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

These seminars offer an introduction to the humanities by exploring historical, cultural, social, and political themes. Students will explore themes in critical dialogue with a range of texts and media drawn from the arts, humanities, and/or humanistic social sciences. Guest speakers, including Cornell faculty and Society for the Humanities Fellows, will present from different disciplines and points of view. Students will make field trips to relevant local sites and visit Cornell special collections and archives. Students enrolled in these seminars will have the opportunity to participate in additional programming related to the annual focus theme of Cornell's Society for the Humanities and the Humanities Scholars Program for undergraduate humanities research. (ARKEO-COS)

Full details for ROMS 2750 - Introduction to Humanities

Is Homo sapiens the only species capable of producing visual art? Nonhuman great apes, especially, seem to be able to draw, paint, and enjoy such works. Our prehistoric ancestors are responsible for the adornment of the Lascaux, Altamira, or Chauvet caves. Our next of kin in the distant past (including Neanderthals) also displayed symbolic activity involving visual (re)presentation. Avant-garde or Aboriginal practices, “outsider art” concurrently challenge how we define the visual realm. Thus, the purpose of this interdisciplinary class is to revisit the contemporary debate on the dawn of art by bringing together research in paleoanthropology and primatology at the interface of aesthetics, cognitive science, and speculative theory. The course could also allow students to participate in related research projects undertaken in the Humanities Lab.

Full details for ROMS 3837 - Dawn of Art: Apes, Prehistory, Theory

The most intense public encounter between Existentialism and Marxism occurred in immediate post-WWII Europe, its structure remaining alive internationally. Existentialist questions have been traced from pre-Socratic thinkers through Dante, Shakespeare, and Cervantes onward; just as roots of modern materialism extend to Epicurus and Lucretius, or Leopardi. This course will focus on differing theories and concomitant practices concerned with “alienation,” “anxiety,” “crisis,” “death of God,” “nihilism,” “rebellion or revolution.” Crucial are possible relations between fiction and non-fiction; also among philosophy, theology, psychoanalysis, and political theory. Other authors may include: Althusser, de Beauvoir, Beckett, Büchner, Camus, Che, Dostoevsky, Fanon, Genet, Gide, Gramsci, O. Gross, Hamsun, Heidegger, Husserl, Jaspers, C.L.R. James, Kafka, Kierkegaard, Lagerkvist, Lacan, Lenin, Marx, Merleau-Ponty, Mishima, G. Novack, Nietzsche, Ortega, Pirandello, W. Reich, Sartre, Shestov, Tillich, Unamuno. There is also cinema. Taught in English.

Full details for ROMS 4210 - Existentialism

What is the “meaning of meaning,” exactly? Are signification, significance, sense, and meaning one and the same? Is “semantics” a sub-branch of linguistics, or what GPT “does,” or a path to poetry? This transdisciplinary research seminar will put to the test vastly different theories—and practices—of meaning, ranging from the display of signification in the verbal arts to the task of philosophical definition, from the technology of the dictionary to that of computerized word embedding, from the interplay between cognition and communication to the scholarly art of reading. Our scope will be broad and comparative, across disciplines, languages, historical periods, and genres. The course could also allow students to participate in related research projects undertaken in the Humanities Lab.

Full details for ROMS 4846 - Theories & Practices of Meaning: Literature, Semantics, AI

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

This course calls into question the public use of history. The past is permanently mobilized according to the culture and the problems of the present. Over the last decades, "memory" - a general concept used as a synonym for remembering, history, imagination, or representations of the past - arose at the heart of the public sphere, becoming an object of struggles. In some historical circumstances, the past is suddenly "reactivated" and irrupts in the present by claiming its "rights," the end of oblivion, and rescue of the vanquished. Considering some well-known controversies about slavery, colonialism, fascism, communism, civil wars, the Holocaust, etc., the course aims at exploring how collective memories are interwoven with cultural industry, public policies (museums, commemorations, laws, etc.), and history writing.

Full details for ROMS 6225 - The Politics of Memory: Uses of the Past

What is the “meaning of meaning,” exactly? Are signification, significance, sense, and meaning one and the same? Is “semantics” a sub-branch of linguistics, or what GPT “does,” or a path to poetry? This transdisciplinary research seminar will put to the test vastly different theories—and practices—of meaning, ranging from the display of signification in the verbal arts to the task of philosophical definition, from the technology of the dictionary to that of computerized word embedding, from the interplay between cognition and communication to the scholarly art of reading. Our scope will be broad and comparative, across disciplines, languages, historical periods, and genres. The course could also allow students to participate in related research projects undertaken in the Humanities Lab.

Full details for ROMS 6846 - Theories & Practices of Meaning: Literature, Semantics, AI

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 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

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 - French through News, Current Events, and International Relations

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 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, Mallarme, Michaux, Proust, Rimbaud, Sarraute, and Sartre.

Full details for FREN 3210 - Modern French Literature and Culture

The concept of intellectual - the writer or scholar who takes a political commitment - was born in France at the end of the nineteenth century. From the Dreyfus Affaire to the recent polemics on French identity, passing through Vichy, the Algerian War and May 68, intellectuals established a symbiotic relationship between culture and politics, becoming a sort of national brand, object of both admiration and contempt outside of the country. The aim of this course is to revisit some crucial moments of this history, focusing on different attempts to define the nature and function of the intellectual, from Emile Zola to Jean-Paul Sartre, from Simone de Beavoir to Michel Foucault.

Full details for FREN 3460 - Intellectuals: A French History

Is Homo sapiens the only species capable of producing visual art? Nonhuman great apes, especially, seem to be able to draw, paint, and enjoy such works. Our prehistoric ancestors are responsible for the adornment of the Lascaux, Altamira, or Chauvet caves. Our next of kin in the distant past (including Neanderthals) also displayed symbolic activity involving visual (re)presentation. Avant-garde or Aboriginal practices, “outsider art” concurrently challenge how we define the visual realm. Thus, the purpose of this interdisciplinary class is to revisit the contemporary debate on the dawn of art by bringing together research in paleoanthropology and primatology at the interface of aesthetics, cognitive science, and speculative theory. The course could also allow students to participate in related research projects undertaken in the Humanities Lab.

Full details for FREN 3837 - Dawn of Art: Apes, Prehistory, Theory

This course examines a range of exciting and provocative 20th- and 21st- century theoretical paradigms for thinking about literature, language and culture. These approaches provide differing, though often overlapping, entryways into theoretical analysis, including structuralism and post-structuralism, translation studies, Black studies, Afro-Diasporic Studies, postcolonial and decolonial studies, performance studies, media theory and cinema/media studies, the digital humanities, psychoanalysis and trauma theory, gender studies and queer studies, studies of the Anthropocene/environmental studies, and animal studies. Occasional invited guests, lectures and class discussions will provide students with a facility for close textual analysis, a knowledge of major currents of thought in the humanities, and an appreciation for the uniqueness and complexity of language and media.

Full details for FREN 3921 - Literary Theory on the Edge

Madness fascinates, mental illness frightens. They are realms of scholarship as well as objects of practical knowledge and representation for the arts and the social actors themselves. This seminar aims to explore the ways in which people who are affected by psychological disorders and strive to face them, are depicted in the 20th and 21st century popular culture. What relationship exists between the medical understanding of these disorders and their portrayals in literature, recovery narratives, cinema, TV series and documentaries? Do contemporary pictures of madness in fiction contribute to demystify and destigmatize mental illness, or do they reinforce negative stereotypes? Are there differences between French fictions and American ones? This seminar will examine each oeuvre as a case study with the resources of critical studies.

Full details for FREN 4070 - Madness Narratives

This course is a survey of feminist thinkers from North Africa and its 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 (tradition of qur’anic exegesis) as well as their conflicting approaches to secular western feminism. Authors include: Fatima Mernissi, Assia Djebar, Qasim Amin, Asmaa Lamrabet, etc.

Full details for FREN 4080 - Feminism and Islam in North Africa

Guided independent study of special topics.

Full details for FREN 4200 - Special Topics in French Literature

This seminar will explore some of the most important psychoanalytic approaches to politics and collective life. from Sigmund Freud's Mass Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego to works by Le Bon, Reich, Althusser, Fanon, Lacan, Safouan, Zizek and Dolar. Questions explored will include the relationship between mass and individual psychology; the role of unconscious identification (ideal ego, superego) in group formation, nationalism, xenophobia and racism; fantasy and politics; and the people considered as a subject and political actor. Events and contexts discussed will range from the French Revolution to the Nazi Reich to colonialization and contemporary authoritarianisms. Works of political theory by Rousseau, Kant, Marx, Arendt, Balibar and Ranciere will be put in dialogue with psychoanalytic readings.

Full details for FREN 4240 - Psychoanalysis and Politics

Consult director of undergraduate studies for more information.

Full details for FREN 4300 - Honors Work in French

What is the “meaning of meaning,” exactly? Are signification, significance, sense, and meaning one and the same? Is “semantics” a sub-branch of linguistics, or what GPT “does,” or a path to poetry? This transdisciplinary research seminar will put to the test vastly different theories—and practices—of meaning, ranging from the display of signification in the verbal arts to the task of philosophical definition, from the technology of the dictionary to that of computerized word embedding, from the interplay between cognition and communication to the scholarly art of reading. Our scope will be broad and comparative, across disciplines, languages, historical periods, and genres. The course could also allow students to participate in related research projects undertaken in the Humanities Lab.

Full details for FREN 4846 - Theories & Practices of Meaning: Literature, Semantics, AI

This course is a survey of feminist thinkers from North Africa and its 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 (tradition of qur’anic exegesis) as well as their conflicting approaches to secular western feminism. Authors include: Fatima Mernissi, Assia Djebar, Qasim Amin, Asmaa Lamrabet, etc.

Full details for FREN 6080 - Feminism and Islam in North Africa

This course calls into question the public use of history. The past is permanently mobilized according to the culture and the problems of the present. Over the last decades, "memory" - a general concept used as a synonym for remembering, history, imagination, or representations of the past - arose at the heart of the public sphere, becoming an object of struggles. In some historical circumstances, the past is suddenly "reactivated" and irrupts in the present by claiming its "rights," the end of oblivion, and rescue of the vanquished. Considering some well-known controversies about slavery, colonialism, fascism, communism, civil wars, the Holocaust, etc., the course aims at exploring how collective memories are interwoven with cultural industry, public policies (museums, commemorations, laws, etc.), and history writing.

Full details for FREN 6225 - The Politics of Memory: Uses of the Past

Guided independent study for graduate students.

Full details for FREN 6400 - Special Topics in French Literature

What is the “meaning of meaning,” exactly? Are signification, significance, sense, and meaning one and the same? Is “semantics” a sub-branch of linguistics, or what GPT “does,” or a path to poetry? This transdisciplinary research seminar will put to the test vastly different theories—and practices—of meaning, ranging from the display of signification in the verbal arts to the task of philosophical definition, from the technology of the dictionary to that of computerized word embedding, from the interplay between cognition and communication to the scholarly art of reading. Our scope will be broad and comparative, across disciplines, languages, historical periods, and genres. The course could also allow students to participate in related research projects undertaken in the Humanities Lab.

Full details for FREN 6846 - Theories & Practices of Meaning: Literature, Semantics, AI

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

Students will practice writing in Italian by engaging with a variety of genres of narrative fiction and non-fiction–short stories, personal essays and short reportages. Studied texts will include selections from Dino Buzzati, Italo Calvino, Goffredo Parise, Umberto Eco, Natalia Ginzburg, Giuseppe Pontiggia and Andrea Bajani. The readings will be organized according to four thematic areas (narrating the city; narrating memory; narrating emotions; narrating the imaginary). Students will experiment with aspects of narrative and storytelling techniques through hands-on exercises, detailed reading responses, and by workshopping their own writing. As part of their craft, students will write both creative and analytical responses in Italian, culminating in a class anthology as their final project for the semester.

Full details for ITAL 2276 - Narrating Italy: Practice and Theory

From 2024’s “Amalficore” to the current “Euromaxxing” trend, social media has transformed Italy into a collection of picture-perfect destinations – a playground where countryside and city, culture and nature, are packaged into a seamless visual fantasy. But what lies before, behind, and around these postcard-perfect frames? This course examines how film, photography, and literature have represented, aestheticized, obscured, and helped produce Italy’s many unruly landscapes. We will explore postwar reconstruction, industrialization, migration, mass tourism, real-estate development, and environmental crisis, questioning familiar distinctions between rural and urban, nature and technology, human and nonhuman, and the touristic and the authentic. Films by Rossellini, Antonioni, and Sossai, photographs by Basilico and Ghirri, and literary works by Calvino, Ortese, and Ferrante will allow us to read landscape as an archive of social, political, and ecological change. Taught in English.

Full details for ITAL 3370 - Unruly Italian Landscapes

Guided independent study of special topics.

Full details for ITAL 4200 - Special Topics in Italian Literature

Consult director of undergraduate studies for more information.

Full details for ITAL 4300 - Honors in Italian Literature

This course calls into question the public use of history. The past is permanently mobilized according to the culture and the problems of the present. Over the last decades, "memory" - a general concept used as a synonym for remembering, history, imagination, or representations of the past - arose at the heart of the public sphere, becoming an object of struggles. In some historical circumstances, the past is suddenly "reactivated" and irrupts in the present by claiming its "rights," the end of oblivion, and rescue of the vanquished. Considering some well-known controversies about slavery, colonialism, fascism, communism, civil wars, the Holocaust, etc., the course aims at exploring how collective memories are interwoven with cultural industry, public policies (museums, commemorations, laws, etc.), and history writing.

Full details for ITAL 6225 - The Politics of Memory: Uses of the Past

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 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 11-20. 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 2034 - Intermediate 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 course focuses on basic oral communication in Portuguese, with emphasis placed on developing speaking and listening skills and strategies in a culturally relevant context. It is designed for students with limited or no knowledge of Portuguese and those with a background in another Romance Language.

Full details for PORT 1502 - Conversational Skills for Portuguese in Global Contexts

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

This course provides an introduction and overview of Brazilian culture. It will study different periods of Brazilian history, through the analysis of films, literature, essays, visual arts, and music. Students will explore different definitions of Brazilian identity and Brazilianness focusing on key topics including the formation of the colonial Brazil and the emergence of the nation of Brazil as a tropical paradise; slavery and abolition; the particularities century; and the contradictions of the modernization process throughout the 20th century. We will consider elements of Brazilian popular culture such as Carnival, Samba, and telenovels, and some of the most important cultural movements of the 20th century, such as Modernismo, Cinema Novo, and Tropicalia. The primary objective of the course is to provide students with the relevant background to understand Brazilian cultural history.

Full details for PORT 2800 - Perspectives on Brazil

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

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, Hernandez, Marti, Dario, Agustini, Cortazar, Garcia Marquez, 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, Calder?and Sor Juana Ines 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

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 seminar explores the culture of Mexico City in relation to its rapid modernization and growth in the 20th and 21st century. One of the largest cities in the world, and a point of encounter and global forms of art and culture. Mexico City provides a key example of the ways in which modernization becomes experienced in both the arts and popular culture. This course will explore this process from the explosion of the city beginning in the 1920s, all the way to the present. We will explore the way in which art, literature, media and popular culture capture the sounds and images of the city. This course is taught in Spanish.

Full details for SPAN 3330 - Mexico City: Cultural Capital of Modernity

This course examines the culture and society of al-Andalus (Islamic Spain) from 711, when Islam arrived in Iberia, until 1492 and the demise of Nasrid Granada. Through extensive discussion and analysis of Arabic, Latin, and Hebrew primary documents and literary texts of various genres (in translation), the course challenges ideological bases of conventional thinking regarding the social, political, and cultural identity of medieval Spain. Among other things, the class investigates the origins of lyric poetry, the relationships among the various confessional and ethnic communities in al-Andalus and the problems involved in Mozarabic Christian and Andalusi Jewish subcultural adaptations of Andalusi Arabo-Islamic culture.

Full details for SPAN 3539 - Islamic Spain: Culture and Society

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 though." 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

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

As Latinx studies continues to expand beyond its nationalistic origins and re-examines its geographical bounds, nuancing the role of borders within the field becomes urgent. This course probes at the primacy of the border in Latinx studies by centering Caribbean waters. As a liquid that refuses to succumb to the violence of fragmentation and instead embodies iterations of radical wholeness, water has an innate capacity to undo borders, a quality epitomized by the Spanish verb desbordar (to overflow). Through discussion and analysis of key Latinx cultural products we will gain an appreciation for the multiple ways in which water sustains provocative contradictions across borders regarding representations of historical memory, gender and sexuality, migration, race, and religion and spirituality, among others. (ENGL-GLS, ENGL-LOA, ENGL-PST)

Full details for SPAN 4577 - Desbordando: Reading Caribbean Waters in Latinx Studies

This course examines memoirs and non-fiction works written by a new generation of writers of color. By surveying the anti-racist works of Asian-Spanish, Arab-Spanish, and Afro-Spanish authors we will probe such topics as national identity, migration, belonging, racism and anti-racism, intersectional feminism, and diasporic identities. Students will also learn gender-inclusive and racially inclusive Spanish.

Full details for SPAN 4670 - Narratives of Race and Belonging in Spain

What is literary creation? How does it relate to thinking, to doing, to being, to nothingness, to the cosmos? What is its temporality, identity, spatiality/place? What is literature's violence? Moreover, how do these questions relate to our sociopolitical realities,including questions of gender, class and race? These are just a few problems that one of the greatest women writers (and thinkers) of the twentieth century, the Brazilian author Clarice Lispector, invites us to pose anew. In this course, we will dive deeply into her works, embracing the challenge of bridging the philosophical and the political through the literary, and doing so from the sociocultural complexities of twentieth-century Brazil. Alongside reading her works, we will watch film adaptations and trace cultural, literary and philosophical resonances.

Full details for SPAN 4880 - Clarice Lispector: Philosophy, Politics and Literature

This course calls into question the public use of history. The past is permanently mobilized according to the culture and the problems of the present. Over the last decades, "memory" - a general concept used as a synonym for remembering, history, imagination, or representations of the past - arose at the heart of the public sphere, becoming an object of struggles. In some historical circumstances, the past is suddenly "reactivated" and irrupts in the present by claiming its "rights," the end of oblivion, and rescue of the vanquished. Considering some well-known controversies about slavery, colonialism, fascism, communism, civil wars, the Holocaust, etc., the course aims at exploring how collective memories are interwoven with cultural industry, public policies (museums, commemorations, laws, etc.), and history writing.

Full details for SPAN 6225 - The Politics of Memory: Uses of the Past

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

This course examines the culture and society of al-Andalus (Islamic Spain) from 711, when Islam arrived in Iberia, until 1492 and the demise of Nasrid Granada. Through extensive discussion and analysis of Arabic, Latin, and Hebrew primary documents and literary texts of various genres (in translation), the course challenges ideological bases of conventional thinking regarding the social, political, and cultural identity of medieval Spain. Among other things, the class investigates the origins of lyric poetry, the relationships among the various confessional and ethnic communities in al-Andalus and the problems involved in Mozarabic Christian and Andalusi Jewish subcultural adaptations of Andalusi Arabo-Islamic culture.

Full details for SPAN 6539 - Islamic Spain: Culture and Society

This course explores Black Spain through 16th and 17th century historiographical and literary sources. "Black Spain" refers both to the darker myths and troubling realities of the Spanish Empire,a period marked by the Inquisition, religious wars, early racism, the rise of global capitalism, and the invention of genocide and the transatlantic slave trade. Black Spain also refers to the history of the Afro descending communities that lived in Iberia, an often-neglected chapter of the African diaspora. From the 15th century onward, these communities left an indelible mark on the arts and literatures of a period known as the Spanish Golden Age. Black Spain is often at the center of current debates about Spanish national identity-discussions that, until recently, largely excluded Afro-descendant men and women. This course is conducted in Spanish.

Full details for SPAN 6726 - Black Spain: Empire and Afro-Iberian Culture

What is literary creation? How does it relate to thinking, to doing, to nothingness, to the cosmos? What is its temporality, identity, spatiality/place? What is literature's violence? Moreover, how do these questions relate to our sociopolitical realities, including questions of gender, class and race? These are just a few problems that one of the greatest women writers (and thinkers) of the twentieth century, the Brazilian author Clarice Lispector, invites us to pose anew. In this course, we will dive deeply into her works, embracing the challenge of bridging the philosophical and the political through the literary, and doing so from the sociocultural complexities of twentieth-century Brazil. Alongside reading her works, we will watch film adaptations and trace cultural, literary and philosophical resonances.

Full details for SPAN 6885 - Clarice Lispector: Literature, Philosophy, Politics in 20th Century Brazil