.

Full details for SPAN 4666 - Specters of Latin America

What does it mean to be civilized?  What does it mean to be barbaric? Who decides who is civilized and who is not?  Is there an intrinsic relationship between the two?  This course studies the way a colonial and racist heritage, which divided the world into 'civilized' and 'savage,' 'European ' and 'cannibal,' was taken up again after colonial independence as a key question for Latin American thinkers concerned with modernization, anticolonialism and dictatorship.  Starting in the nineteenth century, we will trace the continuities and transformations of the concepts of civilization and barbarism in diverse local contexts of Latin America up until today.

Full details for SPAN 4715 - Civilization and Barbarism

This course explores Latin American literature from the 60's onwards, taking a look at the changing landscape, from the heyday of the Boom writers and Garcia Marquez' "magical realism", to urban fiction in the nineties. We will study authors such as Garcia Marquez, Manuel Puig, Daimela Eltit, Roberto Bolaño, Alberto Fuguet, Mario Bellatin, and Mayra Santos-Febres.

Full details for SPAN 4830 - 21st Century Latin American Literature

The myth of landscape as a natural, external space for human contemplation, gradually ruined by technology, stubbornly refuses to die. How should we read works from a preindustrial past? Is there a precise moment in history when technology comes into what soil scientist Peter Haff calls the postcard picture of landscape? Reading in the original languages where possible, we will begin with foundational pastoral and bucolic texts from the classical, early modern, and Romantic periods before moving to contemporary science/speculative fictions. we will also read recent critical works on the "botanic turn," terraforming, posthuman ruins, and infrastructure.

Full details for SPAN 6000 - Landscape and Technology

This course is designed to help doctoral students (in the third year and beyond) fine-tune their academic writing in English.  Over the course of the semester, we will cultivate effective and sustainable writing practices while also develping a toolkit to support writing across academic genres, including the prospectus, abstract, article and dissertation chapter.  Unlike a traditional seminar, this workshop will entail weekly writing, revising, critique, and peer-review.

Full details for SPAN 6010 - Academic Writing Workshop

In the field of aesthetics, the uncanny refers to an affective state, most commonly the sensation of encountering something-an object, a place, a situation-as both familiar and strange at the same time.  Such experience of the "strange-familiar" (unheimlich) produces a disquieting sense of uncertainty, uneasiness, or doubt and may even spark extreme feelings of alienation, anxiety, dread, horror, and repulsion.  This seminar explores the philosophical origins and conceptual terrain of the uncanny in relation to 20th and 21st century artistic, literary, architectural and cinematic production.  If the uncanny traditionally signals a blurring of categories (familiar/unfamiliar, truth/fiction, reality/imagination) resulting in a fundamental distrust of observed reality, then what might its contemporary iterations reveal about our age of pervasive suspicion?

Full details for SPAN 6190 - The UnCanny

Guided independent study of specific topics. For graduate students interested in special problems not covered in courses.

Full details for SPAN 6390 - Special Topics in Spanish Literature

Topic: Writing Through the Forest in Search of Trees. Hello, Humanities Student! Are you a plotter or a pantser? Not sure? Come and join us to find out, and to gain valuable insight into what kind of a writer you are, and how to manage that writer most effectively and productively. This theme-centered methods seminar, through a communal focus on trees, woods, glens, and copses in the pre-modern world, will hone in on the most indispensable tool in the humanist's belt: writing. From the generation of ideas, to their organization into an outline (or a blueprint, or whatever euphemism we, as a group or as individuals, decide to apply to the initial, tangled pile of yarn) to the first draft. Followed by frank and constructive criticism of the initial draft as a group and in pairs, and then on to the part that all students—really, all humanists…okay, all writers—find to be the greatest struggle: "Your paper has some good ideas, but it really needs a rewrite." Now what do you do? As we write, and rewrite, we will also read widely. In addition to primary sources, scholarly articles and essays, we will include criticism, personal essay, theory, excerpts from fiction, and more, in an effort to open students' writing up to a myriad of possibilities for persuasive and compelling written communication.

Full details for SPAN 6590 - Methods in Medieval

In this course, we will take an inter-and multidisciplinary approach that examines works of fiction, film, performance, and photography to explore how specters intervene in and mold the social, political, and cultural landscape of contemporary Latin America.  We will discuss how different spectral figures challenge official narratives of memory, ground political authority, complicate transitions and endings, and fuel social movements and revolutions.  As we engage with overlapping times, uncanny spaces, and restless bodies, we will also consider how spectrality shapes is shaped by the development of new media, the contemporary resurgence of populist discourse, the global migration crisis, and the urgency of ecological concerns.

Full details for SPAN 6666 - Specters of Latin America

This course explores Latin American literature from the 60's onwards, taking a look at the changing landscape, from the heyday of the Boom writers and Garcia Marquez' "magical realism", to urban fiction in the nineties. We will study authors such as Garcia Marquez, Manuel Puig, Daimela Eltit, Roberto Bolaño, Alberto Fuguet, Mario Bellatin, and Mayra Santos-Febres.

Full details for SPAN 6835 - 21st Century Latin American Literature

The Marx-Engels corpus remains one of the most widely read and translated bodies of work.  One of its many effects has been an international profusion of more writings, where diverse authors have sought to develop, respond, refute, question, criticize, analyze, update, these works.  This course will trace some of the greatest Marxist spin-offs of the 20th and 21st centuries, primarily in the Spanish, Italian and French-speaking worlds.  We will examine how these texts have been inspired by the Marxist critical spirit to distinct ends, locating themselves in the ambiguous space between wild reading and unigue theory.

Full details for SPAN 6870 - Marxisms, Otherwise