Graduate Spanish Courses

SPAN 700. Stylistics and Composition. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
Prereq.: Admission to the MA program. Stylistic and grammatical analyses of readings of literary and nonliterary texts are combined with in-depth discussions and intensive writing. This course emphasizes the writing process: developing theses, structuring arguments, and generating a clear and cohesive style.

SPAN 702. History of the Spanish Language. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
This course traces the development of the Spanish language from Latin to the present, focusing upon the cultural, literary, and historical factors that have contributed to its evolution from Latin to early Romance, and then to the modern language. It will cover the internal and external history of the language.

SPAN 704. Foundations of Hispanic Linguistics. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
Prereq.: SPAN 700 or exemption. This course provides an introduction to Spanish linguistics and establishes the basis for future application of linguistic principles. The course begins with an exploration of the sound system of Spanish and its theoretical representation. Building on this, the discussion continues with topics in Spanish morphology such as word formation and verbal inflection. This is followed by issues in syntax and semantics that are analyzed both in isolation and in terms of their relationship to each other.

SPAN 706. Hispanic Sociolinguistics and Dialectology. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
Prereq.: SPAN 700 or exemption. This course is intended to familiarize students with the study of Spanish dialects based on historical and geographic criteria, as well as to introduce sociolinguistic concepts and issues. Sociolinguistic topics may include social and stylistic variation, language variation and change, dialects and the “standard norm,” linguistic attitudes, language and gender, bilingualism, language contact, language attitudes, discourse analysis, etc.

SPAN 717. Creative Writing in Spanish. 3 hr.; 3 cr. This course will encourage students to exercise their power of observation of written storytelling elements, such as character, plot, dialogue, etc. In the process, they will use their imagination and improve their grammar and writing skills in Spanish. For assignments, students will be asked to follow the evolution of specific literary aspects in selected texts. Thus, they will be exposed to different writing styles by working with a variety of outstanding Latin American authors. In class, the distinguishing traits of the writings will be discussed. Also, students will attempt to create their own versions of those texts following some of the parameters observed in each author’s production. Students will be choosing from different writing styles, such as brief memoirs, TV, film, and book reviews, short stories, and dramatized scenes.

SPAN 720. Medieval Spanish Literature. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
May be repeated for credit with permission of the graduate advisor if the topic is different. The course will focus on different aspects of Medieval Spanish literature: the development of Castillian love poetry from its origins to the fifteenth century: traditional epic poetry and balladry, the development of narrative prose. Popular, courtly, and clerical forms are considered in each case, with special attention given to the evolution of recurrent themes and rhetorical forms within a European context.

SPAN 721. Pan-Hispanic Balladry: From El Cid to Lorca and Beyond. 3 hr.; 3 cr. Prereq.: SPAN 700.
The most enduring and versatile poetic form of the Hispanic World, Romancero (balladry) is a prime field to study the interaction between popular and cultured poetry. This course will follow its history from medieval epic poetry to recent developments around the Mexican Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, and narcotraffic. Special attention will be given to canonic authors inspired by this popular poetry: Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Góngora, Machado, and García Lorca.

SPAN 722. Golden Age Spanish Literature. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
Prereq.: SPAN 700 or exemption. A survey of different cultural issues and literary genres within the period from 1500 to 1700 with a historicist focus. Specific topics will vary around different genres (the Renaissance, Comedia nueva, poetry, and narrative), and individual authors including Félix Lope de Vega, Miguel de Cervantes and Luis de Góngora.

SPAN 723. Golden Age Drama. 3 hr.; 3 cr. Prereq.: SPAN 700.
A survey of the Spanish theatre of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The development of a national theatre will be explored from the turn of the 16th century (Encina) to Calderón. Although the focus of the course will be the Comedia nueva, other genres will include the Egloga, Auto sacramental, Farsa, and Entremés.

SPAN 724. Cervantes. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
Prereq.: SPAN 700 or exemption. Study of the works of Miguel de Cervantes, along with related texts and with different perspectives and contexts. It will alternate different combinations of Don Quixote and other works by Cervantes. Special attention will always be given to the issue of literary genres, narrative techniques, and the historical-cultural context.

SPAN 725. Don Quijote. 3 hr.; 3 cr. Prereq.: SPAN 700.
The most universal of Spanish works of art, Don Quijote will be mainly read as a book on books. This perspective will help us study the literary phenomenon itself. The novel will be a vehicle for the examination of the plentiful, enduring uses of different literary genres in their historical perspective and in their social functions and uses.

SPAN 726. Spanish Literature of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
Prereq.: SPAN 700 or exemption. The course considers the development of liberalism and a new national identity in Spanish literature from the Age of Enlightenment through the post-colonial period. It will cover eighteenth-century essayists, the most important figures of Spanish romanticism (M.J. de Larra, J. Espronceda), and major exponents of realist fiction, in particular Benito Pérez Galdós and Leopoldo Alas, “Clarín”

SPAN 728. The Generation of 1898 and the Beginning of the Twentieth Century. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
Prereq.: SPAN 700 or exemption. Study of authors spurred into literary activity by the impact of Spain’s colonial losses in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Emphasis on historical contexts, aesthetic movements in Europe, artistic influences from Latin America, and the critical ethos expressed by this “generation”: contrast/comparison of Modernismo y Noventaiochismo, the introduction of existentialism, the roots of krausismo, and the beginning of contemporary theatre.

SPAN 730. Literature of the Franco Era. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
Prereq.: SPAN 700 or exemption. The difficult years: A study of the Fascist and Anti-Fascist literature of the Franco era with an emphasis on the writers of Inner Exile and the emergence of an extremely important cadre of women writers. An analysis of the development of compromiso social in the various genres: la poesía social, la novela social, y el teatro social. Works studied will include Dámaso Alonso, José Hierro, Antonio Buero Vallejo, Alfonso Sastre, Juan Goytisolo, Carmen Laforet, Ana María Matute, Miguel Delibes, Carmen Martín Gaite, etc.

SPAN 732. Spanish Literature Since the Transition. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
Prereq.: SPAN 700 or exemption. This course examines the cultural change from dictatorship to democracy in Spain, and how literary practice can defend an ethical conscience based on a critical individualism against the tendency to homogenize, force consensus, and relinquish independence. Works read might include Luis Goytisolo, Antonio Muñoz Molina, Lourdes Ortiz, Esther Tusquets, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Lucía Extebarría, Fernando Savater, etc.

SPAN 750. Early Colonial Literature in Latin America. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
An overview of the Latin American literary production from the discovery (1492) to the end of the seventeenth century. The course will cover the Crónicas de Indias, historical texts written by the Spanish Conquistadores (e.g., Hernén Cortés), and the friars (e.g., Fray Bartolomé de las Casas). Then, it will focus on the works of Criollo writers (e.g., El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega), with an emphasis on the main exponents of El Barroco de Indias (e.g., Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz), which recreated Spanish Baroque styles, while introducing new themes that reflected Latin American reality.

SPAN 751. Vision of the Vanquished: Indigenous and Mestizo Voices of XVI and XVII Centuries Mexico and Peru. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
Study of writings and drawings produced by indigenous, and mestizo lettered authors, collected by clergy in some cases, during the early colonial times in Mexico and Peru.

SPAN 752. Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Latin American Literature. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
Prereq.: SPAN 700 or exemption. A survey of Latin American literature from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Some of the writers to be studied are: Andrés Bello, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, and Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda. The course will cover a variety of topics, including recreating Neoclassicism, Romanticism, and Realism in the New World; emerging voices of the Criollos; and colonialism, nationalisms and independence.

SPAN 753. Great Works of Spanish American Romanticism: In Search of a Spanish-American Identity. 3 hr.; 3 cr. Prereq.: SPAN 700.
Texts produced in Latin American during the XIX century by criollo authors in search of a new Spanish American identity.

SPAN 754. Modernismo in Latin American Literature. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
A survey of Latin American Modernista literature (from the 1870s to the end of the 1920s), with an emphasis on poetry (e.g., Rubén Darío and Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera) and essays (e.g., José Martí and Joée Enrique Rodriguez). As a reaction to Positivism as well as Romanticism, Modernista writers initiated a movement of radical artistic and intellectual renovation, and aimed at creating a very refined literary discourse that would better express their redefined ideals of beauty. They covered a variety of themes, such as eroticism, exoticism (e.g., Orientalism), spiritualism, and the changing role of the artist in the new industrial society, etc.

SPAN 756. From the Avant-Garde to the Postmodern. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
Prereq.: SPAN 700 or exemption. This course spans the first six decades of the twentieth century. It covers the works of major authors in their respective genres: the “isms” (Jorge Luis Borges and Vicente Huidobro), the various phases of Pablo Neruda’s trajectory, the re-emergence of feminist poetry, the decline of gauchoesque drama (Florencio Sánchez, Samuel Eichelbaum) leading to “reflexive” theatre. Other aspects covered are the novelists’ reinterpretation of indigenous Latin American cultures (Alejo Carpentier, Carlos Fuentes), and the surge of the “Boom” (Julio Cortázar, Gabriel García Márquez, etc.).

SPAN 758. Latin American Literature into the Twenty-First Century. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
Prereq.: SPAN 700 or exemption. This course explores the works of the latest writers up to the present. It follows the evolution of the concepts and techniques of the “post-boom,” the “post-modern” and the “novísma literatura.” The course follows the changes in the literary trajectory of long-standing, acclaimed authors, as well as the ruptures that produced new alternatives: the writings of exile, testimonials, ethnic regionalism, journalistic fiction, detectivesque and cinematic narratives.

SPAN 760. Literature of the Hispanic Caribbean. 2 hr. plus conf.; 3 cr.
Prereq.: SPAN 700 or exemption. A survey of the literature of the Hispanic Caribbean from the nineteenth century to the present. The reading list will include texts by renowned writers such as José Martí, Salomé Ureña de Henríquez, Eugenio María Hostos, Julia de Burgos, Nicolás Guillén, and Juan Bosch. Some of the themes to be explored are colonialism and national identities; racism, poverty, and socio-political repression as causes of exile.

SPAN 770. Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theories. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
Prereq.: To be taken in the first year of graduate study. The course will provide a brief overview of traditional approaches to key Hispanic texts, introduce students to the main tenets of contemporary theory (cultural studies, postcolonialism, New Historicism, materialism, gender studies, postmodernism, periodization, narratology, psychological approaches, poststructuralism, etc.), and apply those concepts through analysis of critical articles about Hispanic texts.

SPAN 772. Peninsular Spanish Culture and Thought. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
Prereq.: SPAN 700. This course will address wide cultural issues ranging from the Medieval religious and ethnic interculture, the Renaissance effect in different cultural manifestations, the ideology of the conquest and colonization of America, and the changing of the political and cultural landscape in the 20th century.

SPAN 774. Latin American Culture and Thought. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
Prereq.: SPAN 700 or exemption. The course will provide an overview of the main topics and trends in the development of Latin American culture, civilization, and thought. It will take into account the fundamental structures of pre-conquest society, the establishment of colonial domination, and the transition to forms of neocolonialism, the formation of hybrid cultures and ethnicities, and the socio-cultural profile of contemporary urban life.

SPAN 776. Latino/Latina Writers in the United States. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
Prereq.: SPAN 700 or exemption. An overview of the culture and literary production of Latino/as in the United States. The course will focus on works of fiction written by authors from diverse ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic American countries such Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Colombia. Some of the topics to be explored are bilingualism and multiculturalis; immigration and the redefinition of national identity; preserving Hispanic culture vs. assimilating to the “American way of life”, etc.

SPAN 778. Cinema and Literature in the Hispanic World. 3 hr.; 3 cr.
The course will examine different aspects of Hispanic cinema and its relationship to literature. The approaches include: (1) Movements (neo-realism, new wave, etc.); (2) Genres; (3) Literature into films; (4) The cinema as a sociocultural phenomenon; (5) Cinematic stylists. Films will be shown in the original language. Students will be expected to produce substantial works of film analysis.

SPAN 783. Research Seminar: Hispanic Linguistics. 3 hr.; 3 cr. Prereq.: 9 hr.
This course introduces standard methodologies for planning, conducting, interpreting, and reporting research in an applied area of Hispanic Linguistics. Course activities will include reading texts and articles, completing assigned exercises, participating in group discussions, criticizing research articles, and conducting formal research projects. Students are required to focus the research project around their areas of interest. Students can  take this seminar twice, provided that the topics are different.

SPAN 784. Research Seminar: Hispanic Literature. 3 hr.; 3 cr. Prereq.: SPAN 700 or exemption, plus 6 hours of graduate course work (i.e., two linguistics and/or literature courses). Students are advised to take SPAN 770.
Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theories, as part of the 6-credit prerequisite. A series of courses devoted to the study of literature and culture with perspectives that cut across the conventional genre/period/geographic divides. These courses will include, for example, interdisciplinary, comparative, interatlantic approaches to Hispanic literatures, or track a genre across history, or deal with unconventional topics in literature, or be devoted entirely to the study of one author from different
perspectives. Students can  take this seminar twice, provided that the topics are different.