Undergraduate Spanish Course Descriptions

Spanish Language Placement Exam

Spring 2009

SPANISH 102: Elementary Spanish II

SPANISH 202: Intermediate Spanish II

SPANISH 212: Advanced Practice in Spanish

SPANISH 215: Reading and Writing Strategies in Spanish

SPANISH 300WR: Reading in Spanish: Texts and Contexts

SPANISH 301WR: Early Hispanic Literature and Culture

SPANISH 302WR: Modern Hispanic Literature and Culture

SPANISH 312: Theories and Histories of Hispanic Theater, Film, and Performance

SPANISH 317: Writing, Context, and Community

SPAN 430S / WS 389 / CPLT 389: The Spanish Comedia: Race, Gender, and Performance

SPANISH 460S: Drawing the Line: The Mexico-U.S. frontera and its Stories

SPANISH 460S: Contemporary Mexican Literature

SPANISH 460S: No joke: Satire in Modern Spain

SPANISH 460S: Coming to our Senses in the Global Americas

SPANISH 460S: Prison Narratives in 20th Century Latin America

SPANISH 460S: Gender and Sexualities in Hispanic Caribbean Cultures

SPANISH 102: Beginning Spanish II: Introduction to Hispanic Cultures and Spanish Language (top)
Faculty MTWTF (multiple sections) Max: 18 Wrt: No

CONTENT: This course is a continuation of Spanish 101. It is an integrated-skills course designed to promote basic communication in and with Hispanic communities and to heighten cultural awareness. The goals of this course include: 1) learning to use Spanish to communicate (through intensive interaction), primarily in speaking and listening, but also in reading and writing; 2) learning of and about the tools of communication, including pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary; and 3) studying Hispanic cultures to begin to understand how culture affects language use.

TEXTS:
Caycedo Garner, Rusch and Domínguez. 2008. ¡Claro que sí! 6th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.

PARTICULARS: Evaluation will be based on participation, homework, Language Laboratory work, quizzes, exams, and compositions.

PREREQUISITES: Spanish 101 or Official Spanish Placement from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.

SPANISH 202: Intermediate Spanish II: Hispanic Cultures and Spanish Language (top)
Faculty MWF (multiple sections) Max: 15 Wrt: No

CONTENT: This course is a continuation of Spanish 201 and is designed to further develop students' Spanish skills. Students refine their grammar usage through continued review of basic structures and study of complex structures, and they expand their spoken Spanish skills through discussion and analysis of cultural topics, current events, personal experiences, and literary and journalistic texts. Students are provided ample opportunity for focused listening through use of recorded texts (conversations, music, video) and for oral expression through general classroom and small-group discussions and oral reports. Readings in the course focus on both historical and current cultural and social issues in the Hispanic World, and conclude with the reading of a novel by the Argentinian author Marco Denevi. Writing is also developed as a communicative endeavour, with emphasis on the preparation of a reading/dialog journal and several compositions in a variety of genres.

TEXTS:
1.) Rusch, Dominguez and Caycedo Garner. Fuentes: Conversación y gramática . Third Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.
2.) Tuten, Esterrich and Caycedo Garner. Fuentes: Lectura y redacción . Third Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.
3.) Rusch, Dominguez and Caycedo Garner. Fuentes: Activities Manual . Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.
4). Oxford Spanish Dictionary (or similar)
5). Denevi, Marco. Rosaura a las diez . Prentice Hall

PARTICULARS: Evaluations are based on participation, homework and Language Laboratory work, exams, writing activities, and an oral interview.

SPANISH 212: Advanced Practice in Spanish (top)
Faculty MWF (multiple sections) Max: 15 TPL Theory Practice Learning Class

CONTENT: This course reviews and expands knowledge of many areas of Spanish vocabulary and grammar and develops the student's ability in listening, speaking, reading and writing, though the development of oral proficiency is emphasized in this course. Discussion centers on short texts, films, and community activities that deal with various aspects of contemporary Hispanic culture (tradition and change, cultural diversity, politics and human rights, sexual stereotypes and gender roles).

TEXTS:
1. García Serrano, Cash, and de la Torre. 2004. ¡A que sí! 3rd Ed. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.
2. García Serrano, Cash, and de la Torre. 2004. ¡A que sí!: Workbook . 3rd Ed. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

PARTICULARS: Evaluation is based on participation, homework, quizzes, exams and oral interviews.

PREREQUISITES: Spanish 202 or equivalent, or students must take the Spanish Placement Exam and receive an Official Placement for SP212 from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.

SPANISH 215: Reading & Writing Strategies in Spanish (top)
Faculty MWF (multiple sections) Max: 10

CONTENT: This is an advanced course designed to improve students' writing and reading skills in Spanish. Students are introduced to a variety of Spanish texts and are required to recognize their formal characteristics and to practice them in formal writing. Special emphasis is placed on critical reading as well as accurate use of grammar and vocabulary in translation and creative writing.

TEXTS:
1. IGUINA AND DOZIER, MANUAL DE GRAMÁTICA, 4TH EDITION(copyright 2008 )
ISBN-13: 9781413032192
2. Harper Collins Spanish Dictionary (Unabridged Edition) or Oxford Spanish Dictionary. Also suggested: the Pequeño Larousse Spanish-to-Spanish dictionary that is required for Spanish 300.
3. Mendoza, Eduardo. Sin noticias de Gurb. Seix Barral, 1991.
4. Additinal text to be announced
5. Readings available on e-reserves.

PARTICULARS: Valuable for students who wish to perfect their writing and reading skills in Spanish. May be taken before or with Spanish 300. Evaluation will be based on participation, two midterm exams, quizzes on the readings, daily informal writing, two oral presentations, four formal compositions and a final exam.

PREREQUISITES: SPANISH 212 or equivalent.

SPANISH 300WR: Reading in Spanish: Texts and Contexts (top)
Faculty MWF (multiple sections) Max: 10

CONTENT: A course in Hispanic cultural literacy and critical skills that also develops students' reading ability, vocabulary, and ability to express ideas in writing. The course is designed to give students a broad understanding of Hispanic culture that will prepare them for upper level course work. The primary reading text is Carlos Fuentes' El espejo enterrado. As students read this text, they will learn about the history, geography, values, art, and literature of the Hispanic world. Supplementary texts are also used.

TEXTS:
Fuentes, Carlos. 1992. El espejo enterrado .

PARTICULARS: Required for the Major.

PREREQUISITES: Spanish 212 or equivalent (5-6 years of high school study and permission of Director of the Language Program).

SPANISH 301WR: Early Spanish and Spanish American Culture (top)
Faculty MWF (multiple sections) Max: 12

CONTENT: This course engages in an in-depth study of Spanish and Colonial Spanish American culture(s) from the Pre Roman Period through the seventeenth century. Among the topics included are: Islamic Spain, the Spanish Reconquest, the Inquisition, the Origins of the Spanish Language, Sephardic Culture in Spain, the Pilgrimage Route to St. James, Picaresque Literature, Golden Age Spanish Drama, pre-Columbian civilizations, the Conquest of the New World, and the establishment of colonial rule in Spanish America.

TEXTS: Primary and secondary readings accompany each topic.

PARTICULARS: Required for the Major. The final grade is based on three papers (4-5 pp.), oral presentations and a final exam.

SPANISH 302WR: Modern Spanish and Spanish American Culture (top)
Faculty MWF (multiple sections) Max: 12

CONTENT: This course engages in an in-depth study of certain key moments and texts in Spanish and Spanish American culture from the eighteenth century to the present. Among the topics dealt with are: the "failed" Enlightenment of Spain and Spanish America, the Napoleonic invasion of Spain, the revolt against Spanish rule and the creation of new nations in Spanish America, Modernism and the politics of avant-garde, the Mexican and Cuban revolutions, The Spanish Civil War and Franco dictatorship, the Latin American "boom" narrative, postmodernism and globalization in contemporary Spain and Spanish America.

TEXTS: Primary and Secondary readings accompany each topic. The course also incorporates painting and film.

PARTICULARS: Required for the Major. The final grade is based on three papers (4-5 pp.), oral presentations and discussion, and two exams.

PREREQUISITE: SPAN 300. By permission.

SPAN 312: Theories and Histories of Hispanic Theater, Film, and Performance
(Carrión) By permission only Section: 00P MWF 8:30-9:25am Max: 12

This course is designed to give students a working vocabulary for the study of theater, film, and performance, underscoring their theoretical and historical dimensions and their relation to race and gender. A comparative perspective on theater, film, and performance will be articulated whenever possible, devoting discrete classes to different media while teasing out the foundational aspect of theater and performance. The course will prepare students for work at the 400 level on film, theater, and performance, providing them with an introduction to both the theoretical framework guiding the study of texts, and a "hands-on" feel for theatrical, film, and performance work.
The close textual analysis of Hispanic theater, film, and performance will be done in a seminar-type discussion group. Written assignments: five 1-page essays; two exams focusing on audiovisual language; three reviews of performance pieces; a performance project.

Theater: Lope, El perro del hortelano and El castigo sin venganza; Zorrilla, Don Juan Tenorio; García Lorca, Bodas de sangre; Díaz, La orgástula y otros textículos; Boal, Teatro del oprimido and Ejercicios para actores y no actores; Sánchez, Quíntuples.
Film and video: Cuarón, Y tu mamá también; Pérez, Suite Habana; Gilpin y Bernaza, Mariposas en el andamio; Amenábar, Tesis; Medem, Lucía y el sexo; del Toro, El laberinto del fauno; Buñuel, Un chien andalou; Miró, El perro del hortelano; Aranda, Juana la Loca; Saura, Bodas de sangre: Haines, Dance With Me; Gutiérrez Alea, Memorias del subdesarrollo; Troyano, Your Kunst Is Your Waffen; Martel, La Ciénaga; clips of Gutiérrez Alea, Fresa y chocolate; Torres, Mecánica celeste; Medem, Los amantes del círculo polar; Leigh, Topsy-Turvy; Martín, I Like It Like That; Gatlif, Latcho Drom; Subiela, Hombre mirando al sudeste; Almodóvar, La flor de mi secreto; Coixte, Cosas que nunca te dije; Keedron, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Evertying, Julie Newmar; music videos by Celia Cruz, Maná, Ricky Martin, Jennifer López, Shakira, and others.
Performance Art: Carmelita Tropicana, I, Carmelita Tropicana, and Milk and Beyond; Mendieta, Filmworks; Monica Palacios, Latin Lezbo Comic: A Performance About Happiness, Challenges and Tacos; Vaginal Crème Davis, Beware the Holy Whore, Orifice Descending, Intimacy and Tomorrow; Marga Gomez, Marga Gomez Is Pretty, Witty, and Gay; Guillermo Gomez-Peña, La Pocha Nostra.

Particulars: Attendance and class participation, short essays (30%); theater/film/performance project (20%); three reviews (30%); two exams (20%)

Spanish 317: Writing, Context, and Community (top)
Irina Zaitseva MWF 11:45-12:45 Max: 15
TPL
Spanish 317 Website

CONTENT: This course combines advanced writing instruction and language analysis with weekly hands-on experiences in the Atlanta Hispanic community. Students will hone their writing skills through a series of assignments organized around their experience working with members of the Hispanic community within the structures of one of several organizations who have agreed to collaborate with this course. There are opportunities for work in schools, hospitals, and a support group, among others. A variety of health and illness related issues of particular importance in Hispanic cultures will also be discussed in class and focused on at the time of student weekly community service sessions.

TEXTS: A number of reading assignments in Spanish (in photocopy or online) related to the service experience and to issues that affect the Hispanic residents in Atlanta will be part of the course. Other required texts are: David Foster, David Altamiranda, Carmen de Urioste, The Writer’s Reference Guide to Spanish. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999; Foster, David W.; María Colombi, Jill Pellettieri, María Rodríguez, Palabra abierta. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007; and the Harper Collins Spanish Dictionary (Unabridged Edition) or Oxford Spanish Dictionary. Also suggested: the Pequeño Larousse Spanish-to-Spanish dictionary that is required for Spanish 300.

PARTICULARS: The final grade will be based on writing assignments, a final portfolio, student performance in the Hispanic community context, and participation in class activities. Students who have received credit for 318 may not take this course for credit. Registration by permission of the instructor. This course fulfills 4 credit hours toward the major or minor requirement.

SPANISH 460S: Drawing the Line: The Mexico-U.S. frontera and its Stories (top)
Vialla Hartfield-Méndez MWF 10:40-11:30 Max: 12 (Cross-list with LAS 490S 3)

CONTENT: This course explores the history of the Mexico-U.S. border from colonial notions of boundaries in New Spain through the Mexican-American War and the Mexican Revolution to the twentieth-century concept of "borderlands" and the present cultural and political tangle of migration, fence building, globalization, and multiple borderland spaces, not all of them located at the official dividing line. Through reading (or viewing) and discussing various kinds of texts (crónicas, treaties and other government documents, fiction, poetry, music, visuals arts and film), students will gain a critical understanding of the ideological, political and cultural constructions of la frontera.

TEXTS AND FILMS: May include works by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Gloria Anzaldúa, Carlos Fuentes, Daniel Sada, Humberto Crosthwaite, John Sayles, Juan Rulfo, Francisco Alarcón, Rosario Sanmiguel, José Agustín, Alejandro González Iñárritu. Other sources: Treaties such as the Tratado de Guadalupe, dispatches from Henry Lane Wilson, cartography, official correspondence and other political documents, photography, visual art, corridos and songs from Los Tigres del Norte.

PARTICULARS: Attendance and class participation (20%), written reading / viewing responses (20%), two research/writing projects (50%), and a final portfolio (10%).

SPAN 430S / WS 389 / CPLT 389: The Spanish Comedia: Race, Gender, and Performance
Carrión Max: 15 MWF 11:45-12:35 501S Callaway Center

CONTENT: This course explores the representation of race, gender, and performance in theater and society in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain, and its reception (both in theory and practice) in twentieth-century Spain and Latin America. The class will consider the Comedia—or professional theater of Spain between the 1550s and the 1680s—as discourse and industry, highlighting its double dimension of being a product of the culture of this society, and of being one of the most culturally productive phenomena in Spain’s Early Modern history. Discussions will revolve around questions of how the following were represented on- and offstage: race, lineage, limpieza de sangre, exclusion, reproduction, gender, costume, movement, voice; and how such representation had (or not) and impact on the professionalization of theater, the running of shows and theaters, the debates about the (un)lawfulness of theatrical theories and practices, and the scrutiny and closing of theaters. In Spanish.

TEXTS: Boal, Teatro del oprimido, Ejercicios para actores y no-actores; Cervantes, Entremés de El juez de los divorcios; Lope de Vega, Arte nuevo de hacer comedias, La dama boba; Tirso de Molina, Don Gil de las calzas verdes; Calderón, El médico de su honra, El gran teatro del mundo, La vida es sueño; Caro, El Conde Partinuplés; Zayas, La traición en la amistad. Articles on theoretical and historical considerations of race, gender, and performance and their relation to the Spanish Comedia. Newspaper articles and reviews about productions of these and other plays in Almagro, the Teatro de la Comedia, the Chamizal Festival, la Teatrela, Intar, and the Hubert de Blanc, among other theaters.

PARTICULARS: Attendance and class participation (40%), midterm exam (35%), and one 10-page paper (25%).

SPANISH 460S: Contemporary Mexican Literature (top)
Ricardo Gutierréz-Mouat TuTh 11:30-12:45 Max: 12 (Cross-list with LAS 490S 3)

CONTENT: The course focuses on representative authors and works of fiction, non-fiction, and essay --including some poetry-- written since the 1960s that shed light on important cultural, social, and political issues in present-day Mexico.

TEXTS: Readings will be taken from works by Carlos Fuentes, Elena Poniatowska, Jose Emilio Pacheco, Juan Villoro, Carmen Boullosa, Ana Clavel, Juan Villoro, Jorge Volpi, Ignacio Padilla, and Pedro Angel Palou. We will also read material by Mexican-American writers.

PARTICULARS: Grading will be based on class preparation and participation, a take-home midterm, and a take-home final. Some of the readings may be done in English but class discussion and exams will be in Spanish.

SPANISH 450S: No joke: Satire in Modern Spain (top)
Yvonne Fuentes MWF 2:00-2:50 Max: 15

CONTENT: The course will study political and cultural satire of modern Spain. By working with sainetes (one-act farce), caricatures, drawings and other “occasional literature” — anonymous pamphlet, sermon, lampoon, etc. — we aim to explore the varying roles, renditions, forms and fashion of Spanish satire and its use in the 18th and 19th centuries, and to suggest connections with more contemporary examples.

TEXTS: Selected readings may include: Los gurruminos (1711), Las mujeres solas (1757), La bella madre (1764), Manolo (1769) and political satires from the period of the Spanish War of Independence. In addition, we will explore Goya’s Los caprichos and Los desastres de la guerra, and other prints/caricatures by anonymous artists.

PARTICULARS: Evaluation will consider class participation, a midterm exam, an oral presentation and an essay.

SPANISH 460S: Coming to our Senses in the Global Americas (top)
Dierdra Reber TuTh 10:00-11:15 Max: 12 (Cross-list with LAS 490S 3)
CONTENT:As inhabitants of the media age, we are bombarded day in and day out with bits of sensory information. The proliferation of sound and image on computers, televisions, gaming systems, iPods, and cell phones has made audiovisual encounters a minute-to-minute affair. Magazines have long been perfume bombs; now stores like IKEA and Target release signature scents into the air, and a big-budget 2006 film piloted an olfactory track at a specially equipped theater. Companies in the food industry like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s hire chemists to manipulate flavors to appeal to our cultural tastes and to promote cravings. Machines everywhere operate through touch, and little cutaway windows in product boxes entice purchases motivated by tactile appeal. All of us must learn to apprehend and interpret, as a fact of everyday life, this constant stream of communication directed at the five senses, yet we don’t often make our multi-sensory environment the subject of critical inquiry.

This course will look at recent film and advertising in the “global Americas” (North and South) for evidence of our heavy sensory engagement with the world. Our guiding hypothesis will be that we will find a representation of daily life in the globalized world that revolves pointedly around the senses, emotion, and feeling. We should expect a treatment of the senses—particularly vision and hearing—as social metaphor; lots of expressive faces in close-up shots with minimal to no dialogue; and the compression of grand social themes like justice and injustice, sacrifice and redemption, violence and compassion into the body—in other words, the body becomes the ultimate vehicle for storytelling, its relative well-being or “ill-being” becoming a mirror for the reflection of broader truths about social health or sickness. Throughout the course, we will come back to the question of how knowledge—of the self, of the world—is represented for the global age, and what the role of the senses, emotion, and feeling is in constructing paradigms of selfhood and global citizenship.

TEXTS:Lisandro Alonso: Los muertos (The Dead) (Argentina, 2004)
Guillermo Arriaga: The Burning Plain (USA, 2008)
Ethan and Joel Coen: No Country for Old Men (USA, 2007)
Alfonso Cuarón: Children of Men (USA, 2006)
Jon Favreau: Iron Man (USA, 2008)
Mel Gibson: The Passion of the Christ (USA, 2004)
Alejandro González Iñárritu: Amores perros (Mexico, 2000); 21 Grams (USA, 2003); Babel (USA, 2006)
Tommy Lee Jones: The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (USA, 2005)
Lucrecia Martel: La niña santa (The Holy Girl) (Argentina, 2004)
Fernando Meirelles, Blindness (USA, 2008)
Christopher Nolan: Batman Begins (USA, 2005); The Dark Knight (USA, 2008)
Fernando Pérez: Suite Habana (Cuba, 2003)
Walter Salles: The Motorcycle Diaries (Brazil, 2004)
Advertising publicity (McDonald’s, Apple, Coca-Cola, Converse, The Gap)

PARTICULARS:Participation will include rotating student-led discussion and scheduled presentations. Final weeks of the class will be dedicated to an intensive writing workshop to develop a research paper on a relevant topic of the student’s choice. Throughout the semester, screenings will be arranged whenever possible according to student preference for scheduling (please note that these screenings will not be part of regular class meeting times). Class discussion and writing will be in Spanish.

SPANISH 460S: Prison Narratives in 20th Century Latin America (top)
Matt Edwards TuTh 1:00-2:15 Max: 12 (Cross-list with LAS 490S 3)

CONTENT: This class will focus on textual and filmic representations of the Latin American jail cell in hopes of stepping into the shoes of the dirty and dangerous prisoner. In doing so, we will attempt not only to see within the prison but also to recognize the prisoner’s social position—at the same time a part of and excluded from the social community—as unique and integral to the critique of dominant social structures.

TEXTS:
Arenas, Reinaldo. Antes que anochezca. Barcelona: Tusquets, 1992.
Drago, Margarita. Fragmentos de la memoria: Recuerdos de una experiencia carcelaria (1975-1980). Buenos Aires: Campana, 2007.
Montenegro, Carlos. Hombres sin mujer La Habana: 1935.
Moreno, María. El petiso orejudo. Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1994.
Puig, Manuel. El beso de la mujer araña. Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1976.
Films to be Looked at:
Caseros-en la cárcel. (Argentina, 2005)
Casandiru (2003)
Carne de presidio. (México 1952)
El chacal de Nahueltoro. (Chile 1970)
Principal theoretical readings from: Foucault, Michel. Discipline and
Punish: The birth of the prison. London: Allen Lane, 1977.

PARTICULARS: Attendance, preparation and participation are mandatory in this class.
Evaluation will be based primarily on Daily critical reflections, 1 Critical review of theoretical reading, an Oral presentation of a 2nd theoretical reading, a Short paper and a Final essay evaluated in three stages (Proposal, First Draft, Final Draft)

SPANISH 460S: Gender and Sexualities in Hispanic Caribbean Cultures (top)
José Arnaldo Larrauri TuTh 2:30-3:45 Max: 12 (Cross-list with LAS 490S 3)

CONTENT: The terms “gender” and “sexuality” in the Hispanic Caribbean cultures provoke loaded meanings and manifestations. This course will approach critically the representations of gender and sexualities in literature, art, music and film texts of Hispanic Caribbean cultures.

TEXTS: Mayra Santos-Febres, Sirena Selena vestida de pena. Pedro Antonio Valdez, Bachata del ángel caído. Additional primary and secondary readings will be available on Reserves Direct.

PARTICULARS: Evaluation includes attendance, class participation, an exam, and two 7-10 pages essays.