Winter 2021 Class Schedule
Winter 2021 class Schedule
Winter 2020 course descriptions
PORTUGUESE 101-2: Elementary Portuguese
Development of listening, speaking, reading, writing, and grammar skills in Brazilian Portuguese, as well as the history and culture of Portuguese-speaking countries.
Prerequisites: Port 101-1 or Portuguese Language Placement Test.
PORTUGUESE 115-1: Portuguese for Spanish Speakers
For students proficient in Spanish. Comparative sociolinguistic and interactive approach to communicative competence emphasizing pronunciation, intonation, sentence structure, and patterns of spoken and written Portuguese.
Prerequisite: Spanish AP 4 or equivalent on the Spanish Language Placement Exam.
PORTUGUESE 115-2:Portuguese for Spanish Speakers
Portuguese 115-2 is the sequence of Portuguese 115-1. For students proficient in Spanish. Comparative sociolinguistic and interactive approach to communicative competence emphasizing pronunciation, intonation, sentence structure, and patterns of spoken and written Portuguese.
Prerequisite: Port 115-1 or Placement test.
PORTUGUESE 303-0:Language and Persuasion in Portuguese
Students will analyze different discourse genres in the perspective of persuasion. With examples from classical to modern rhetoric, we will consider the use of the linguistic sign as a carrier of ideology and illocutionary force, that can be verified in sociolinguistic and cultural contexts of Brazilian Portuguese.
PORTUGUESE 396-0 (combined with SPANISH 397-0-3): #DignidadLiteraria: Contemporary Latinx Literature as Resistance
In early 2020, the publication of Jeanine Cummins’s novel American Dirt sparked a series of debates surrounding the writing of and representation of experiences, particularly traumatic experiences, lived by the Latinx community. Alongside these debates, the resistance campaign#DignidadLiterariaemerged. It has been promoted largely on social media and works to expose and correct systemic racism and biases within the publication industry. Our course will use the example of #DignidadLiteraria to consider the broader concept of resistance in and through contemporary Latinx literature. We will study a range of primary texts, critical essays, interviews, and social media accounts to address the role that literature, authors, and publishing professionals play in fighting for civil and human rights.Since this course is cross listed, all conversations, assignments, and materials will be in English.
SPANISH 101-2: Elementary Spanish
Spanish 101-2 is the second course of a three-quarter sequence in Elementary Spanish. Students will learn Spanish in order to use it beyond the classroom in meaningful and authentic ways at the Novice High-Intermediate Low level of proficiency. This means that students will be able to communicate short messages on everyday topics that affect them directly. Class is taught in Spanish.
SPANISH 105-6: First year seminar: Decolonization and Contemporary Latin American Theory
Decolonization Theory seeks to understand how historical geopolitical conditions are reinforced by ongoing colonial legacies. A substantial amount of writing has been produced around what exactly maintains the coloniality of power (as identified by Peruvian sociologistAníbal Quijano), which impacts literature and philosophy as much as governance and infrastructure. We will identify the key features of decolonial thought in Latin America,pairing it with materials to learn about Latin American history. The class will focus of decolonization as both a methodology and a practice for understanding the present and,perhaps, trying to change it.
COURSE 115-1: Accelerated Elementary Spanish
Spanish 115-1 is the first course of a two-quarter sequence in Elementary Spanish designed for students with previous experience in Spanish. Development of proficiency in speaking, listening, writing, and reading in a cultural context. Offered in winter.
SPANISH 121-2: Intermediate Spanish
Second course in a three-quarter sequence in Intermediate Spanish. Further development of communicative proficiency with an emphasis on the functional use of Spanish and cultural content and reflection. Three synchronous class meetings a week with additional asynchronous language contact.
SPANISH 197-0: Language in Context: Latinos, Language and Culture
An introduction to the socio-political and linguistic richness of Spanish-speaking communities in the US is the basis for development of written and oral discourse of heritage learners. This course allows Spanish heritage learners to acquire more knowledge of their linguistic and cultural heritage, to become more competent in Spanish literacy skills and to develop and/or augment Spanish academic language skills. Students develop strategic Spanish academic vocabulary, learn to critically analyze a text, and write short academic essays.
SPANISH 199-0: Language in Context: Contemporary Spain
An introduction to the culture and sociopolitical issues of contemporary Spain is the basis for reviewing some problematic grammatical patterns and for skill-building in Spanish.
Prerequisite: 121-3, 125-0, AP score of 4 on the Spanish Language and/or Literature, or departmental Spanish Language Placement Exam.
SPANISH 201-0: Conversation on Human Rights: Latin America
This course is designed to develop speaking and writing skills in Spanish through the question of human rights in Latin American during the 20th and 21st centuries. This question will be addressed through readings, analysis and discussions of articles, literary and historical texts, as well as films. A special focus will be on countries in the Southern Cone and on accurate informal and formal conversation.
Prerequisites: 199 or departmental Spanish Language Placement Exam.
SPANISH 203-0: Individual and Society through Written Expression
First course of sequence that develops writing skills and structures through examination of the relationship between the individual and society. Emphasis on textual analysis and development of descriptive narrative and argumentative essays.
Prerequisites: 201, AP score of 5 on the Spanish Language or Literature Exam, or departmental Spanish Language Placement Exam.
SPANISH 204-0: Reading and Writing the Art of Protest
Second course of a sequence designed to develop advanced writing skills and structures through analysis of socially committed art. Emphasis on cultural analysis, close readings and the development of longer essays.
Prerequisite: 203 or 207.
SPANISH 206-0: Spanish for Professions: Business
Advanced course to develop communication skills in Spanish for business purposes. Emphasis on language skills for the global marketplace: specialized terminology, comprehension of cultural nuances, analytical writing skills and project-based assignments. Prerequisite: SPANISH 201-0 or AP score of 5.
SPANISH 220-0-1: Introduction to Literary Analysis
This course offers students an introduction to both literary analysis and Spanish and Latin American literary traditions. While our primary object of study is literature—that is, different literary forms (e.g., narrative, drama, poetry) and individual literary texts—we will also consider other forms of cultural production (e.g., feature films and music). When “reading” our primary sources, we will practice a range of methods so as to learn how to approach those sources from different historical, cultural, and critical perspectives. This course aims to strengthen students’ analytical and written skills at the same time that it works to foster their interest in Spanish and Latin American literature and culture.The majority of materials, assignments,and conversations will be in Spanish.
SPANISH 220-0-2: Introduction to Literary Analysis
This class will provide an introduction to literary analysis in Spanish. We will study primary works drawn from different regions, historical periods,and genres.Our methodologies will range from close reading and poetic scansion to creative reinterpretations.We will also discuss the role of contextual factors—for instance, autobiographical, ideological, historical,and cultural—in shaping our analysis of literary texts.The aim of this class is to prepare students to read, discuss, and write analytically in Spanish about literature and culture.
Prerequisite: Spanish 204-0. No P/NP.
SPANISH 260-0: Literature in Latin America before 1888
This course provides a survey of majorLatin American literary works, from pre-Columbian traditions to the era before the emergence of modernism in the late 19th century. We will take a critical approach to the idea of “literature”by analyzing, for example, poetic and dramatic texts alongside historical, legal, and religious documents.Key themes will include the articulation, transformation,and preservation of identity; the tensions and contradictions of the colonial era;and the uneven emergence of republics.While the primary language of the class will be Spanish, we will also consider the linguistic diversity of Latin America through translations of works in Indigenous and European languages.
Prerequisite: Spanish 220 (may be taken concurrently).
SPANISH 348-0: Readings in Latin American Short Fiction
Some critics have suggested that the Latin American short story in the twentieth century might have made an even more significant contribution to world literature than the celebrated novels of the Boom (1960s- 1970s). For example, the argument goes, it is Jorge Luis Borges's short fiction that actually initiates the "new" narrative currents with which Latin American literature has become identified since the sixties. Likewise, one might argue that it is Julio Cortázar's short fiction--even more than his "revolutionary" novels--that will stand the test of time. Indeed, these and other well-known writers associated with the "género fantástico" (e.g., Horacio Quiroga, Luisa Valenzuela, Rosario Ferré) are among the "masters" of the Latin American short story who have also taught us how to read and think about narrative more generally. Within the context of the Latin American tradition, we will focus on the short story as it has been written and theorized by Latin American writers, considering as well proposals from beyond the region (e.g., Poe) and reading models offered by literary critics and theorists of narrative fiction and the fantastic. Where possible, film adaptations of works will be considered along with the original literary texts. Emphasis on close reading and analysis.
Prerequisite: 1 course from Spanish 250-0, Spanish 251-0, Spanish 260-0, or Spanish 261-0.
SPANISH 364-0: Cultural Borders/Border Cultures
As lines that demarcate boundaries between two or more groups (or ideas), borders simultaneously divide and conjoin.There is perhaps no place more emblematic of both the political and cultural complexities of border spaces today than the U.S./Mexico border. Through the work of artists, writers, and performers from both the U.S. and Mexico,this course will explore the hotly contested histories and the symbolic function(s) of the Border in both Latinx and Latin American cultural production. As we engage with diverse literary, artistic, and cinematic representations of this border space, we will examine the processes of contact, hybridization, adaptation, and exclusion that are generated, and the modes of self-fashioning that are produced, from within this unique cultural environment.Readings and films will be drawn from the work of Gloria Anzaldúa, Carmen Boullosa, Guillermo Gómez Peña, Laurie Ann Guerrero, Juan Felipe Herrera, Yuri Herrera, Alex Rivera, and Heriberto Yépez, among others.
Prerequisite: Spanish 220, or consent of the instructor.
SPANISH 397-0-2: Global Im/Mobilities: Borders, Migration, and Citizenship
This seminar asks the following questions about borders, migration, and citizenship: (1) What are the forces—political, cultural, and environmental—that facilitate or inhibit human circulation? (2) How do governments, NGOs, scholars, and wider publics draw distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate forms of human mobility (e.g., “economic migrants”versus “refugees”)? (3) How are migrants affected by efforts to regulate their movement, and what alternative forms of citizenship and belonging have they created?We will draw on a broad range of geographical examples (giving particular attention to the Iberian Peninsula and the Americas)and read widely across anthropology, history, and political theory, as well as journalism and fiction. Collectively, we will explore the ways that global im/mobilities have been lived, and how they shape our world today.
SPANISH 397-0-3 (combined with PORTUGUESE 396-0): #DignidadLiteraria: Contemporary Latinx Literature as Resistance
In early 2020, the publication of Jeanine Cummins’s novel American Dirt sparked a series of debates surrounding the writing of and representation of experiences, particularly traumatic experiences, lived by the Latinx community. Alongside these debates, the resistance campaign#DignidadLiterariaemerged. It has been promoted largely on social media and works to expose and correct systemic racism and biases within the publication industry. Our course will use the example of #DignidadLiteraria to consider the broader concept of resistance in and through contemporary Latinx literature. We will study a range of primary texts, critical essays, interviews, and social media accounts to address the role that literature, authors, and publishing professionals play in fighting for civil and human rights.Since this course is cross listed, all conversations, assignments, and materials will be in English.
SPANPORT 450-0: ¿Abajo el monumento? Iconoclasm and Conservationism in the Monumentality of/about Spain
The title of this class is taken from the conference Down with Monuments?, organized by the UChicago’s Art History Dept.and the SAICin 2018. The question is still relevant and will be explored in this course with the specificity of the monumentality in/about Spain.We will study theoretical texts to examine the notions of monumentality, iconoclasm and conservationism at large, with a focus on the monument’s ambivalent nature as historical document and work of art,the rhetoric of size and ornament, the construction of memory rituals and collective identity, and the different notions of iconoclasm and conservationism. Simultaneously, we will explore the construction of monumentality in/about Spain particularly since the late 19th century to the present, identifying the ideological debates and hegemonic battlesentailed in the conception of specific monuments. Since the beginning of the course, students will pick one particular monument to do a comprehensive research throughout the quarter. Classes will be divided between 2/3 of theoretical/historiographical discussion, and 1/3 of workshop to discuss the students’ ongoing research. For the final essay, students will present their research including a specific proposal of intervention on the monument.
SPANPORT 480-0: Brazilian Modern/ism: The Queer Archive
In this class we will read a selection of literary works (in translation) produced by Brazilian writers, works which came to constitute, to different degrees, a queer archive (and, for some critics, even a canon of Brazilian gay literature). We will focus on the turn of the nineteenth century (roughly 1880-1922), a period in which writers were arguably obsessed with normativity and dissidence. By doing so we will be interested in asking the following questions: 1. How is the knowledge of a queer past produced and institutionalized (or not), and what are the political and epistemological advantages and limitations of addressing or confronting something like a queer archive? 2. Considering that the end of the century has been associated with the alleged invention of the homosexual, on the one hand, and in the case of Brazil,with official ideologies of whitening and nationalism, on the other, how do we conciliate ideas of queertemporality with historical periodization? 3. What are the specificities of studying a selected corpus when most records of the past are extremely precarious, not yet available nor preserved, catalogued, or translated, and when their promises and possibilities are already vanishing or always under the threat of physical and ideological destruction?
SPANPORT 495-0: Practicum in Scholarly & Publication
Workshop intended to help students to design, research and write a scholarly article. Required for all graduate students in their second year.