text:
N.B. Course descriptions and required texts are subject to change.
Courses offered in the past four years.
▲ indicates offered in the current term
▹ indicates offered in the upcoming term[s]
SPAN 6501 - Intro to Advanced SP Grammar ▲
This course utilizes an integrated approach to bridging the gap between intermediate and advanced levels of language, putting particular emphasis on some of the most essential topics of Spanish grammar such as: 1) Rules of orthographical accents; 2) Ser vs. Estar; 3) Uses of past tenses, indicative mood; 3) Prepositions (a, por, para); 4) Basic uses of the subjunctive/subordinate clauses; 5) Indicative vs. subjunctive mood; 6) Conjunctions.
The approach to these grammar topics will take into consideration the theoretical aspects as well as the practical use in speech and writing. Authentic cultural readings of diverse types and sources will serve as a context for linguistic practice and written exercises in the classroom. (1 unit) This course meets two hours a day.
Required materials: Theory, practical exercises, articles, and other reading materials are provided by the professors at Middlebury online in "Moodle".Language & Stylistics
Summer 2011, Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6502 - Advanced Spanish Grammar ▲
This is a mandatory course for first summer graduate students. The class is focused in some of the more important topics on Spanish grammar such as: a) some uses of ser and estar; b) uses of indicative tenses, paying special attention to past forms; c) uses of the subjunctive; d) study of subordinate clauses, focusing on the uses of subordinate conjunctions and values of indicative and subjunctive in these sentences. The course will have not only a theoretical dimension but also a practical orientation, with exercises designed to improve the comprehension of all these subjects. (1 unit)
Required text: Electronic material provided at Middlebury.Linguistics
Summer 2011, Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6503 - Intro to Hispanic Linguistics
Introduction to Hispanic Linguistics
This course is offered as a regular class instead of 6502 for students with high level in the placement exam. It will serve as an introduction to the basic concepts of Hispanic linguistics in order to provide a better understanding of the linguistic courses along the mastery. This class covers several topics relative to different areas of the discipline: phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics, historical linguistics (Spanish language changes), the Spanish linguistic variation, and sociolinguistic issues. The course will have not only a theoretical dimension but also a practical orientation with exercises designed to improve the comprehension of all these subjects (1 unit)
Required text: José Ignacio Hualde, Introducción a la Lingüística Hispánica (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2ª ed. 2010) (ISBN: 978-0521513982).Language & Stylistics
Summer 2013
SPAN 6505 - Adv Academic Writing ▲
The course aims at developing students academic writing skills through the understanding of key concepts of discourse analysis such as reference, cohesion, and coherence. A variety of text types will be analyzed in class. Rhetoric devices such as argumentation, hypothesis, and exposition will be presented and practiced through writing tasks, with group work integrated into the course. Special attention will be given to the articulation of class activities with the requirements of other courses at the same level. (1 unit).
Required text: Electronic material provided at Middlebury.Language & Stylistics
Summer 2011, Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6551 - Span Dictatorship & Democracy
Historical Memory: Dictatorship & Democracy in Spain
The topic of Historical Memory has become a central matter for the current society in Spain, from the moment the Spanish Congress approved, in October, 2007, the law commonly known as "Law for Historical Memory", by which there are a series of dispositions for a critical review of the Franco period and the transition to the democracy. In this course we will analyze the nature of the dictatorship and the democratic transition from plural perspectives, supported by abundant documentation. (1 unit)
Required text: Borja de Riquer Permanyer, La Dictadura de Franco (Barcelona: Editorial Crítica/Marcial Pons, 2010).Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2011
SPAN 6560 - Literary Analysis ▲
This course will introduce the graduate student to the techniques of literary analysis, critical thinking, reading, and interpreting Hispanic literary texts. It is divided into three segments, each of which is devoted to the analytic strategies pertinent to one major genre: narrative, poetry, and drama. Each student will write several papers and actively participate in class discussions. (1 unit)
Required texts: Antonio Sobejano-Morán, Tornasol (Panda Publications, newest edition); Lope de Vega, La dama boba (Madrid: Cátedra, newest edition).Literature
Summer 2011, Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6561 - Span Am Film New Millennium
Spanish American Film of the New Millennium
Three-week course, second session
Between 2000 and 2011, a young Spanish American film emerges, taking at times a minimalist point of view to narrate individual stories with a subjective tone, or continuing a tradition of the historical panorama to present national tragedies that occurred in the last two or three decades. This course will focus on this new type of film from different countries, with such titles as Historias mínimas, Los colores de la montaña, El casamiento, La mirada invisible, Cosas insignificantes, Cinco días sin Nora, Mal día para pescar, La vida útil, A un metro de ti, Contracorriente, among others. (.5 unit)
Required text: Films to be seen at lab and additional bibliography to be included in the course website at Middlebury.Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2011, Summer 2012
SPAN 6580 - Literary Theory ▲
The aim of this course is to introduce students to the various schools that set the grounds for modern literary and cultural criticism. Class discussions will concentrate on the understanding of theoretical texts, as well as, on the reading and analysis of literature and cultural products. We will engage with the main theoretical currents of our time such as structuralism, postructuralism, feminism, and cultural studies. (1 unit)
Required text: Electronic material provided at Middlebury.Literature
Summer 2011, Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6604 - Jews Christians Muslims Medvl
Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Medieval Spain
This course is designed to study the different aspects of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Cultural Heritage in medieval Spain. Special emphasis is placed on the contribution of Muslims, Christians, and Jews to Spanish literature, history, religion, philosophy, arts, and sciences. A comparative study of these contributions is an important part of the course. The sociological situation of Christian, Islamic, and Jewish communities in either a Christian or a Muslim context, and the role of women in these societies will be analyzed. Special relevance is given to the question of the identity of the minority groups in the multicultural environment of medieval Spain. In class, we will analyze, comment, and discuss primary sources—translated into Spanish—from the period, especially literary documents and historical sources. (1 unit)
Required text: Electronic material provided at Middlebury.Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2011, Summer 2012, Summer 2013
SPAN 6605 - Spanish Language Dictionaries
The course introduces a modern and historical panorama of Spanish language dictionaries. The course will include a theoretical introduction to lexicography and the production of dictionaries; in this way it will establish a foundation for lexical commentary. We will analyze the most important Spanish language dictionaries, starting with the bilingual Nebrija dictionaries to the Pan-Hispanic dictionary of the RAE (Real Academia Española -Spanish Real Academia-), which will be used as the reference text. Lastly, the course will finish the study of theory by using databases that facilitate the production of dictionaries. (1 unit)
Required text: A. M. Medina (coord.), Lexicografía española, (Barcelona: Ariel Lingüística, 2003).Linguistics
Summer 2013
SPAN 6605M - Spanish in Context
Spanish in Context
This class consists in the analysis of important aspects of the contextual uses of Spanish. It focuses on conditions that regulate the use of the language in specific contexts of communication. In specific situations, language becomes a mechanism of various values. This course will evaluate the use of interrogative sentences, negative structures, and metaphorical use of Spanish in different registers such as in a formal context or in verbal disagreement situations. Language is analyzed in this course as a second reading of its intentional use, with its metaphorical values, connotations, second meanings, exaggerations, analogies, etc. Some of the concepts studied here will be "verbal context", "speech", "communicative meaning", etc. (1 unit)
Required text: Course pack for purchase in Mexico.Linguistics
Summer 2011
SPAN 6609 - Uses Subjunctive Spanish ▲
Values and Uses of Subjunctive in Spanish
Subjunctive constitutes one of the basic topics of Spanish grammar and is one of the most important problems in the acquisition of Spanish as a second language. This course focuses on the study of how, when, and why the subjunctive is used in Spanish. In addition, it will also pay attention to other issues such as the values and uses of subjunctive in independent and subordinated sentences, and how these values and uses can be explained by teachers of Spanish in their classes. The course will have not only a theoretical dimension but also a practical orientation, with exercises designed to improve the comprehension of subjunctive in Spanish. (1 unit)
Required text: Electronic material provided at MiddleburyLinguistics
Summer 2011, Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6609M - The Subjunctive
The Subjunctive
You will learn to identify the different types of clauses in which the subjunctive can appear and the rules that govern its use in each type, noting contrasts in meaning with the indicative when these occur. You will be encouraged to prepare your own materials for teaching this grammatical point, whether you are a present teacher or are planning to be one. (1 unit)
Required text: None. Students will be provided with free materials written by the instructor.
Texts available in MexicoLinguistics
Summer 2011
SPAN 6610 - Intro to Spanish Linguistics
Introduction to Spanish Linguistics
The purpose of this course is to provide an introduction to the scientific study of language by presenting some of its fundamental characteristics, in particular phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Additionally, students will discuss the interaction between these levels and other disciplines (developmental, psycho-, neuro-, socio-linguistics). The use of exercises will help the students to understand theoretical concepts and learn how to approach language in a scientific way. (1 unit)
Required text: Andrew Radford, Martin Atkinson, David Britain, Harald Clahsen, and Andrew Spencer, Introducción a la linguistic (Sevilla: Akal, 2000). Further references will be given in class. Selected readings will be distributed in class. Other materials will be provided in electronic format on Segue.
Summer 2011
SPAN 6611 - Spanish in Contact Other Langs
Spanish (worldwide) in Contact with Other Languages
This course offers a comprehensive historical, social, and linguistic overview of Spanish in contact with other languages in all of its major contexts---in Spain, the United States, and Latin America. In so doing it explores the historical and social factors that have shaped contact varieties of the Spanish language, synthesizing the principle arguments and theories about language contact, and examining linguistic changes in Spanish phonology, morphology and syntax, and pragmatics. The course first explores the importance of language contact to the evolution of languages. Individual lessons analyze particular contact situations: in Spain, contact with Basque, Catalan, and Galician; in Mexico, Central, and South America, contact with Nahuatl, Maya, Quechua, Aimara, and Guarani; in the Southern Cone, contact with other principle European languages such as Portuguese, Italian, English, German, and Danish; in the United States, contact with English. The course also explores the historical influence of African languages*on Latin American Spanish. An important aspect of this class will be to provide students with the opportunity to /teach/part of the course. The course is thus meant to provide a /practicum/that can serve as stepping stone for students' future career as college or university faculty. Two exams, no written paper. (1 unit)Linguistics Pedagogy
Summer 2013
SPAN 6613 - Grammar of Colloquial Spanish ▲
Although students in this course already have an advanced level of standard Spanish used in the formal register, they need to know colloquial uses which will make them closer to the competence of native speakers in the communicative processes of everyday life. This course has two objectives: 1) to make students able to know explicitly the pragmatic and grammatical resources of oral discourse and 2) to make them able to use them automatically. In order to achieve this goal, we will concentrate on the uses of morphological and syntactic elements which offer expressive possibilities to the communicative intentions of the Spanish speaking person. We will include colloquial "panhispanic" features, although we will refer to some relevant features of some dialects both of America and Spain. As a methodology we will combine the study of the required text and other material provided by the teacher, with practice based on the analysis of real conversations recorded in video.
Required text: Margarita Porroche Ballesteros, Margarita. 2009. Aspectos de gramática del español coloquial para profesores de español como L2 (Madrid: Arco/Libros, 2009).Language & Stylistics
Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6613A - Tango: Nation & Identity ▲
When tango was born in Buenos Aires, in the second half of the 19th-century, Argentina was undergoing profound changes. With the arrival of millions of immigrants, the shape of the city and its society began an intense process of modernization. A product from the bordello and a "threat" to national identity, tango came to be a global success in only twenty years. Acclaimed in Paris and New York, tango became a symbol for Argentina and its new ways of thinking about sexuality, gender, and class relations. This course treats tango as a cultural artifact that condenses many of the key debates about the relationships between popular culture and society. Through the study of tango lyrics, plays, films, novels, and other cultural productions, this course proposes a critical analysis of theoretical problems such as national identity, gender studies, and the consumption of culture in a global era. The course combines lectures with seminar-style classes encouraging discussion and participation. Students will also have to visit different places in the city of Buenos Aires that are clearly linked to the history of tango. (1 unit)
This course is cross-listed with Literature.Civ Cul & Soc Literature
Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6615 - History of Written Spanish
This course will study the history of Spanish language through texts, from Medieval Ages through the present. By the end of the summer, students will be able to read texts of any period, understanding their linguistic differences in order to identify in which historic moment each was written. The objectives of this course are: a) to improve students' capacity for reading literary texts of any period based on the knowledge of their linguistic features; and b) to study from a historic perspective many aspects of the modern Spanish language (orthography, grammar, varieties of Spanish, etc). All these topics can be most useful to understand linguistics problems that are generally taught in classes of Spanish as a second language (1 unit)
Required text: Material in course pack form to be purchased at Middlebury; additional material in electronic form on Segue.Linguistics
Summer 2011
SPAN 6617 - Art & Technology - New Media ▲
Contemporary Art, Technology, and New Media
*Three-week course, first session*
This course is conceived like a trip around the interesting and problematic relationship between Art and Technology. Since the beginning, Art and technè have been inseparable concepts. The historical Avant- gardes of the beginning of the 20th-century modified this view and deeply examined this relationship. The new technological discovers and the media that appeared during this century changed completely the Art landscape. Our course purposes an overview of the different art manifestations focusing in Latin-American productions such as video art, net art, interactive art, installations, urban interventions, performance art, blog art; and also will analyze the changes in the new spectators, as users or /operators and the social consequences that this situation involves. (.5 unit)Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6617M - Culture of Mexico
Culture of Mexico
This course examines the rich territory of contemporary Mexican culture. We will study the main cultural movements and tendencies of the plastic and visual arts (painting, photography) of the 20th-century, including the Mexican Muralists. Students will have the opportunity to analyze the musical and artistic expressions that define "Mexican-ness" (popular songs, dance, and "corridos"). Other forms of popular culture will be also studied for their social and aesthetic relevance (crafts, "charreria", movies, among others). (1 Unit)
Required text: Course pack for purchase in Mexico.Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2011
SPAN 6620 - History of Spanish Language ▲
We will study a broad introduction to the history of the Spanish language. From its distant origins in Latin learned by the early inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula, to its privileged position of language in today's world, and in its Peninsular and Atlantic variants. We will study the evolution (phonetic, morphological, syntactic, and lexical) of Spanish at successive stages (origins, medieval, modern, classic, current). We will reflect on it's relationship to historical events that have shaped the Hispanic civilization and the development of the Spanish language. Finally, we will analyze significant texts of each historical moment and discuss their most relevant linguistic and stylistic characteristics. (1 unit)
Required text: Mª Jesús Torrens Álvarez, Evolución e historia de la lengua española (Arco / Libros, 2007).Linguistics
Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6620A - History of Spanish Language
This course offers a historical-linguistic vision of the Spanish language evolution from its Latin roots to its modern form. It proposes theoretical and practical fundaments in the field to understand phonetic, morphological, and lexical changes, which have being developed from the 11th-century until our modern days. The class presents the most important aspects of the evolution of the Spanish language: the linguistic situation of the Peninsula before the Romans arrived, the relevance of the spoken Latin (Latín vulgar), the Arab linguistic influence, the origins of the primitive peninsular romance languages, and the particular transformation of one of them: Castilian, the relevant linguistic changes, the political and geographical expansion of Castilian, and its latest flourishing as a national and transatlantic language. (1 unit)
Required text: Núñez-Méndez, E.: Fundamentos teóricos y prácticos de historia de la lengua (New Haven: Yale University Press. xiii + 315 pp. 2011 ISBN : 978-0-300-17098-6 (available at the Middlebury College Bookstore in Vermont).Linguistics
Summer 2012
SPAN 6620M - History of Spanish Language
History of the Spanish Language
This course offers a historical-linguistic vision of the Spanish language evolution from its Latin roots to its modern form. It proposes theoretical and practical fundaments in the field to understand phonetic, morphological, and lexical changes, which have being developed from the 11th-century until our modern days. The class presents the most important aspects of the evolution of the Spanish language: the linguistic situation of the Peninsula before the Romans arrived, the relevance of the spoken Latin (Latín vulgar), the Arab linguistic influence, the origins of the primitive peninsular romance languages, and the particular transformation of one of them: Castilian, the relevant linguistic changes, the political and geographical expansion of Castilian, and its latest flourishing as a national and transatlantic language. (1 unit)
Required text: Torres Alvarez, Evolucion e historia de la lengua española Text available at the Middlebury, Vermont College Store.Linguistics
Summer 2011
SPAN 6621 - Syntax of the Spanish Language ▲
The purpose of this course is to provide a balanced combination of theory and practice concerning the structure of a sentence in Spanish and the basic problems when teaching Spanish grammar. The course focuses in the grammatical relationships between the components of the simple and dependent sentences. Course topics include: the Spanish order of the words, the alternance between the indicative and the subjunctive in the different types of dependent sentences, the different values of SE, the use of the prepositions, etc. Students will analyze texts in order to better understand the most complex questions of Spanish grammar. (l unit)
Required text: Mariluz Gutiérrez Araus, Problemas fundamentales de la gramática del español como 2 / L (Madrid: Arco Libros, 2012, 4ª ed.).Linguistics
Summer 2011, Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6625A - Bilingualism & Lang Contact ▲
According to René Appel and Pieter Muysken "Bilingualism or language contact in itself is not a scientific discipline. It is an issue, a subject or a field to which various disciplines can contribute. The disciplines can interact or, on the other hand, function independently, because of differing viewpoints, methodologies, or terminologies." (Appel and Muysken 1987: 7-8) Due to the fact that language in society is inherently multifaceted and multidisciplinary, the study of such a complex phenomenon as bilingualism (or multilingualism) cannot be justly limited to traditional or purely linguistic approaches: the fields of syntax, morphology, phonology, and semantics. Therefore, the study of bilingualism includes not only languages in contact, in the most traditional sense, but also entails serious explorations into newer subfields like geolinguistics and language planning, as well as other academic fields such as education, psychology, anthropology, sociology, political science, and law. (1 unit)Language & Stylistics
Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6630 - Migration & Exile Contemp Thea ▲
Migration and Exile in Contemporary Spanish American Theater
This course will examine Spanish American plays from both the 20th-and 21st-centuries that explore the topic of migration in thematic and symbolic terms. We will study the various manifestations of migration—immigration, emigration, exile, and return—as each of them are connected to social, political, economic, psychological, linguistic, and physical realities. The movement of peoples and communities from one continent, country, or region to another has become a frequent occurrence, and playwrights have seen, interpreted, and staged the drama and instability behind this uprooting. The goal is to study Spanish American plays from countries and regions that have experience significant amounts of internal and external migration, as well as countries that have experienced massive emigration. The course will be divided in both regions and topics: Argentina: Displacement and disappearance; Mexico/U.S. Borderlands; The Caribbean: "Sailing" Away; Pilgrimage and Memory: The Andean Region. Some of the playwrights to be studied include René Marqués (Puerto Rico); Roberto Cossa (Argentina); Arístides Vargas (Argentina/Ecuador), Sabina Berman (México); Grupo Yuyachkani (Perú); Hugo Salcedo (México). (1 unit)
Required text: Roberto Cossa, La nona (Corregidor, January 1, 2006) (ISBN: 10-9500515369 ISBN 13:978-9500515368); René Marqués, La carreta: Drama entres actos (Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico: Editoral Cultural, 1983 or most recent edition (ISBN-10: 8428306737 ISBN-13: 978-8428306737). Stuart Day, Las fronteras míticas del teatro mexicano (LATR Books, University of Kansas (ISBN: 978-1-61539-743-3).Literature
Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6633 - Survive Mem/Resist Dictatorshp
Surviving Memories: Resisting Dictatorships
One of the most serious phenomena of the 20th-century was the rise of totalitarian regimes in different nations. In Latin America and Spain there emerged new regimes that monopolized power, dominated society through a systematic mechanism of control and propaganda and also exercised unprecedented repression. In opposition to these regimes, voices that resisted opening up new margins of freedom arose. The aim of this course is to develop insight into the American and Spanish dictatorships through the study and discussion of writings and diverse reports from witnesses who were able to keep their memories alive. (1 unit)
Required texts: A selection of excerpts from the following authors: Mariano Constante, Los años rojos (Barcelona: Círculo de Lectores, 2004), Cristina Peri Rossi, El museo de los esfuerzos inútiles, en Lo mío es escribir: Siglo XX, ed. Anna Caballé (Barcelona: Círculo de Lectores, 2003); Victoria Kent, Cuatro años de mi vida, 1940-1944 (Barcelona: Bruguera, 1978); Ernesto Sábato, La resistencia (Barcelona: Seix Barral, 2000); Jorge Semprun, La escritura o la vida (Barcelona: Tusquets, 2002). Excerpts provided in electronic form at Middlebury.
Summer 2012
SPAN 6635A - Latin American Contemp Art ▲
Latin American Contemporary Art
The aim of this course is to introduce students to Latin American Contemporary Art and its relations with historical, political, and aesthetic contexts in our region. We will reflect upon fundamental issues of todas art: the affective , conceptual, and ironic role of artists in creation; the relationship with the market, the presence in biennials, the pursue of formal procedures, and the problematization of artistic languages. The course will provide tolos of visual and critical analysis in order to think the complex status of the image within latin american production. We will study a variety of artists: Nicola Constantino, Graciela Sacco (Argentina), Ligya Clark, Vic Muniz, Cildo Meireles and Adriana Varejao (Brazil), Alfredo Jaar (Chile), Los Carpinteros and KCHO (Cuba), Doris Salcedo and Beatriz González (Colombia), Teresa Margolles, Francis Allys and Elena Climent (Mexico), among others. (1 unit)Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6636M - Music & Lit in Latin America
The Orphic Imperative: Music and Literature in Latin America *
For Luis Rafael Sánchez, one of Puerto Rico's premier writers, popular music is the greatest cohesive element of Latin American culture. His assertion on the importance of music in the region is quite convincing. Since the past century, Latin America has produced a wealth of musical genres and subgenres. The influence of native rhythms, musical hybrids, and fusions has been remarkable on these societies as a whole and, in particular, on other forms of cultural production and artistic expression. This is the case of the relationship between popular music and literature, which has always originated interesting cross-fertilizations. From revolutionary chants to romantic boleros to tangos, the musical language has both channeled and nurtured literature. The course will approach the subject from a literary perspective and will discuss concepts such as: literary adaptation, intertextuality, mimesis, meaning, and representation in both literature and music. We will also discuss some socio-political and cultural issues related to this broad subject: immigration, orality, social protest, modernism/post-modernism, nationalism/transnationalism, etc.
The readings include works by Jorge Luis Borges, Nicolás Guillén, María Luisa Bombal, Isabel Allende, Vinicius da Moraes, Alejo Carpentier, Luis Rafael Sánchez, and Ana Lydia Vega. (1 unit)
Required texts: Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Delito por bailar el chachachá (México: Alfaguara, 1996); Alejo Carpentier, Concierto barroco (México: Siglo XXI, 1994); Luis Rafael Sánchez, La guaracha del Macho Camacho (Madrid: Cátedra, 2001); Juan Villoro, Tiempo transcurrido (México: FCE, 1993).
Texts available in Mexico except for La guaracha del Macho Camacho which will be available in Vermont.Civ Cul & Soc Literature
Summer 2011
SPAN 6639 - Painting &Poetry Span Gldn Age
Painting and Poetry in the Spanish and Spanish American Culture of the Golden Age
In this course we will explore the relationship between painting and poetry during the Spanish Renaissance and Baroque by focusing on relevant themes of the time: the revival of interests in figures from pagan mythology (e.g. Europa, Venus, Vulcan, Laocoön); the Council of Trent and its influence on Christian painting and literature from Spain and its American colonies; the representation of women according to the period's norms of beauty; melancholy as sickness; the vanitas topus; mysticism and eroticism; and Casta Painting. Paintings of El Greco, Zurbarán, Velázquez, Villalpando, among others, will be analyzed in conjunction with their counterparts in literary texts by Teresa of Avila, Garcilaso de la Vega, Lope de Vega, Francisco de Quevedo, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, etc. Contemporary art will also be considered. No previous knowledge of art is required. (1 unit)
Required texts: Susan Woodford, Cómo mirar un cuadro (Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gili, 1983. ISBN: 9788425212420); Alfonso Pérez Sánchez, Pintura Barroca en España. 1600-1750 (Madrid: Manuales Cátedra, Cátedra, 2010, ISBN: 978-84-376-2684-0); Elias Rivers ed., Renaissance and Baroque Poetry of Spain. With English Prose Translations (Waveland Press. Any edition. ISBN 0881333638) Poesía colonial hispanoamericana. (Madrid: Cátedra, 2004 ISBN: 978-84-376-2113-5).
This course is cross-listed with Culture.Civ Cul & Soc Literature
Summer 2012
SPAN 6640 - Spanish American Vanguard Lit
Spanish American Vanguard Literature: Between Art & Politics
An introduction to the Vanguardist period in Spanish American cultural history, exploring how political and social changes in early 20th-century Spanish America moved Vanguardist writers and artists away from experimentalist and elitist attitudes towards increased social and political commitment. This course examines how the varied manifestos, poems, theatre works, novels, and short stories of the Vanguardists reflected the tension between playfulness and engagement, cosmopolitanism and regionalism, creativity and conscience. Major authors to be read include: Vicente Huidobro, César Vallejo, Pablo Neruda, Jorge Luis Borges, Nicolás Guillén, Martín Adán, Jaime Torres Bodet, Nelly Campobello, Roberto Arlt, Clemente Palma, and Juan Bosch. (1 unit)Literature
Summer 2013
SPAN 6641 - History of Mexico ▲
History of Mexico: Politics & Culture from the Conquest to the Present
This course addresses the history of Mexico in a monographical way, from the process of conquest in the 16th-century that established the New Spain to current politics of the present days. With approaches to significant events, representative figures and iconic documents, the course aims to provide elements to understand the historical reality of one of the most interesting and complex Latin American countries. (1 unit)
Required text: Electronic materials provided at Middlebury.Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6641A - Natl Identities New Millennium
National Identities in the New Millennium
At the end of 20th-century, national narratives in Latin-America and Spain faced changes and redefinitions. Migrations, the emergence of formerly repressed identities, and the presence of a changing cultural market fueled the appearance of voices considered unconventional a few decades ago. Ranging from the end of 20th-century up to the present, the Spanish and Latin American texts discussed in this course question or redefine the traditional discourses that were officially marked as representative of the national identities. The analysis will account for current debates on geopolitics, linguistic and gender issues, as well as those belonging to the construction of alternative communal identities. (1 unit)
Required text: Course pack for purchase in Argentina.Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2012
SPAN 6642 - Documentary Film ▲
Documentary Film Current Society in Spain
*Three-week course, second session*
Creative documentaries are a perfect way to perceive a society. Through the eyes of the filmmakers, one can understand a country, and at the same time, understand the creator behind. In this course we will analyze the most creative documentary filmmakers in contemporary Spain. Directors such as José Luis Lopez Linares, Diego Galán, José Luis Guerín, and others, will help us understand better the recent history of Spain. (.5 unit)Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6645 - Dictatorship-Democracy Cinema ▲
Dictatorship to Democracy through Spanish Cinema
*Three-week course, second session*
Spain underwent a fast transition from a dictatorship to a democracy. This course will show how the films reflected those changes and opened the perception of the world by filmmakers and audiences. We will explore the work of filmmakers such as Carlos Saura, Antonio Hernández, Vicente Aranda, Iciair Bollaín, Julio Medem, and others... (.5 unit)Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6645A - Argentine Cinema ▲
This course focuses on the last fifty years of argentine cinema. The end of World War II, the fall of Juan Domingo Perón, and the closing of movie studios imposed varied political, social, and cultural transformations reflected in the movies produced since then. During the years that followed, we witness the birth of independent cinema (on the margins of movie industry), the relationship with other cinemas within the region and the confrontation with new cinemas and with artistic avant-gardes throughout the world. Thus, experimentation, social testimony, and politization of cinema are features of on growing relevance. In this sense, cinema would be a privileged media to study not only aesthetic changes but also socio-political developments towards the end of the 20th-century. The aim of the syllabus is to concéntrate on the above mentioned issues through the analysis of major films by Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, Leonardo Favio, Fernando Solanas, Adolfo Aristarain, Lucrecia Martel, and Pablo Trapero, among others. We would analyze the innovations brought about by the so called generation of the ´60s, the emergence of political cinema in the beginning of the 70´s, the complex relationship between society and cinema during the military dictatorship, the democratic period and the new cinema of the 1990´s. Special attention will be paid to certain topics such as the relationship between cinema and avant-gardes, high and pop culture, films as political tools and generally speaking, to movies as witnesses of historical processes. (1 unit)Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6645M - Mexican Contemporary Cinema
Mexican Contemporary Cinema
This course addresses the radical transformations suffered by Mexican cinema in the wake of neoliberalism, due to the impact of privatization in exhibition and production and the changes in the cinematic audiences from the popular to the middle classes. The course will address four phenomena: the decline of nationalism as the privileged discourse for Mexican cinema; the rise of romantic comedy as the main cinematic mode for the middle class; the transformation of the notion of "political cinema", and the emergence of transnational directors. Students will see films by the major directors of the period, including Maria Novaro, Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro Gonzáles Iñarritu, and Fernando Sariñana.
Required text: Lucía Hinojosa Córdova, El cine mexicano (Mexico: Trillas, 2003), course pack for purchase in Mexico.
Texts available in MexicoCiv Cul & Soc
Summer 2011
SPAN 6646 - Mexican Cinema & Identity ▲
Three-week course, first session
This course will focus on the great films of 20th-Century Mexico in order to study the pivotal moments in the creation of Mexican identity. We will go from Santa, the first sound film of Mexican cinema, by Antonio Moreno to the acclaimed Amores Perros, the film of Alejandro González Iñárritu among others. While we study the films and their audiences and we will discuss the symbolic invention of the modern Mexican State from the post-revolution to modern days, with a special emphasis on the "Mexican Miracle" films and its posterior critique in directors as Luis Estrada and Carlos Reygadas. (.5 unit)
Required Text: Electronic materials provided at Middlebury.Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6648 - Julio Cortazar Short Stories ▲
Spirituality and Revolution in the Short Stories of Julio Cortazar
*Three-week course, second session*
A survey of Julio Cortázar's extensive body of short stories, focusing on two contrasting aspects of his work: his artistic appropriation of religious and theological elements and his left-wing political engagement from 1960 until his death in 1984. In our readings of many of Cortázar's most famous stories, from "Casa tomada" and "Axolotl" to "El perseguidor" and "Apocalipsis de Solentiname," we will explore Cortázar's use of theological concepts such as sacredness, eternity, and prophecy, and the convergence between his fictions and the ideas of liberation theology. (.5 unit)
Required text: Julio Cortázar, La autopista del sur y otros cuentos ed. Aurora Bernárdez. (New York: Penguin Books, 1996. ISBN: 978-0140255805).Literature
Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6649 - Music & Narrative Hisp Caribbn
Music & Narrative in the Hispanic Caribbean
Music, particularly popular music, is considered the oldest, most significant, and best recognized contribution of the Hispanic Caribbean to world culture. This course will study the development of the narrative genre in the Greater Antilles (Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico) from its origins in the 19th-century until now, focusing on how music is presented and is incorporated in narrative discourse. In selected readings from this period we will examine how writers of the region have dealt in their works with the almost overwhelming presence of melody and rhythm in the daily life of the cultures in and about which they write. This course is for students who are interested in research, or who are considering continuing to the Ph.D. or DML level. (1 unit)
Required text: Juliá Rodríguez Edgardo, El entierro de Cortijo (Río Piedras: Ediciones Huracán, 2006. ISBN: 978-0940238213); other material in electronic form on Segue.Literature
Summer 2011
SPAN 6653M - Jalisciense Narrative in 20C
Jalisciense Narrative of the 20th Century
The course will study the works of the most important writers from this state of Western Mexico (Jalisco, the state in which Guadalajara is located), that have had a profound influence in the literary panorama of the 20th-century: Juan Rulfo, Agustín Yáñez, Juan José Arreola, and Mariano Azuela. We will study diverse literary aspects of their works using a variety of critical approaches, different aesthetics, and a sociocultural perspective, always considering the social and historical contexts in which these authors have elaborated their fictional worlds. The course will be complemented with visual texts (photographs), films, and recordings made by the authors. (1 unit)
Required texts: Juan Rulfo, Pedro Páramo; Juan Rulfo, El llano en llamas; Juan José Arreola, Confabulario; Juan José Arreola, Estas páginas mías (antología); Agustín Yáñez, Al filo del agua; Agustín Yáñez, Tres cuentos; Mariano Azuela, Los de abajo. Texts available in Mexico except for Tres cuentos which will be available in Vermont.Literature
Summer 2011
SPAN 6659 - Sor Juana & Cult of Baroque
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and the Culture of the Baroque
This seminar will focus on the life and writings of the 17th-century Mexican nun, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1649-1695), who is considered not only one of the major literary figures of Colonial times, but also the first feminist of the New World. We will study her poetry, drama, autobiographical letters, and theological writings in the context of the main cultural trends of the Baroque: the new scientific discoveries, painting vs. poetry, the debate on Holy images, theories about the female body, women educational discourse, and others. (1 Unit)
Required texts: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Obras completas (Mexico: ed. Porrúa, 2007); Octavio Paz, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz y las trampas de la fe (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica); Michel Foucault, La historia de la sexualidad. La voluntad del saber vol. 1 (Mexico: Siglo XXI); additional readings will be available in electronic form on Segue.Literature
Summer 2011
SPAN 6659A - Argentine Literature
In its relative short existence, Argentinean literature have been tightly linked to the national political projects. From its origins to the present day, it is possible to follow in the cultural production a long story of passion, hate and love, soundly attached to the historical life of the country. The course will analyze literary masterpieces in its dialog with the construction of national identities from 19th-century to the present. It will also focus on comparative readings of the texts in order to explore, in the context of struggling ideologies, the development of an hybrid culture. Works studied will include, among others, those of Sarmiento, Echeverría, Hernández, Cambaceres, Arlt, Marechal, Cortázar, Borges and popular tango poetry. (1 unit)
Required text: Course pack for purchase in Argentina.Literature
Summer 2012
SPAN 6662 - Quijote De La Mancha ▲
Don Quijote de la Mancha
Don Quixote is one of the most famous and widely read books in the whole world; therefore its capacity to generate critical literature seems to have no limits. Both the reading and the writing have undergone a revision that will inevitably transform the idea of literature and of the represented fiction. During the course we will focus on questions that belong to the critical canon, questions that will be discussed in the light of recent studies: The consideration that Don Quixote is the first modern novel; the fundamental idea that it breaks the inherited literary rules; its belonging to the category of playful and burlesque literature (the carnival, the parody of the classic paradigms, the ironic critique of the ideological structure, the mockery of its contemporary ones ...), etc... (1 unit)
Required texts: Miguel de Cervantes, El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de La Mancha, (Madrid: Catedra) 2 vols. (ISBN 978-84-376-2214-9, ISBN 978-376-2215-6).Literature
Summer 2011, Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6664 - Short Story in Latin America ▲
The Evolution of Short Story and Its Theory in Latin America
Three-week course, first session
This course will analyze with special attention short forms of narrative (short story as genre in its current forms) and its evolution in Latin America, with special emphasis on the "theory" behind the creation of many of its authors. From Horacio Quiroga and his "La gallina degollada" and his "Decálogo del perfecto cuentista" to Ricardo Piglia and his "Tesis sobre el cuento", but also reading Juan Rulfo, Julio Cortázar, Julio Ramón Riibeyro, Inés Arredondo, among many others. (.5 unit)
Required Text: Electronic materials provided at Middlebury.Literature
Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6665M - Latin American Essay
The Latin American Essay: Themes and Tendencies
Central to the formation of a Latin American cultural discourse since the mid-19th-century, the genre of the essay has become the main vehicle for the articulation of issues, concerns, and ideals for generations of intellectuals in the region. The course will explore the continuity and difference that have marked the study of this essential literary genre in the work of some of its most representative exponents and through concepts such as cultural mestizaje, transculturation, heterogeneity, hybridity, and peripheral modernity. From the perspective of the new cultural history, it will also analyze the impact political events and social movements, on the one hand, and the social sciences and the economy, and the languages of the arts and film, on the other, have had on its development from the journalistic articles of the modernista generation to the neo-Zapatista communiqués, or the radio essays of Latino/a authors in the United States. Among the authors included in the program are José Martí, José Enrique Rodó, Alfonso Reyes, Jorge Luis Borges, José Carlos Mariátegui, Octavio Paz, Mariano Picón Salas, Rosario Castellanos, Beatriz Sarlo, and Richard Rodriguez. (1 unit)
Required texts: Tulio Halperín Donghi, Historia contemporánea de América Latina (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2005); John Skirius, El ensayo hispanoamericano del siglo XX (México: F.C.E., 2004).
Texts available in MexicoLiterature
Summer 2011
SPAN 6667 - Creative Writing ▲
This class is designed to teach basic and fundamental techniques for improving reading and writing skills for poetry and creative essay. In order to achieve this objective, consider it fundamental to have an understanding of "other" styles of writing from "other" cultures, which in this case is that of Latin America. To that end, we will use as models of analysis, a selection of classic essays, short stories and poems from Contemporary Latin American Literature, written after 1900. Upon accessing a different world-vision through literature, the student will have the sufficient elements to better her/his use of written language, whether as a form of expression or communication. In order to achieve part of the course's premise, which is to learn skillful writing, the student must first learn to read well, and to discover the "secrets of writing" from those authors who contributed new literary resources and forms of expression to literary history. The class will be conducted as a workshop, with the students' essays, short stories, and poems as the principal subjects of weekly discussions. (1 unit)Linguistics Literature
Summer 2011, Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6667A - Creative Writing ▲
In this course we will focus on creative writing as a way to develop a deeper understanding of the Spanish language. We will achieve this goal by using the language and our imagination to tell stories. This course will also provide the opportunity to read and discuss present literary works of important Hispano-Americans authors (Onneti, Borges, Rulfo, Cortázar, Méndez,etc). We will also read theoretical texts by Francisco Guzmán Burgos, Pablo Fernández, Alex Grijelmo, Ricardo Piglia, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Juan Bosch, Mempo Giardinelli, Rosario Ferré, Guillermo Samperio, Hernán Lara Zavala, Enrique Anderson Imbert, Anibal Ponce, Alberto Manuel, Jorge Von Ziegler, etc. (1 unit).
This course is cross-listed with Literature.Linguistics Literature
Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6672 - Federico Garcia Lorca ▲
Fate, Love and Death in Federico Garcia Lorca: From Tragedy to Poetry
Federico García Lorca is one of Spain's greatest literary figures, and after Cervantes, perhaps the most widely recognized Spanish writer in the English-speaking world. The aim of this course is to study Lorca's rural dramatic trilogy (Blood Wedding, Yerma, The House of Bernarda Alba), alongside selections of his poetry: Gypsy Ballads, Poema del canto jondo, and A Poet in New York). Social and anthropological issues such as honor, social class and desire, religion and taboo, homoerotism, the role of women in society, will be topics for discussion. Articles, documentaries, and class discussions will situate the varied works within the historical, socio-political, and cultural contexts that shaped Spain prior to the Civil War. Critical works will provide the necessary framework for the analysis of primary sources. Two short papers, in-class oral presentations, and active participation are required. (1 unit).
Required texts: Federico García Lorca, Amor de don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín (Madrid, Cátedra) (ISBN: 978-84-376-0899-0); Bodas de sangre (Madrid, Cátedra) (ISBN 978-84-376-0569-9); Yerma (Madrid, Cátedra, any edition); La casa de Bernarda Alba (Madrid, Cátedra) (ISBN: 978-84-376-2245-3); Selected Poems to be provided at Middlebury.Literature
Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6673M - History of Mexico
History of Mexico
This course analyzes the political and social history of Mexico from Pre-Columbian times to the present. We will focus on some of the major historical landmarks of the country's history, including the foundation of Tenochtitlan, the Conquest, the Borbon Laws, the Independence, the 19th-century invasions and wars, the Revolution, the 68 Tlatelolco movement, and the 2000 transition. (1 unit)
Required texts: Nueva Historia Mínima de México (El Colegio de México, 2007); Historia de México (edited by FCE-SEP).
Texts available in MexicoCiv Cul & Soc
Summer 2011
SPAN 6674 - Creative Writing thru Life Mem
Creative Writing Through Life's Memories
*Three-week course, first session*
This course is designed to encourage students to express themselves through written texts in Spanish, with the goal to improve their imaginative scope through personal stories (making use of life memories), or through various exercises. Texts written by participants will be shared and would require providing copies for classmates and instructor. Very active group participation is expected. The course aims to improve the tools of written language and stimulate the imagination for accurate expression, through a more rhythmic and precise writing. The teacher will provide samples of artistic solutions to specific writing approaches that will be analyzed by the group. Students are encouraged to provide fragments of a publishing project in mind. (.5 unit)
This course is cross-listed with Linguistics.Literature Language & Stylistics
Summer 2013
SPAN 6676A - Political Violence Mem & Cult ▲
Political Violence, Memory and Cultural Representation
The aim of this course is to study cultural and human responses to the violence of political repression in Spanish America. Central to the theoretical and critical corpus of the course is the multidisciplinary work of scholars writing in response to historical violence, which posed questions regarding social trauma, the links between mourning and memory, and the social and cultural role of artistic creation. The theoretical dimension of the topic will be discussed in class through the reflection on key critical works and will provide the necessary framework for the analysis of primary sources, such as literature, film, art, oral history, journalism and popular music. In order to introduce students to the complex issues of memory and violence in its subjective and social dimension, the course will focus on the study of three different moments of Spanish American history. The main topics discussed will be a) the aftermath of traumatic political events and its long lasting effects on the present, b) the use of historical memory and c) dictatorships and democratic transitions in Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina (special attention will be given to the latter). (1 unit)
This course is cross-listed with Literature.Civ Cul & Soc Literature
Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6685 - 20C Mexican Poetry
20th Century Mexican Poetry
*Three-week course, first session*
The purpose of this course is to provide a review of six Mexican poets who have shaped and influenced the tradition of poetry written today: José Juan Tablada, José Gorostiza, Xavier Villaurrutia, Octavio Paz, Jaime Sabines, and Enriqueta Ochoa. A sample of their most representative poems will be read in order to recognize their personal style, their poetics, and, if relevant, the group or movement to which they belong. A critical bibliography about the writers will also be provided. As a complement to the course, some videos on Mexican poets will be screened, where the authors talk about their work, and offer their own ethical and aesthetic views about their experience with poetry. (.5 unit)Literature
Summer 2013
SPAN 6688 - Spanish &Latin American Poetry ▲
This class studies poetry written in Latin America between 1830 and 2010 (from the independence days to the present). One of the objectives is to develop the interpretative and analytical capacity of students in reference to poetic language. It focuses in the study of rhetorical strategies which were considered radical for their times and which impose a formal rapture with the poetry of their times. This class studies the different tendencies of lyrical writing which develop during the historical period indicated such as poesía gauchesca Romanticism, Modernismo, and avant-garde. It also studies the most recent original aesthetic practices among which include neobaroque, language poetry, and cyber textual poetry. Among the theoretical topics to be included figure: modernization, off the margin lyrical writing, paratactic/avant-gardes, neo/modernity, and trans-territorialization. The class will give priority to those poems that challenge the active participation of reason and logical linear thinking. (1 unit)Literature
Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6690A - Lit of Argentina & Uruguay
Literature of Argentina and Uruguay
In this course we will focus in the development of a national, regional, and urban literary identity. In order to reflect upon the sources of this identity, we will read "gauchesca" literature from the 19th-century and we will confront it vis a vis with the representation of the "gaucho" during the 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-centuries.We will also read fundamental avant garde texts from the 20¨s and 30´s of the 20th-century: Borges, Arlt, Girondo, Storni, and Juana de Ibarborou. We will discuss the way in which avant garde movements in the Río de la Plata build the concept of "the new" while also looking to their shared past and traditions. The 60´s (Cortázar, Onetti) will be discussed as new ways of practicing narrative techniques in the area. We will read Manuel Puig as a new critical approach to the emergence of new identities. We will also read authors such as the argentinean Aira, the uruguayan Marosa di Giorgio, and others, reflecting upon the different ways in which new technologies and knowledge are dealt with in the region and in Latin America. (1 unit)
Required text: Course pack for purchase in Argentina.Literature
Summer 2013
SPAN 6691A - Methods & Resources Teach Span ▲
Methods and Resources for Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language
This course focuses on the study of the methods and approaches in second languages teaching and learning, particularly focused on Spanish as a Foreign Language (SFL). We will review teaching strategies for foreign languages learning as well analyze and design resources for teaching and learning SFL.
Students enrolled in this course should be able to know and recognize the methodological alternatives for the teaching of Spanish as a second language or as a foreign language, as well as establishing criteria for the organization and selection of a methodology according to the latest trends in foreign languages teaching and learning. These goals should be achieved with the acquisition of competences and skills like:
Knowledge of a teaching method basis
Knowledge of the different methods that have been used throughout the history of foreign languages teaching, with attention specific to the teaching of Spanish
Knowledge of current methodological proposals, taking as a basis the European Reference Framework for Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Languages
Critical analysis of resources for the teaching of Spanish as a foreign language. (1 unit).
Required Text: Handbook of texts selection and materials provided by the teacher.
This course is cross-listed with Professional Preparation for Teachers.Language & Stylistics Pedagogy
Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6694 - Technology Enhanced Lang Learn ▲
Technology Enhanced Language Learning
This course explores the use of new technologies applied to the enhancement of student learning in the Spanish classroom. The course seeks to familiarize participants with classroom applications and digital pedagogy of TELL including Computer-Meditated-Learning (CML): technology-based instruction and computer-tutorials, as well as Computer-Mediated-Communication (CMC): blog, wikis, email, chat, and web forums. As a final project, students will develop a pedagogical project for appropriately integrating technology into their own instructional approach. (1 unit)
Required text: Gerardo Arrarte Carriquiry, Las tecnologías de la información en la enseñanza del español (Arco Libros, 2011) (ISBN 9788476358245); also electronic material provided at Middlebury.Pedagogy
Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6703A - Personal Writing Learning Span ▲
Personal Writing Necessary for Learning Spanish
In this course we will focus in the development of one of the fundamental skills for language acquisition: personal writing. Our goal is to work with didactic strategies in order to produce one of the necessary writings, the one that stems from the realm of intimacy and at the same time shapes it. Through theory and practice, this course will provide a pedagogical methodology to teachers of Spanish. Confession, secret, memoire, autobiography, journal, letters, chronicle, and non-fiction writing would be central to our course. The purpose is that teachers of Spanish would be able to use this forms in their language classroom. (1 unit)
This course is cross-listed with Professional Preparation for Teachers.Literature Pedagogy
Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6704 - Intro to Sociolinguistics ▲
Introduction to Sociolinguistics
This course is an introduction to sociolinguistic theory and its application to the Spanish language of Spain and Latin America. Besides the history and basic concepts of the discipline (especially that of the language change), we will mainly describe diastratic (linguistic variety characterized by socio-cultural status of the speaker) and diaphasic (the varieties used depending on the particular communicative situation; it deals with the use of different registers depending on the formal or colloquial context) varieties. We will especially deep in the variables of age, sex, and socio-economic level. Above all, we will pull up on the methodology of research in this area (collection techniques and interpretation of the data). Finally, we will study Spanish contacts with other languages (bilingualism, diglossia, pidgins, creole languages). (1 unit)
Required Text: Carmen Silva-Corvalán, Sociolingüística y pragmática del español (Washington: Georgetown UP, 2001).Linguistics
Summer 2012, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6704A - Intro to Sociolinguistics
This course is an introduction to sociolinguistic theory and its application to issues related to Spanish in the contexts of Spain, Latin America, and the United States. It will focus on both quantitative and qualitative research on language variation and language contact in the Spanish-speaking world. We will discuss basic concepts and principles of contemporary sociolinguistics (language vs. dialect; language variation; mechanism of language change; diatopical variation; social variation; etc.) We will also identify and discuss methodologies for sociolinguistic research (participant observation; selection of speech community/speakers; socio-economic variables; taping conversations; collecting, organizing, and analyzing sociolinguistic data). (1 unit)Linguistics
Summer 2012, Summer 2013
SPAN 6706 - Religions Mediterranean World
Religions in the Mediterranean World
This course is designed to analyze the origin and evolution of the most important religions in the Mediterranean world from Antiquity to Modern times. These include Egyptian religion, Canaanite religion, Greek religion, and Roman religion, among others. Special relevance is given to the three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The mutual influences among religions, the interchange of ideas, as well as the conflicts and confrontations among them will be discussed. How the historical circumstances determined the evolution of religions, and what peculiarities distinguish a certain religion from the rest will also be studied. In class, we will analyze, comment, and discuss primary sources—translated into Spanish—of these religions. (1 unit)
Required text: Electronic material on Segue.Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2011
SPAN 6707 - Romance Langs of Mediterranean
Romance Languages of the Mediterranean
This course offers the student a clear and simple introduction of linguistic unity that Romania is constructed of and from the mother language, Latin, through carefully selected data from external history (substrate, superstrate, and adstratum) and internal history (phonetic level, morphosyntactic level, and especially the lexical-semantic level) of the different varieties of Neo-Latin (Romance languages ). We will focus on the analysis and comparison of the three major languages (Spanish, French, and Italian) around the Mediterranean Sea, although we will refer to others. We will study the fragmentation process of Vulgar Latin and the birth of the Romance languages . We will describe the similarities and differences of the most important Romance languages . (1 unit)
Required text: José Manuel Fradejas, Las lenguas románicas (Madrid: Arco/Libros, 2010).Linguistics
Summer 2012
SPAN 6708 - History of Mediterranean
This course traces the history of the peoples and civilizations placed in the rims of the Mediterranean, from the prehistoric times up to the beginning of the Renaissance in the 15th-century. During this long period, the Mediterranean has been a stage of the birth, splendor, and decline of ancient civilizations, as the Minoan, Mycenaean, Phoenician, Egyptian, etc.; of the classic civilizations of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium; of the Muslim civilization; of the medieval and of the renaissance of the Italian cities and of the classic culture. The goal of the course is to understand in depth the different and diverse trajectories of these peoples and civilizations, their internal developments, struggles, and conflicts. (1 unit)
Required text: Robin Lane Fox, El Mundo Clásico. La epopeya de Grecia y Roma (Barcelona: Editorial Crítical/Marcial Pons, 2010).Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2011
SPAN 6709A - Pragmatics &Discourse Analysis ▲
Pragmatics & Discourse Analysis in Spanish
The main goal of this course is to study Spanish language in use and the relations between speaker-listener through the types of oral and written texts. We will also dwell on the analysis of the construction process of the discourse in Spanish: coherence and cohesion procedures, with special focus on discourse markers.
Students enrolled in this course will be able to analyze how to build communication in Spanish and how the language differs depending on the type of text and register: colloquial conversation, written or oral argumentation, academic presentation, etc. These goals should be achieved with the acquisition of a number of skills and abilities that should include the following aspects: Knowledge of the units of language in use (communicative units)
Identification and analysis of the types of text in oral and written Spanish
Analysis of the discourse cohesion procedures
Classification and use of discourse markers.
(1 unit)
Required text: Handbook of texts selection and materials provided by the teacher.
This course is cross-listed with Professional Preparation for Teachers.Language & Stylistics Pedagogy
Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6710M - SP Phonetics for Eng Speakers
Spanish Phonetics and Phonology
This course is an introduction to the sound system of contemporary Spanish. No previous training in phonetics or phonology is assumed. You will learn how Spanish sounds are produced and how Spanish sentences are transcribed using the International Phonetic Alphabet. Some class time will be dedicated to pronunciation drills, but you will also be able to practice on your own by using the audio CD that comes with the textbook. Special attention will be given to the differences between the sound systems of Spanish and English that create pronunciation problems for second language Spanish learners. (1 unit)
Required text: Jorge Guitart, Sonido y sentido: teoría y práctica de la pronunciación del español, (Georgetown University Press, 2004). Text available at the Middlebury, Vermont college store.
This course is cross-listed with Professional PreparationLinguistics Pedagogy
Summer 2011
SPAN 6711 - Prepositions in Spanish ▲
Values and Uses of Prepositions in Spanish
Prepositions are considered one the most difficult topics in the acquisition of a second language. This course focuses on the study of uses and values of prepositions in Spanish in depth, and how they can be explained by teachers of Spanish in their classes. The course pays attention to some preposition with specific problems for an English speaker: A, EN, DE/DESDE, POR/PARA… Other issues will be studied such as uses of prepositions with verbs, adjectives, and nouns, and the role of prepositions in some grammatical matters (prepositional phrases, prepositional groups, etc.) The course will have not only a theoretical dimension but also a practical orientation, with exercises designed to improve the comprehension of prepositions in Spanish. (1 unit)
Required text: Electronic material provided at Middlebury.
This course is cross-listed with Professional Preparation for Teachers.Linguistics Pedagogy
Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6712 - Spanish Writers North America
Exiles: Spanish Writers in North America
One of the least known aspects of contemporary Spanish history is the rich cultural contribution by numerous Spaniards who lived and died in exile. Being a nation that from its origins forged its identity not in linguistic or legal unity, but in ideology, exclusion due to differences was a constant. From the first expulsions of Jews and Muslims at the end of the 15th-century, the contributions of the Sephardics and the Andalusians were frequent in the melancholic culture of exile. In this course we will examine the Spanish exiles' contributions to strengthening Spanish studies in the United States and Mexico. Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War triggered the last great wave of exiles to America. Educational and cultural institutions which had already established close ties with the intellectual Republicans, generously accepted these exiles. Their work, influenced by their absence, continued to center on the Spanish culture, thus contributing to the North America's interest in cultural contributions by a Spain that only existed in their memories. (1 unit)
Required texts: A selection of excerpts from the following texts and authors available in Electronic form on Segue: Isabel García Lorca, Recuerdos míos (Barcelona: Tusquets editores, 2002); Jaime Salinas, Travesías (Barcelona: Tusquets editores, 2003); Victoria Kent, Cuatro años de mi vida, (1940-1944) (Barcelona: Bruguera, 1978); María Zambrano, Delirio y Destino, (Barcelona: Mondadori, 1989); Patricia Fagen, Transterrados y ciudadanos. Los republicanos españoles en México (Mexico: FCE, 1975).
This course is cross-listed with LiteratureCiv Cul & Soc Literature
Summer 2011
SPAN 6714 - Cult & Civ Mod Mediterranean
Cultures and Civilizations in the Modern History of the Mediterranean (15th- to 21st-Centuries)
This course is designed to study the most important events that took place in and around the Mediterranean sea from the 15th-century to contemporary times. It covers the origin, development, and consolidation of the different cultures and civilizations that characterize the Mediterranean countries. Special relevance is given to the political, philosophical, religious, and literary ideas that contribute to the creation of such cultures. The main goal of this course is to understand and assimilate such historical processes and the nature of each culture and civilization in the context of the Mediterranean sea. In class, we will analyze, comment, and discuss primary sources—translated into Spanish—from the period, especially documents and historical sources, as well as historical studies by contemporary historians. (1 unit)
Required text: Electronic material provided at Middlebury.Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2012, Summer 2013
SPAN 6715 - Intro to Spanish Phonetics ▲
Introduction to Spanish Phonetics
This course is an introduction to: (1) the fundamental notions and concepts that allow the analysis of the sounds used in natural languages, and (2) the system of sounds and phonemes in contemporary Spanish. Hence, no previous training in phonetics or phonology is needed. The course has two components: (a) a descriptive one: which are the sounds of Spanish? What are they like and how are they pronounced? In which contexts and situations do they appear?, and (b) an applied-practical one: contrasting these sounds with those in English, identifying the pronunciation challenges for students of Spanish as a Second Language and addressing them. The goal will be to help remove the foreign accents as regards phonic units. (1 unit)
Required texts: Armin Schwegler, Juergen Kempff, A. Ameal-Guerra, Fonética y fonología españolas (Wiley & Sons, 4th ed., 2010).
This course is cross-listed with Professional Preparation for TeachersLinguistics Pedagogy
Summer 2011, Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6715A - Intro to Spanish Phonetics
Introduction to Spanish Phonetics
This course introduces students to fundamental notions of Spanish phonetics. The course has two main components: (1) the first component includes an articulatory description of the Spanish sounds in an phonetic context; and, (2) the second component is of a practical nature, and has as its goal the elimination of foreign accent in the students' Spanish. (1 unit)
Required texts: Armin Schwegler, Juergen Kempff, A. Ameal-Guerra, Fonética y fonología españolas (Wiley & Sons, 4th ed., 2010); Carlos Piñeros, Estructuras de los sonidos del español (Pearson, 2008).Linguistics
Summer 2013
SPAN 6716 - LA Independence in Literature
Latin American Independence in Literature
*Three-week course, first session*
The process of independence of the new Latin American nations that broke off from the old Spanish Catholic monarchy were accompanied by a major renovation of continental letters. The transition from neoclassical to romantic poetry in Andrés Bello, José María Heredia, and José Joaquín Olmedo, and the first prose works of José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi or Esteban Echeverría, are representative of the literature of the first generation of Republican Spanish America. The purpose of this course is to reconstruct the aesthetic and political project that rested on the early works by Spanish American writers, including in these politicians whose prose formulations achieved great influence, as in the case of Simón Bolívar and Fray Servando Teresa de Mier. The course emphasis will be placed on the analysis of various strategies of narrating the birth of new republics within the poetry or prose of those writers. (.5 unit)
Required text: Electronic material provided at Middlebury.
This course is cross-listed with Literature.Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2011, Summer 2012
SPAN 6720 - Latin American Spanish
Latin American Spanish
This course offers a survey of Latin American Spanish dialects. The course aims at stating the major historical and sociolinguistic questions posed by Latin American dialectology and the Hispanic sociolinguistics, and to stimulate further inquiry. Dialect variation of Spanish language is the key element that defines Latin America; as such, a close examination of its sociolinguistic history will be of interest to any humanist with a focus on South America, Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean, and even the United States. (1 unit)
Required text: John Lipski, El español de América (Cátedra, 1996).
Reference book available at the college library: Manuel Díaz Campos (ed)., Handbook of Hispanic Sociolinguistics (Wiley/Blackwell, 2011).Linguistics
Summer 2011, Summer 2012
SPAN 6720A - Latin American Spanish
This course offers a survey of Latin American Spanish dialects. The course aims at stating the major historical and sociolinguistic questions posed by Latin American dialectology and the Hispanic sociolinguistics, and to stimulate further inquiry. Dialect variation of Spanish language is the key element that defines Latin America; as such, a close examination of its sociolinguistic history will be of interest to any humanist with a focus on South America, Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean, and even the United States. (1 unit)
Required text: John Lipski, El español de América (Cátedra, 1996).Linguistics
Summer 2013
SPAN 6721 - Women through their Writing ▲
History of Women Through Their Writings
In this course through the reading of text written by women --diaries, autobiographies, and letters-- we will examine the process of construction of gender identity at various stages of history and the perception that women had of their own situation. We will also analyze the political, social, and legal discussions which made possible the emergence of feminism in Spain and Latin America. (1 unit)
Required text: A selection of excerpts from the following texts and authors available in electronic form at Middlebury: Anna Caballé (dir.), La vida escrita por las mujeres. La pluma como espada. Del romanticismo al modernismo (Madrid: Círculo de Lectores, 2003); Birute Ciplijauskaité, La novela femenina contemporánea. Hacia una tipología de la narración en primera persona (1970-1985) (Barcelona: Antrophos, 1988); Isabel Morant (dir.), Historia de las mujeres en España y América Latina (Madrid: Cátedra, 2005).
This course is cross-listed with Literature.Civ Cul & Soc Literature
Summer 2011, Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6726 - Modern & Post LA Poetry
Modern and Postmodern Latin American Poetry
Assuming that poetry is a privileged tool to read the changes in subjectivity, this course will investigate various lines that run through Latin American poetry from the Avant-Garde to the new "realisms" of the 21st-century. Concepts such as "lyric subject," "reality," "textuality", "form-content", change their meaning in the light of the works of poets like Oliverio Girondo, César Vallejo, Pablo Neruda, Alejandra Pizarnik, and Roberta Iannamico, among others. These changes provide clues to better understand the subjective transformations in relation to historical and social contexts in which they occur. In this sense, the main goal of the course is for students to access the poetic material without preconceptions and ready to enjoy it, but at the same time to acquire critical tools that will enable them to read between the lines what poetry has to say about the world. The evaluation will be based on class participation and a final paper. (1 unit)Literature
Summer 2012
SPAN 6726A - Modern & Post LA Poetry
Modern and Postmodern Latin American Poetry
Assuming that poetry is a privileged tool to read the changes in subjectivity, this course will investigate various lines that run through Latin American poetry from the Avant-Garde to the new "realisms" of the 21st-century. Concepts such as "lyric subject," "reality," "textuality", "form-content", change their meaning in the light of the works of poets like Oliverio Girondo, César Vallejo, Pablo Neruda, Alejandra Pizarnik, and Roberta Iannamico, among others. These changes provide clues to better understand the subjective transformations in relation to historical and social contexts in which they occur. In this sense, the main goal of the course is for students to access the poetic material without preconceptions and ready to enjoy it, but at the same time to acquire critical tools that will enable them to read between the lines what poetry has to say about the world. The evaluation will be based on class participation and a final paper. (1 unit)Literature
Summer 2013
SPAN 6727 - Humor in Contemp SA Narrative
Humor in Contemporary Spanish American Narrative
Humor is one of the least studied aspects of the literature of Hispanic America. In the midst of revolutions, injustice, political repression, and all manner of natural and man-made disasters, the literature of Hispanic America has produced a body of work in which laughter, or at least a smile, may have multiple functions. What are some of these functions? What shape does humor take in the narrative of these countries? Is it a recent phenomenon, or does it have a tradition and a history? This course is for students who are interested in research, or who are considering continuing to the Ph.D. or DML level. (1 unit)
Required text: Alfredo Bryce Echenique, La última mudanza de Felipe Carrillo (Barcelona: Plaza y Janés ISBN: 978-8401429682).Literature
Summer 2011, Summer 2012
SPAN 6729 - The Indicative ▲
This course studies the indicative mood in Spanish verb structure and its relation to other moods of the verbal system. It gives special attention to the reflexive use in order to develop the student's proficiency in this aspect of the Spanish language. One of the goals for this course is to improve the use of such linguistic forms in different contexts and situations by practicing effective communication. The course will combine descriptive presentations by the professor with active participation and exercises by students. (1 unit).
Required text: Electronic material provided at Middlebury.Linguistics
Summer 2011, Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6734 - Spain & the Americas
Frictions in the Atlantic World: Spain and the Americas from the 16th- to the 18th-Centuries
The encounter between the Iberian kingdom of Castille and the Americas sparked off one of the richest and most complex periods in modern history. In this course, we will be studying the dramatic transformation of those two worlds in a theater familiar to us today as "the Spanish Atlantic World". Through the reading and discussion of memoirs, diaries, letters, and political texts as well as historical writings this period will be analyzed. (1 unit)
Required text: A selection of excerpts from the following authors: Miguel León Portilla, Códices: los antiguos libros del Nuevo Mundo (Mexico: Aguilar, 2003); John H. Elliott, Imperios del mundo atlántico: España y Gran Bretaña en América (Madrid: Taurus, 2006); J. Cañizares-Esguerra, Católicos y puritanos en la colonización de América (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2008); Pablo Fernández Albaladejo, La crisis de la monarquía (Barcelona: Crítica / Marcial Pons, 2009).Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2013
SPAN 6739 - Independence Spanish America ▲
The course provides a comprehensive and critical approach to the revolutionary historical process that implied the collapse of the Spanish Monarchy and the rise of national states. With the lecture and discussion of renovated historiography and foundational documents, the course seeks to explain the advent of political modernity in the Hispanic world in the early decades of the 19th-century. (1 unit)
Required text: Electronic materials provided at Middlebury.Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6741 - LA Autofiction & Non-Fiction
The Truth of the Matter: Modern and Contemporary Spanish American Narrative Nonfiction, Autofiction, and 'Testimonio'
In this seminar, we will discuss and analyze an array of modern and
contemporary texts from Latin America which, in different ways, weave factual events and characters into the very fabric of their composition. Journalism, historiography, ethnography, and 'narratives of the self' unsettle and expand the boundaries of literary discourse and, by doing so, reframe our understanding of such crucial categories as authorship, storytelling, and representation. Critical and theoretical essays on relevant topics will be assigned for group discussion. (1 unit)
Required texts: Rodolfo Walsh, Operación masacre (Buenos Aires: Ediciones de La Flor); Gabriel García Márquez, Relato de un náufrago (España: Mondadori); Elena Poniatowska, Hasta no verte Jesús mío (México: Era); Mario Vargas Llosa, La tía Julia y el escribido/r (España: Seix Barral); Tomás Eloy Martínez, /Santa Evita (Argentina: Alfaguara); Fernando Vallejo, El desbarrancadero (Mexico: Alfaguara).Literature
Summer 2011
SPAN 6742 - Classic Works of Spanish Lit ▲
Classical Works of Spanish Literature
During the Middle Ages the world was a reflection of the will of God, a design of the Providence that did not admit the possibility of change. Each element of this social order had to humbly its place in the world. Rebelling against the financial, sexual, political status quo, was deemed a criticism of the perfection of the divine creation. Immobilism was, therefore, absolute. It wasn't until the Renaissance that such a state of affairs was questioned. In Spain, in 1499, a converted Jew (converso) wrote a book that will open the door to a different view of human demeanor in society, its understanding and interpretation of the inherited world and prompted the debate of the relationship between knowledge and experience. It was an enormous change, with fundamental implications in order to understand the subsequent course of History. The book in called Celestina and its author, Fernando de Rojas. From this moment on, literature took a different path from the one it had followed until then, and blossomed into what has been called the Golden Age of Spanish literature. In the course, Obras clasicas de la literature española, we will read and discuss the most famous texts of Classical Spanish literature. This will be done through a reading of the text in depth, but nevertheless adapting the classical text to our present sensitivity. In addition this course will help to better understand the language and history of Spain. (1 unit).
Required texts: Fernando de Rojas, La Celestina, ed. Patricia S. Finch (Newark: Delaware: Cervantes&CO., Juan de la Cuesta) (ISBN 1-58977-011-0); Lazarillo de Tormes, ed. Francisco Rico (Madrid: Cátedra) (ISBN 978-84-376-0660-6); Calderon de la Barca, La vida es sueño, ed. Ciriaco Moron (Madrid: Catedra); also electronic material provided at Middlebury.Literature
Summer 2011, Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6743 - Avant-Garde Arts & Lit in Arg
Avant-garde Arts & lit in Argentina (1920-1930)
Three-week course, first session
In the decade of 1920-30, the ideas of the European avant-garde were redefined for the Latin American environment by painters working mostly in Buenos Aires, at the time one of the most cosmopolitan and modern cities in the continent. In this course we will study the process beginning with the works of Xul Solar and Pettoruti, its most radical proponents, continue with artists such as Alfredo Guttero, and the Grupo de París, and up to and including the introduction of surrealism and abstraction by painters like Antonio Berni and Juan Del Prete. The course will place this development within the framework of artistic nationalism and social art prevalent at the time. (.5 unit)
Required reading will be provided by the Professor upon arrival.
Patricia M. Artundo, "Buenos Aires 1921-1933: modernidad y vanguardia". En María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco y Pablo Jiménez Burillo, Capitales del arte moderno, Madrid, Instituto de Cultura – Fundación Mapfre, 2007, p. 241-275.
Summer 2011
SPAN 6745 - Readings Cont Mex &Arg Theatre
From the Rio Grande to the Rive Plate: Readings in Contemporary Mexican & Argentine Theatres
The main goal of this course devoted to Spanish American contemporary theatre is to pursue a comparative study of the historical, political, cultural, and artistic trajectories followed by Mexican and Argentine theatres during the 20th- and 21st-centuries. The course will center on the examination of the two most distinguished and prolific theatrical expressions of Spanish American theatre—those of Mexico and Argentina—with the purpose of exploring the factors and trends that have determined their respective developments. The course will be divided into four segments: 1) Introduction to Spanish American theatre; 2) Examination of selected works of contemporary Mexican theatre focusing on historical and social theatre (i.e. Usigli, Carballido, Garro); 3) Examination of selected works of contemporary Argentine theatre centering on its relation the country's political history (i.e. Gambaro, Pavlovsky, Cossa); 4) A comparative discussion of the elements that have shaped the respective evolutions of Mexican and Argentine theatre. (1 unit)
Required texts: Stuart Day ed., Las fronteras míticas del teatro mexicano: Sabina Berman, Entre Villa y una mujer desnuda. Vicente Leñero, Todos somos Marcos. Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda, La mujer que cayó del cielo (LATR Books, University of Kansas, Colección Antología Frank Dauster No. 2); Rosario Castellanos, El eterno femenino (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica 1992 or most recent); 9 dramaturgos hispanoamericanos: Antología de teatro hispanoamericano del siglo XX: Tomo III (Yo también hablo de la rosa), eds. Frank Dauster, Leon Lyday & George Woodyard (Ottawa: Girol Books2nd ed., 1983 or most recent); Roberto Cossa, La nona (Buenos Aires: Corregidor 2006 or most recent).Literature
Summer 2011
SPAN 6746 - Travelers in Span Amer Fiction
Travelers in Spanish American Fiction
This course will examine how contemporary Latin American narrative has portrayed and reflected upon Latin Americans' experiences when displaced from their home soil, whether for economic, political, or personal reasons. We will consider narrative representations of Latin American travelers and migrants and their reactions to different societies, customs, and languages. What do these narratives tell us about how travel and residence abroad affect the Latin Americans' sense of self, of national or cultural identity? Topics to be discussed include: distinctions among travelers, exiles, and migrants; theories of tourism; theories of migration; Latin Americans in the United States and Europe; Latin Americans in Asia and Africa. (1 unit)
Required text: Mario Vargas Llosa, Travesuras de la niña mala (Madrid: Alfaguara, 2006 ISBN-13: 978-9707704664 paperback or available edition); Antonio Skármeta, No pasó nada (Madrid: Debolsillo, 2005) (ISBN-13: 978-9875660717) (or any available edition).Literature
Summer 2012, Summer 2013
SPAN 6747A - Argentine History ▲
The purpose of this course is to analyze Argentine history during the 20th-century. It will focus on the major political processes, within their national and international contexts, including with some detail the influence of the populists´ movements and military dictatorships´ experiences on the nation´s development. (1 unit)
Required texts available in UADE Library: Novaro, Marcos, La dictadura militar (1976-1983) del golpe de estado a la restauración democrática (Paidós, Buenos Aires, 2003. Ref. 94(82)"1976-1983" NOV DIC N.9 1A 2003); Rein, Raanan, Peronismo, populismo y política: Argentina 1943-1955, ed. de Belgrano (Buenos Aires, 1998. Ref. XX (293894.1); Rapoport, Mario, Historia económica, política y social de la Argentina 1880-2000 (Macchi, Buenos Aires, 2003. Ref. 94(82) RAP HIS 5A 2003), Romero, Luis Alberto, Breve historia contemporánea de la Argentina (Fondo de Cultura Económica, Buenos Aires, 2003. Ref. 94(82) "1500/1983" ACA NUE V.1-V.10); Rock, David, Argentina en el siglo veinte economía y desarrollo político desde la élite conservadora a Perón-Perón (Lenguaje Claro editora, Buenos Aires, 2009. Ref. 338.1(82) ARG 1A 2009); Torre, Juan Carlos, La vieja guardia sindical y Perón sobre los orígenes del peronismo(EDUNTREF, Buenos Aires, 2006. Ref. 32(82) TOR VIE 2A 2006).Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6748 - The Mexican Muralists
Three-week course, first session
Mural painting has a long and influential place in the history of Mexican art. This course will concentrate on the initial period of the movement through the works of Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José C. Orozco, and Rodolfo Montenegro. We will study the technical aspects of mural painting and the didactic applications of the works themselves. The course will place the works of the muralists and other artists, craft people and teachers in the context of the larger project of rebuilding the country after the Mexican Revolution. (.5 unit)
Required reading will be provided by the Professor upon arrival. Rida Eder, "Muralismo mexicano: modernidad e identidad cultural", en: Maria de Moraes Belluzzo (organizadora), Modernidade: vanguardas artísticas na América Latina (Editora Unesp, 1990, p. 99-120).
Recommended reading will be available in the Middlebury College Library: El nacionalismo y el arte mexicano: (IX Coloquio de Historia del Arte) (Mexico, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1986).Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2011
SPAN 6749A - Spanish in the World ▲
In this course we will deal with various aspects related to the Spanish in the world: the Spanish varieties in the Spanish speaking world – for example Spanish in the USA – but also the expansion of Spanish through the media and the cinema will be an important part of the course. The situation of Spanish together with the other official languages on the Iberian Peninsula but also the language politics in Latin America will be treated in this course. According to the number of its speakers, Spanish is considered the third most spoken language in the world. Although it's spoken in very distant regions, it provides until now certain uniformity in the standard higher level which allows the speakers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean to communicate easily. The most important differences are found in the supresegmental level, which means in the different intonation, a product of the diverse linguistic substracts in the Spanish speaking countries. Another difference is also observed in the lexical diversity which derives from the different evolution of the Spanish language in every region but also from the influence of other languages in the corresponding regions. The orthography and the linguistic norm guarantee the unity of the language; also the necessity of collaboration between the different Language Academies of the Spanish language in order to preserve the unity contributes to the expansion of the literary, scientific, pedagogical, cinematographic, television, communicative, and informatic products. (1 unit)
Required text: Selected materials will be on reserve in the UADE Library or online.
This course is cross-listed with Linguistics.Civ Cul & Soc Linguistics
Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6751A - Social Activism & Human Rights
Social Activism, Memory, and Human Rights in Argentina
What can we learn from Argentina's late 20th-century crises, its social movements and their struggle for human rights? Who remembers what of traumatic pasts? How do individuals and collectives recall the past and struggle over its meanings? How do they reinvent themselves and new practices in light of a painful past and a desirable future? The class introduces students to late 20th-century Argentinean history, the last military dictatorship, its rationale, its regional context, and its policies and transformations. It also explores the 2001 crisis when, after having been the poster child of the International Monetary Fund for ten years, Argentina's economy collapsed leaving millions unemployed and below the poverty line. In addition, the class introduces students to the Argentinean collective process of memory. With these historical and theoretical lenses, the class analyses social and cultural organizations that emerged struggling against the dictatorship's project of "social disciplining"; as well as other movements that surfaced during the democratic transition/consolidation, and circa the 2001 crisis. The class looks at human rights organizations, co-operative housing groups, "recovered factories" and art collectives.
Readings include works by Emilio Crenzel, Ajejandro Grimson, Elizabeth Jelin, Marysa Navarro, Barbara Sutton, and Diana Taylor. Movies by Luis Puenzo, Avi Lewis, Naomi Klein, and Albertina Carri as also part of the class material. (1 unit)Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2012
SPAN 6754 - History & Poetry in Cuba
Cuban literature, like any other in Spanish America, is characterized by a tension between poetry and politics. The vast postcolonial writing of the past two centuries is a good example of this crossover of roles, so characteristic of Latin American intellectual history. In that story, the creation of literary works has been linked often to the founding of republics and the construction of national states. In the case of José María Heredia, José Martí, Nicolás Guillén, José Lezama Lima, Roberto Fernandez Retamar, and Heberto Padilla, this tension runs through their works, relevant to Spanish America, in poetry and prose. The aim of this course is to explore the political representation of the poetry of the six Cuban writers, including not only their most famous books of poetry, but some texts of chronicles and essays. (1 unit)
Required text: Electronic material provided at Middlebury.
This course is cross-listed with Literature.Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2011, Summer 2012, Summer 2013
SPAN 6756 - Contemp Mexican Short Story
Contemporary Mexican Short Story
*Three-week course, second session*
Through a selection of relevant stories —some of the "classics" in the second half of the 20th-century— students will get acquainted with the most important features in contemporary Mexican short story. The course will also cover recent stories by younger writers. The brevity of the stories will allow us to analyze and interpret them with detail. (.5 unit)
Required text: Electronic material provided at Middlebury.Literature
Summer 2012
SPAN 6757 - Revolution Populism...20C LA
Revolution, Populism and Mourning in 20th Century Latin America
The history of Latin America in the 20th-Century is marked by the experience of revolutions and social movements that built a mythology rooted in popular culture and sedimented in the collective memory of nations. From the Mexican Revolution to the Cuban Revolution, from Peronism and the Varguismo to the Sandinistas and Chavismo, the region's cultural history is incomprehensible without the landmarks and heroes of revolutionary nationalism. The literature, in all genres, has played a central role in the construction of these national narratives. The strength of popular representations in this process has engaged other forms of popular culture, film, corridos, tango, waltz, son, trova, and other Latin American music genres, as well as graphic and street art. The purpose of this course is to reconstruct the processes of grief that accompanied some of these revolutions and social movements of the 20th-Century in Latin America, through literature and other forms of popular culture. Our goal is for students to become familiar with texts and documents from the history of Latin American culture that have helped shape the collective memory of various generations. (1 unit)
This course is cross-listed with Literature.Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2013
SPAN 6758 - Contemp Span Am Short Story
Contemporary Spanish American Short Story
Three-Week course, second session.
This course will analyze with special attention short forms of narrative (short story as genre in its current forms), poetics, themes, and aesthetics of a literature that inherits and at the same time breaks with the tradition of the "nueva novela" from the 1960s. It will use some of the texts by Roberto Bolaño, Mario Bellatín, Ena Lucía Portela, Cristina Rivera Garza, Rodrigo Fresán, Jorge Volpi, Alberto Fuguet, Patricia Suárez, and others, studying the "new sensibility" produced in the historical framework of the new millennium. (.5 unit)
Required Text: Electronic material provided at Middlebury.Literature
Summer 2011, Summer 2012
SPAN 6759 - Hispanic Comic Books
In this class, we will study comic books written in Spanish. We will examine how comics differ from other visual narratives, and from texts written uniquely in prose. We will cover different types of comics, which vary from short strips (Mafalda; Condorito) to longer serial narratives (María Isabel). One important concept that will be emphasized in the class is that comic books rely not only on words, but also on visuals to communicate their story, and thus they sometimes convey certain representations of race and ethnicity that can be controversial in many Spanish-speaking countries and the United States. We will also cover aesthetic influences from around the world, as many modern comic books in Spanish are heavily influenced by art from Europe, Japan, and the United States. Among the comics we will discuss will be Elpidio Valdés, Turey el Taíno, Fuego: Majestad Negra, El Eternauta, Roberto Alcázar y Pedrín, and many others. (1 unit)
Required texts: Scott McCloud, Entender el comic, el arte invisible (ISBN 978-8496815124); Carlos Gimenez, Todo 36-39: Malos tiempos [Tapa Blanda] (ISBN 978-8499086989); Hector Oesterheid & Francisco Solano Lopez, El eternauta (ISBN 978-987-9085-33-2) (Doedytores: Historias argentinas.com).Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2013
SPAN 6762A - Gender & Violence ▲
There are differences in the way men and women display violent behavior and they need to be better understood to prevent acts of murder and massive harm. In this course we will try to find answers to questions as: What are the origins and explanations of violence in all its forms? How are gendered identities produced and reproduced in society? How is gender implicated in violence? How can the new politics of masculinity and femininity inform our discussions of the connection between gender and violence? Discussion and analysis of a wide variety of materials from different disciplines will form the basis of our exploration that will focus mainly on the representation of violence in Hispanic culture. (1 unit)Literature
Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6768 - Latin American Women Writers
Three-week course, second session
This is a course on women writers from Spanish America. A question would be established from the beginning: Is there a "feminine literature"? Several texts, by the most representative writers of the 19th and 20th-centuries, have been chosen to answer that question. As an important antecedent, we would also look at the work by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, a leading figure of literature written in Spanish, in a male-dominated context, who was the most important intellectual of the 17th-century. Departing from Sor Juana, we would trace various "feminine" marks in the writing of later authors, noting the sociocultural context in which they appear. Such marks will allow us to answer that initial question. (.5 unit)
Required text: Electronic material provided at Middlebury.Literature
Summer 2012
SPAN 6769 - Reading of Span & LA Poetry
A Close Reading of Spanish and Latin American Poetry
The course will center on a textual explanation of poems ranging from the Middle Ages to Contemporary poetry. Each poem will be looked into with a fine comb, analyzing each line, word by word, in order to establish and reinforce a given theory or manner of explaining the text in question, based on the biography of the author, the times in which he/she lived, and the way language functions in the poem. Above all, language will be the primary force to be studied, the way it conveys, hides, enriches the text or demolishes itself, and/or its historical period. We will look into poems by such diverse authors as Lope de Vega, Góngora, Juan Ramón Jiménez, San Juan de la Cruz, some Spanish Romances, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Darío, López Velarde, Vallejo, Neruda, Armando Uribe, Marosa Di Giorgio, Coral Bracho, among others. (1 unit)
Required text: Course materials will be available at Middlebury.Literature
Summer 2011
SPAN 6769A - Reading of Span & LA Poetry
Reading of Spanish & LA Poetry
The course will center on a textual explanation of poems ranging from the Middle Ages to contemporary poetry. Each poem will be looked into with a fine comb, analyzing each line, word by word, in order to establish and reinforce a given theory or manner of explaining the text in question, based on the biography of the author, the times in which he/she lived, and the way language functions in the poem. Above all, language will be the primary force to be studied, the way it conveys, hides, enriches the text or demolishes itself, and/or its historical period. We will look into poems by such diverse authors as Lope de Vega, Góngora, Juan Ramón Jiménez, San Juan de la Cruz, some Spanish Romances, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Darío, López Velarde, Vallejo, Neruda, Armando Uribe, Marosa Di Giorgio, Coral Bracho, among others. (1 unit)
Required text: Course pack for purchase in Argentina.Literature
Summer 2012
SPAN 6771 - Indigenismo Span Amer Lit&Cult ▲
Indigenismo in Spanish American Literature and Culture
*Three-week course, second session*
Introduction to Indigenismo, a wide-ranging cultural movement (1930s to 1950s) upholding the rights and dignity of Spanish America's indigenous peoples. The course explores the roots of Indigenismo in Colonial mestizo writers and 19th-century reformists, its flowering in 20th-century visual artists and narrators, and its echoes in today's indigenous-inspired political movements and films in countries such as Bolivia, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru. Discussion of texts by Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Clorinda Matto de Turner, José Carlos Mariátegui, Miguel Angel Asturias, José María Arguedas, Rosario Castellanos, Rigoberta Menchú, and films by Emilio Fernández, Claudia Llosa, and Icíar Bollaín. (.5 unit)
Required text: Electronic material provided at Middlebury.Literature
Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6778 - Cinematic Genres Hispanic Cine
Cinematic Genres in Hispanic Cinema
In this class, we will study the development of cinematic genres in transnational Hispanic cinema and how the esthetic and narrative repetitions they employ have evolved due to the development of international filmmaking techniques, national ideology, and business models that financially determine the final product. Among the genres selected for the class, we will study melodramas such as Aventurera and El hijo de la novia, musicals such as El día que me quieras, Angelitos negros, and Chico y Rita, Catholic narratives such as Marcelino pan y vino and Camino, and horror films such as Santo contra las mujeres vampiro and Juan of the Dead. Genre cinema is often associated with conservative corporate structures, however, we will also analyze some samples of avant-garde films that twist genre conventions for political purposes, such as Luis Buñuel's Los olvidados, Humberto Solás' Lucía, and Fernando Solanas' Tangos: El exilio de Gardel.
(1 unit)
Required text: Pablo Migliozzi, Tango (ISBN 978-84-8443-864-9) (Colección Marca America Latina).Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2013
SPAN 6786 - Contemporary Argentine Art ▲
Three-week course, first session
This course will cover an overview of the current state of the art in Argentina. We will cover works from the mid-80's to today. The problematic relationship between the artistic and economic and social crises that shook the country in 2001 and the world in 2008, will be a topic of particular concern to our course. While Buenos Aires is one of the most important centers of production and circulation, we will also attempt to reflect the artistic situation in various cities, paying particular attention to Rosario, as the epicenter of production in contemporary art. We will work with paintings, sculptures, video art, performances, interventions, installations, and artistic productions that are evidence of the crossing of languages and their interdisciplinary nature. (.5 unit)Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6788 - Second Language Assessment ▲
This course will focus on how to design, develop, and implement different kinds of language tasks and tests in order to assess competence of learners of Spanish as L2, both in oral and written language skills. In order to achieve these goals, we first will review the most influential models of language as communicative competence to make clear what is to be tested when we want to assess language ability in L2. Then, the course will concentrate in the analysis and design of the different possible type of tests tasks aimed for the assessment of Spanish L2. This course, even though will reflect on the substance of language ability and the theories underlying the making of a good test, will have a practical orientation. The main purpose is to provide future teachers of SL2 with both a theoretical basis which will allow them to have a critical vision of the topic of testing, as well as with the resources to develop useful tests for the variety of situations they might find in their different teaching contexts. Therefore the methodology will combine theory and practice with discussions from the readings from the required text and other sources, critical reviews of different examples of L2 test, and the design and development of tests tasks of different levels for oral and written skills. (1 unit)
Required text: Teresa Bordón, La evaluación de la lengua en el marco de E/L2: Bases y procedimientos (Madrid. Arco Libros, 2006) (ISBN: 84-7635-644-7).Pedagogy
Summer 2012, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6792 - Tech Enhanced Lang Learning
This course explores the use of new technologies applied to the enhancement of student learning in the Spanish classroom. The course seeks to familiarize participants with classroom applications and digital pedagogy of TELL including Computer-Meditated-Learning (CML): technology-based instruction and computer-tutorials, as well as Computer-Mediated-Communication (CMC): blog, wikis, email, chat, and web forums. As a final project, students will develop a pedagogical project for appropriately integrating technology into their own instructional approach. (1 unit)
Required text: Gerardo Arrarte Carriquiry, Las tecnologías de la información en la enseñanza del español (Arco Libros, 2011 ISBN 9788476358245); Robert Blake, Brave New Digital Classroom: Technology and Foreign Language Learning (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2008 ISBN: 978-1-58901-212-7).Pedagogy
Summer 2012
SPAN 6793 - Pol & Violence:Span Am Theater
Politics and Violence in Spanish American Theatre
This course will concentrate on the Spanish American theatre of the second half of the 20th-century, focusing on two of its most controversial and debatable aspects: the role of politics in theatrical discourse and the repercussions of the theatrical representation of violence against people in their societies. We will examine how violence is often represented in this theater as a grotesque game in which spectators are invited to participate either as victimizers or as victims. (1 unit)
Required texts: 9 dramaturgos hispanoamericanos: Antología de teatro hispanoamericano del siglo XX: Tomo I (La noche de los asesinos), eds. Frank Dauster, Leon Lyday, & George Woodyard (Ottawa: Girol Books, 2nd ed., 1983 or most recent ISBN 0-919659-37-3); Luis Rafael Sánchez, La pasión según Antígona Pérez 16th ed. (Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico: Editiorial Cultural, 2000 (or most recent) ISBN 84-399-3092-5); Sabina Berman, Entre Villa y una mujer desnuda. Muerte súbita. El suplicio del placer (Mexico: Grupo Editorial Gaceta 1st, 1994 or most recent ISBN 968-7155-59-0; Osvaldo Pavlovsky, El señor Galíndez. Pablo (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Búsqueda, 1986 or most recent ISBN 950-560-031-3); Eduardo Rovner, Teatro 1. Cuarteto (Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la Flor,1994 or most recent ISBN 950-515-419-4); Ariel Dorfman, La muerte y la doncella (Nueva York: Siete Cuentos, 2001ISBN-10: 158322078X, ISBN-13: 978-1583220788; other critical readings will be provided in electronic form at Middlebury.Literature
Summer 2012
SPAN 6795 - Second Language Acquisition ▲
This course is an introduction to the field of Second Language Acquisition and its pedagogical applications in the Spanish-language classroom. The course will be structured around the topic of second language learning theories and will focus on the psychological and linguistic challenges of learning and teaching Spanish. By the end of the course students will have a working knowledge of theory and research that explains how a second language is acquired. (1 unit)
Required text: Kim Griffin, Lingüística aplicada a la enseñanza del español como 2/L. 2a ed. (Arco Libros, 2011); other materials provided electronically at Middlebury.
This course is cross-listed with Language/Linguistics.Linguistics Pedagogy
Summer 2011, Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6796 - Teaching Language Methodology ▲
In this courses students will become familiar with the current trends in foreign-language teaching and connect their own experience as language learners and language teachers with the concepts and ideas encountered in the readings. Through personal and group reflections and discussions, students will develop a vision for improving the teaching of Spanish as a Foreign Language. By the end of the course, students will be able to critically evaluate existing teaching practices and materials based on their understanding of theory and research in second language acquisition and develop teaching materials for the classroom. (1 unit)
Required text: Electronic material provided at Middlebury.Pedagogy
Summer 2011, Summer 2012, Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6796A - Teaching Language Methodology
This class provides a modern and general vision of the most recent pedagogy research in teaching Spanish as a second language in the discipline of Applied Linguistics. Special emphasis is given to those methodological issues that the Spanish language presents when it comes to teaching language and grammar to English speakers. Students will have the opportunity to analyze current studies in the theory of language acquisition and, at the same time, will practice with specific language matters related to teaching Spanish. There will also be a revision of all the methodologies used for teaching foreign languages, altogether with morphological, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics factors intrinsically dependent on teaching and learning Spanish as a second language. (1 unit)
Required text: Dale A. Koike & Carol A. Klee, Lingüística aplicada (New York: Wiley & Sons, 2006) (available at the Middlebury College Bookstore in Vermont).Pedagogy
Summer 2012
SPAN 6797 - Lat Amer Avant-Garde Art
Latin American Avant-Garde Art
*Three-week course, first session*
The search for the NEW, the conflict between the local and the cosmopolitan, the self-questioning of the art institution per se, the encounter between the native and the European, the coexistence of the past and the modern spirit, and a deep sense of freedom, are some of the key elements in this course. We will study the social, political, and economic implications of this art in Latin America. In addition to the 1920s and 1930s, this course will also survey the spirit of rupture and revolution as it continues to evolve in the 1950 and 1960s. We will work with a wide variety of documents provided by the professor. (.5 unit)Civ Cul & Soc
Summer 2012
SPAN 6798 - Teaching Span to Span Speakers
Spanish in the United States: Teaching Spanish to Spanish Speakers
This course is an introduction to issues concerning Spanish language use in the United States social context and the teaching of Spanish to Spanish heritage speakers. We will tie discussions of academic needs and linguistic knowledge of Heritage speakers with research on the relationship between language and society in several Spanish-speaking communities. This course will cover pedagogical principals and approaches that take into consideration the different set of competencies that heritage speakers have when learning Spanish. During the course, students will develop practical applications for the heritage speaker in their classroom: materials development, lesson planning, and in-class expectations. (1 unit)
Required text: Kim Potowski, Fundamentos de la enseñanza del español a hispanohablantes en los EEUU (Madrid: Arco Libros, 2005); also electronic material in Segue.Pedagogy
Summer 2011
SPAN 6904 - Research Paper ▲
Summer 2013, Summer 2014 Language Schools
SPAN 6920 - Teaching Practicum ▲
This course is for DML degree students
Summer 2014 Language Schools