| 1 |
Basic Spanish I (4) |
Staff |
| |
Handling the immediate context of daily experience in spoken and written Spanish: identifying, describing, and characterizing people, objects, places, and events; giving information and instructions; issuing simple commands and requests. Laboratory fee, $50. (Fall, spring, and summer) |
| 2 |
Basic Spanish II (4) |
Staff |
| |
Speaking and writing in Spanish about past and future events: telling a story (narrating and describing in the past), promising, predicting, and proposing simple hypotheses and conjectures. Prerequisite: Span 1 or equivalent. Laboratory fee, $50. (Fall, spring, and summer) |
| 3 |
Intermediate Spanish I (3) |
Serrano-Ripoll and Staff |
| |
Increasing active vocabulary, reinforcing mastery of basic grammar, dealing with more complex structures (verbal phrases, subordinate clauses), and using some patterns of indirect speech (repeating or relaying messages, giving reports, summarizing). Prerequisite: Span 2 or equivalent. Laboratory fee, $50. (Fall, spring, and summer) |
| 4 |
Intermediate Spanish II (3) |
Serrano-Ripoll and Staff |
| |
Consolidation and further expansion of the ability to understand as well as produce a more complex level of oral and written discourse emphasizing subjective expression: issuing indirect commands and requests; giving opinions; making proposals, building arguments; defending and criticizing ideas. Prerequisite: Span 3 or equivalent. Laboratory fee, $50. (Fall, spring, and summer) |
| 5–7 |
GW Madrid Study Center: Spanish Language and Culture I–II–III (3–3–3) |
Staff |
| |
Offered through the Madrid Program only. |
| 9 |
Language, Culture, and Society I (3) |
Staff |
| |
Development of strong conversational skills and the rudiments of expository writing. The vocabulary and structures necessary to move from handling everyday experience and subjective expression to the exposition of more abstract thought and ideas and discussion of political, social, and cultural issues. Prerequisite: Span 4. Laboratory fee, $50. (Fall, spring, and summer) |
| 10 |
Language, Culture, and Society II (3) |
Staff |
| |
Continued expansion of the range and complexity of conversational skills and further development of the writing of effective expository prose on a broad range of subjects. Short literary texts serve as the basis for oral discussion, analytical reading, and writing brief critical essays. Prerequisite: Span 9. Laboratory fee, $50. (Fall, spring, and summer) |
| 30 |
General Readings in Spanish Literature (3) |
Staff |
| |
Readings, textual analysis, and writing on a broad selection of texts from different genres and periods. Hispanic literatures in their cultural contexts. Close reading approach and introduction to literary vocabulary. Prerequisite: Span 108. (Fall and spring) |
| 49 |
Spanish for Graduate Students (0) |
Staff |
| |
For graduate students preparing for reading examinations. No academic credit. Tuition is charged at the rate of 3 credit hours. (Fall, spring, and summer) |
| 53 |
Epic and Satire (3) |
Britt, Vergara |
| |
The historical, cultural, and political ties between Spain and Latin America and their representation in epic and satiric modes of imaginative literature as developed in drama, poetry, and prose. Lecture and discussion in Spanish. Prerequisite: Span 30 or equivalent. (Fall) |
| 54 |
Tragedy and Comedy (3) |
Britt, Vergara |
| |
The historical, cultural, and political ties between Spain and Latin America and their representation in tragic and comic modes of imaginative literature as developed in drama, poetry, and prose. Lecture and discussion in Spanish. Prerequisite: Span 30 or equivalent. (Spring) |
| 56 |
Topics in Hispanic Literatures Britt, Waisman and Cultures in Translation (3) |
| |
Dynamics of Hispanic societies and their cultures studied through literature, art, or film. Topics vary. Readings and lectures in English. The course may be repeated for credit. Laboratory fee may be required. (Fall and spring, alternate years) |
| 90 |
Textual Analysis (3) |
Vergara and Staff |
| |
Methodology and vocabulary of literary criticism. Application of various principles of textual analysis and critical approaches to literature. Prerequisite: Span 30 or equivalent. (Fall and spring) |
| 108 |
Advanced Spanish Grammar and Style (3) |
Serrano-Ripoll and Staff |
| |
Composition, drills, dictations. Translations into Spanish. Study of vocabulary and syntax, with emphasis on stylistic devices. Prerequisite: Span 10. (Fall and spring) |
| 109 |
Contemporary Spain and Latin America (3) |
Staff |
| |
Emphasis on advanced oral work. Discussion of Hispanic culture and civilization, based on contemporary writings and video documents. Laboratory fee, $50. Prerequisite: Span 10. (Fall and spring) |
| 110 |
Business and Commercial Spanish (3) |
Staff |
| |
Structure and language of Latin American and Spanish economic institutions. Discussion of legal, financial, and administrative documents. Oral and written reports. Prerequisite: Span 10. (Spring) |
| 120 |
Studies in Medieval Spanish Literature (3) |
Staff |
| |
Reading and analysis of the major literary texts from the 11th through the 15th century. Attention paid to linguistic aspects of Old Spanish. |
| 121 |
Studies in Golden Age Literature (3) |
Staff |
| |
Major texts of the 16th and 17th centuries. Topics may include lyric poetry and the "invention" of subjectivity; prose fiction; comedia and the relation between private and public life; humanism and the classical tradition; the invention of the press, the status of writing, and the new culture of the book; the (post)modernity of Golden Age literature. |
| 122–23 |
Cervantes' Don Quijote and the Rise of the Novel (3) |
Staff |
| |
Issues raised in the text of Don Quijote: literature and life, words and deed, the fashioning of self, the structures of narrative, the limits and possibilities of representation, and the relation between appearance and reality, knowledge and understanding, fiction and truth. Cervantes' "invention" of the novel. Prerequisite to Span 123: Span 122 or approval of instructor. (Academic year) |
| 124 |
Reason, Superstition, and Literature in 18th-Century Spain (3) |
Britt |
| |
The development of neoclassical aesthetics in Spain: the confrontation of reason and superstition; the autonomy of critical thought vis-à-vis the doctrines of the Catholic Church and the absolute powers of the monarchy; culture as state-sponsored spectacle; the split between elites and masses, high and low culture; the conjunction of "good taste" and pedagogy. |
| 125 |
The Myth of the Two Spains (3) |
Britt |
| |
Literature as an expression of the institutionalization of liberalism in 19th-century Spain and of official and popular resistance to this modernizing credo. Topics may include the romanticism of Quintana, Espronceda, Blanco-White and Becquer; the costumbrismo of Castro and Larra; the realism of Galdós; and the naturalism of Pardo Bazán and Clarín. |
| 126 |
The Literature of Spain's First Century Without Empire (3) |
Britt |
| |
Spain's imperial crisis and its persistence throughout the 20th century as a central theme in Spanish literary and intellectual culture. Topics may include decadence and regeneration; modern Spanish nationalism and cultural imperialism; Hispanicism and pan-nationalism; the Spanish Civil War, fascism and liberalism; the transition from fascism to democracy. (Fall) |
| 130 |
Poetry of Spain and Spanish America (3) |
Vergara |
| |
Study of poetic traditions and genres. Analysis of representative texts from the early modern to the contemporary periods. Authors may include: Garcilaso, Quevedo, Darío, Silva, Lorca, Neruda, Salinas, Jiménez, Gioconda Belli. (Spring) |
| 131 |
Topics in the Cinema of the Hispanic World (3) |
Staff |
| |
Film as a language of cultural and historical testimony in Spanish America and Spain. Topics may include the Silent Era, Surrealism, the Mexican Golden Age of the '40s, the New Cinema of the '50s, Peronist cinema in Argentina, socialist film in Cuba, and postmodern production in the Hispanic world. May be repeated for credit. Laboratory fee, $30. (Fall) |
| 132 |
Theatre and the Hispanic Experience (3) |
Britt, Captain |
| |
Theatrical representation: presence and performance, body, voice, dialogue, and the unfolding of conflict. Theatrical traditions and movements may include Golden Age drama; neo-Classical and Romantic drama of the 19th century; drama of political protest; existentialist drama and the theater of the avant-gardes. (Spring, alternate years) |
| 133–34 |
Special Topics in Spanish and Spanish-American Literature (3–3) |
Staff |
| |
May be repeated for credit provided the topic differs. |
| 140 |
Latin American Women Writers (3) |
Vergara |
| |
Works of well-established women writers (e.g., Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Gabriella Mistral, and Luisa Valenzuela) and of more recent writers (e.g., Elena Poniatowska, Diamela Eltit, Ana Lydia Vega, Cristina Peri-Rossi, and Laura Esquivel) discussed in relation to feminist principles of criticism. (Spring) |
| 145 |
Modern Spanish-American Poetry (3) |
Vergara, Waisman |
| |
Poetry after modernism; forms and themes that characterize the work of authors such as Agustini, Guillén, Huidobro, Lezama, Mistral, Neruda, and Palés. (Spring) |
| 146 |
Spanish-American Short Fiction (3) |
Captain, Vergara, Waisman |
| |
Short prose narratives as agents of questioning textual meaning and subverting former literary traditions. Writers may include Arenas, Borges, Cortázar, Fuentes, García Márquez, Quiroga, Peri Rossi, Ana Lydia Vega, Zapata Olivella. (Fall) |
| 147 |
Spanish-American Polemics (3) |
Britt, Captain, Waisman |
| |
Relations between state and nation in post-independence literary and political polemics of 19th century Spanish America. Topics may include the essay as a new genre for a new age; the figure of the public intellectual vis-à-vis the processes of state and nation formation; the post-colonial state and its imagined national, ethnic, racial, and economic communities. (Spring, alternate years) |
| 148 |
New Narrative in Spanish America (3) |
Captain, Vergara, Waisman |
| |
Experimental fiction in Spanish America, with focus on literature of the mid-1960s through the present. Authors may include Alejo Carpentier, Julio Cortázar, Diamela Eltit, Carlos Fuentes, Cabrera Infante, Lezama Lima, García Márquez, Octavio Paz, Ricardo Piglia, Elena Poniatowska, Mario Vargas Llosa. (Fall) |
| 149 |
Spanish-American Colonial Literature (3) |
Captain, Vergara |
| |
Analysis of chronicles, essays, memoirs, epistolary exchanges, and poetry contextualized vis-à-vis the medieval and Renaissance values of Imperial Spain. Authors may include Cabeza de Vaca, Bartolomé de las Casas, Colón, Cortés, Díaz del Castillo, El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Rodríguez Freile, Sepœlveda. (Spring) |
| 150 |
Spanish-American Romanticism Captain, Vergara, Waisman and Modernism (3) |
| |
Study of two movements that shaped literary expression of Spanish America at the turn of the century and influenced political and cultural thought throughout the Hispanic world. Authors may include Heredia, Echeverría, Avellaneda, Isaacs, Darío, Martí, Lugones. (Fall, alternate years) |
| 197 |
Independent Study (arr.) |
Staff |
| |
Admission by permission of department chair and instructor. May be repeated for credit. |
| 198–99 |
Proseminar (3–3) |
Staff |
| |
Required of all majors; preparation for the major field examination. Literature in relation to the other arts and the social sciences. Span 198: textual analysis, literary criticism, theory, and methods. Span 199: the concepts of literary history and the history of Spanish literature; periods, authors, genres, topics. (Academic year) |
