Fall 2017

Catalan

HISP-C 491 Elementary Catalan for Graduate Students (3 credits)

Globalization has unified economies, torn down political barriers, and turned local spaces into tourist attractions. In this context, Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, has become a successful global city that offers a balanced combination of vibrant economic activity and Mediterranean relaxed lifestyle. Its cultural centers, its architectural and artistic heritage, its sunny beaches, and its cool nightlife have also turned Catalonia into one of the world’s most fashionable tourist destinations. The names of some modern Catalan creators are familiar to all: Gaudí, Miró, Dalí, to name just three.

At the heart of this success lies an enigmatic element: the presence and vitality of the Catalan language. In the last decades, Catalan, spoken by approximately 10 million people, has both maintained a high cultural prestige and increased its public presence remaining a key political tool in Catalonia and the other Catalan-speaking areas.

This introductory course to Catalan language and culture aims at providing a basic knowledge of the Catalan language. The intensive study of Catalan, geared primarily at reading knowledge, but not limited to it, will be complemented with a cultural overview of Catalonia and the Catalan-speaking lands (Catalunya, País Valencià, Illes Balears, Andorra, Catalunya Nord, and the city of l’Alguer in Sardinia). The case of Catalonia and its unique and exemplary characteristics will be a perfect occasion to undertake more general reflections on the intricate relations between language, culture, politics, and globalization.

HISP-C 491 #8007 11:15A-12:05P MWF AC C116 STAFF

Note: Above class meets with HISP-C 105 and HISP-X 491.

Note: Above class is for graduate students only.

Portuguese

HISP-P 425/525: Structure of Portuguese Language (3 credits)

HISP-P 425/525 #30295 2:30p – 3:45p MW GA 0011 Professor Estela Vieira

This course will provide an overview of the structure of the Portuguese language, and an introduction to the linguistic analysis of Portuguese focusing on phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax. In addition, the course will cover relevant aspects of Portuguese historical grammar, semantics, and pragmatics. We will focus on the different Portuguese dialects, consider language variation in a broader context, and review particular challenges to native speakers of English and Spanish, such as verbal aspect and mood, uses of “ser” and “estar,” the subjunctive, as well as pronunciation. Students will have opportunities to conduct research, critical analysis, and data collection. Besides readings, class discussions, and hands-on exercises we will also apply our knowledge to specific texts.

HISP-P 475/575: Theater in Portuguese – Nation and Identity in Lusophone Drama (3 credits)

HISP-P 475/575 #30301 11:15a – 12:30p MW WH 104 Professor Estela Vieira

This course is an overview of theater in Portuguese. We will read, analyze, and contextualize plays from Portugal, Brazil, and Lusophone-Africa starting in the XV to the XXI century. Our goal will be to consider how both classical drama (by famous playwrights like Gil Vicente) as well as less studied genres (dramas written by women, juvenile theater, etc.) conceive nation and identity building. Playwrights across time and place use drama to stage their aesthetic prerogatives and critique their socio-political reality. While focusing on nation and cultural identity, this course aims to cross-culturally compare diverse plays and examine how they relate to historical context, theatrical production, and drama theory.

HISP-P 751 The Afro-Brazilian Experience (3 credits)

HISP-P 751 #32724 4:00p – 6:30p TR GA 0009 Professor Luciana Namorato

Note: Offered 1st 8 Weeks session

Course Description:

Brazil has the largest African-descendant population outside of the African continent and that reality is increasingly a focus of writers and artists. In the last decade, stronger political and cultural ties between Brazil and Africa have inspired greater scholarly interest in the subject of blackness in Brazil. The objective of this seminar is to familiarize students with a range of materials about the African-Brazilian experience, with emphasis on literary production by authors who are of various racial backgrounds. The course will begin with Basílio da Gama’s Quitubia (1791), the first work by a Brazilian about an African. Readings will include: the novel Úrsula (1859), written by the first Brazilian female novelist, the Afro-Brazilian Maria Firmina dos Santos; works by the Black Experimental Theater founded in the 1940s; passages from Carolina Maria de Jesus’s diaries from the 1960s; and, selections from the Quilombhoje collective’s Cadernos negros (1970s-2000s). Additionally, we will examine works written in the last twenty years by Afro-Brazilian writers, including Conceição Evaristo, Ana Maria Gonçalves, Elisa Lucinda, Joel Rufino dos Santos, and Paulo Lins (City of God). While the primary focus of this seminar is literature, it will include other areas such as history and sociology. In addition to race, we will explore intersections with gender, class, and diaspora. We will read works by Alzira Rufino, a leader in the Afro-Brazilian cultural movement and specialist in the rights of black women, and Clóvis Moura, who questioned Gilberto Freyre’s view about the passivity of afro-Brazilians during slavery, among others. Readings and class discussion will be in Portuguese. Students will write a final seminar paper.

Hispanic Linguistics

HISP-S 508 Introduction to Hispanic Pragmatics (3 credits)

HISP-S 508 #30654 1:00p – 2:15p MW PY 115 Professor César Félix-Brasdefer

This course provides an introduction to the fundamental concepts and topics traditionally covered in a (Hispanic) Pragmatics course from a cognitive and sociocultural perspective. After examining the scope of pragmatics, the main components of the field will be reviewed, including speech act theory, deixis, presupposition, implicature, information structure, and different theories that account for the study of ‘meaning’. Since pragmatics examines meaning in context, the semantic-pragmatic distinction will be discussed in relation to other areas of linguistics. The last component of the course examines pragmatic concepts within the fields of discourse analysis, second language acquisition, and sociolinguistic variation. Methodological issues in pragmatics research will also be reviewed. This course provides the foundation for future advanced courses in pragmatics, discourse analysis, and interlanguage pragmatics. Examples will be taken from different varieties of Spanish and English.

HISP-S 515 La adquisición del español como segundo idioma / The Acquisition of Spanish as a Second Language (3 credits)

HISP-S 515 #30658 1:00p – 2:15p TR GA 0011 Professor Kimberly L. Geeslin

This course provides an introduction to the wealth of empirical research focusing on the acquisition of Spanish as a second language. Being introductory, the course begins with a brief analysis of early research and traces the development of second language acquisition theory through the morpheme acquisition studies, studies on Interlanguage development, research on language processing, and internal and external influences on acquisition. In addition to answering the question, How has the field of Spanish second language acquisition developed and evolved over the years, this course focuses on the paths of acquisition of non-native linguistic systems. In order to address both progress in second language acquisition theory, and the current knowledge of the development of non-native Spanish, this course is organized according to grammatical topics that have been identified as particular challenges for English-speakers. Each individual construct is analyzed in terms of its historical context and contemporary findings.

Evaluation:

Daily preparation and active participation in class discussions will be an essential component of this course. Students will complete graded homework assignments and two exams, organized around the primary themes of the course, requiring synthesis of course discussions and class readings and application of theoretical constructs to the study of second language acquisition data. There will be a final project and a presentation of that research to the class at the end of the semester.

Email: kgeeslin@indiana.edu

HISP-S 517 Methods of Teaching College Spanish (3 credits)

HISP-S 517 #9915 11:15a-12:30p TR BH 307 Professor Laura Gurzynski-Weiss

This course provides a foundation in the theory and techniques for teaching university-level foreign language in a classroom setting. The theoretical background of communicative language teaching will be emphasized with particular attention to task-based language teaching. Students will critically review theories on second language acquisition and learn how to implement current research findings into effective teaching practices. Internal and external factors that affect the language acquisition process will be discussed, as well as how instructors can maximize in-class learning in their role as instructors. The relationships between instructor characteristics and learning opportunities will also be examined. Throughout the semester, students will lead and participate in discussions, complete classroom observations, and carry out teaching evaluations. Students will also collaboratively design classroom tasks, assessments and lesson plans for future use in an online teaching portfolio. This course is guided by three basic questions:

  1. How do adult students learn a foreign language in a classroom setting?
  2. What internal and external factors contribute to/complicate learning in this context?
  3. How can we as instructors utilize this information to maximize opportunities for language learning within our current and future classrooms?

HISP-S 612 Topics in Linguistic Variation and Language in Context (3 credits)

HISP-S 612 #12930 4:00p – 5:15p TR WH 204 Professor Manuel Díaz-Campos

1. Course description:

This class is an advanced research-oriented course in language variation and change focusing on current issues in the study of Hispanic Sociolinguistics. Students will develop a research paper that will address a current issue of sociolinguistic variation depending of his/her interests. Theoretical discussion and practical exercises will be incorporated during the semester with the purpose of encouraging critical thinking and solving-problem skills. Some of the topics to be included are: 1) An overview of socio-phonological variation in Latin America and Spain 2) Experimental approaches in socio-phonology 3) theoretical frameworks to study sociolinguistic variation, 4) Overview of mophosyntactic variation in Latin America and Spain 5) Variation and Gramaticalization, 6) Acquisition of sociolinguistic variables 7) forms of address 8) statistical analysis, 9) Social factors, and 10) Speech perception and attitudes, Class time will be divided in lecturing, class discussion, and solving problem exercises.

2. Prerequisite: S513 or equivalent

3. Goals:

After successful completion of this course, the student will:

  • Refine their understanding of variationist analysis
  • Understand recent developments in the study of Hispanic Linguistics
  • Be able to understand recent experimental approaches
  • Be able to design a research paper applying appropriate statistical analysis
  • Comprehend the acquisition of sociolinguistic variation in child language
  • Understand recent research on forms of address
  • Understand how formal theories model variation
  • Understand patterns of lexical diffusion in the spreading of language change
  • Comprehend the role of social factors in the study of sociolinguistic phenomena
  • Understand recent studies on speech dialect perception
  • Be able to present research papers in a professional fashion
  • Learn to design and write a professional handout
  • Write a professional abstract
  • Write a final paper using the techniques learned

Hispanic Literatures

HISP-S 504 Bibliography & Methods of Research (3 credits)

HISP-S 504 #30651 11:15a – 12:30p MW LH 030 Professor Anke Birkenmaier

This course introduces both M.A. and Ph.D. students to the essential components of establishing a research program in literary studies. The first part of the course will focus on research methods for identifying a field of specialization and then move through the stages of compiling key bibliography, setting out research questions, and beginning the writing process. During this part of the course students will work with Area Studies librarians, archivists, and writing tutors. The second part of the course will take students through a series of exercises to help them develop professional skills beyond preparing a research paper: drafting book reviews, grant proposals, conference abstracts, and C.V.s. The course is run as a workshop. Students will be responsible for preparing weekly exercises that will serve as the basis for commenting on each other’s work in a constructive peer review setting. In addition, there will be a final 12 -15 page paper due at the end of the semester. The paper will build on the research area, questions, and bibliography set out by each student in the first part of the course.

HISP-S 528 Spanish Literature of the 16th & 17th Centuries (3 credits)

HISP-S 528 #30659 4:00p – 6:30p T BH 321 Professor Steven Wagschal

Course description: This graduate survey of early modern prose, poetry and theater, explores the dynamics of power, gender and genre in selected, mostly canonical texts by Garcilaso de la Vega, Lope de Rueda, Luis de Góngora, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Quevedo, María de Zayas, Calderón, Ana Caro and others.

Requirements: There will be one exam and two papers (one short, one longer). At least one of the papers will employ methods of textual analysis known as “close reading.” Students will also give short presentations on critical articles and/or concepts. Finally, active class participation and preparation are important components of the course.

Note: If you have not yet read Don Quixote, it would be a good idea to do so before the semester begins, because it is a major point of reference in the criticism of seventeenth-century literature. Due to time constraints it is not feasible to read it in this course.

HISP-S 538 Spanish Literature 18th & 19th Centuries (3 credits)

HISP-S 538 #30660 9:30a – 10:45a MW WH 205 Professor Edgar Illas

This course will study the main themes and forms of Peninsular literature from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The course will analyze the characteristics of the various literary movements (neoclassicism, romanticism, realism) in relation to the historical context of modern Spain. We will examine the literary works vis-à-vis the problematics of the period. But instead of approaching the period through the usual negative categories (“incomplete modernization,” “insufficient Enlightenment,” “weak nationalization,” or “cultural belatedness”), we will consider the tensions caused by the progressive and reactionary blocs, patriarchalism, the Carlist wars, the Church, or the dismantling of the colonial system as the positive components of Spain’s process of semiperipheral development. Authors will include Feijoo, Cadalso, Moratín, Larra, Espronceda, Zorrilla, Bécquer, Aribau, Bazán, Galdós, Clarín, and Castro.

HISP-S 648: Cultural Memory and the Negotiation of the Past in Democratic Spain (3 credits)

HISP-S 648 #30661 2:30p – 3:45p MW WH 205 Professor Melissa Dinverno

Theories of cultural memory, trauma and the narration of the past have come to occupy a crucial place in literary studies, and, in the past 20 years, in Hispanic literary studies in particular. Prior to Francisco Franco’s death and especially since the early years of democracy, the writing of the recent past has been at the forefront of Spanish politics, society and cultural production. How should Spain’s past of Civil War and of the repression of the subsequent dictatorship be narrated in contemporary society? What place do the ghosts of the past have in the formation of a “new” national identity, in a politics of reconciliation or rejuvenation, in a new cultural landscape? Debates over these and related questions have played out in the cultural landscape time and again and now assume a more urgent tone as the recuperation of this painful past has taken shape in efforts to unearth graves of the Civil War and dictatorship. This course will analyze the way that writers and directors have dealt with issues of memory, history and the collective negotiation of Spain’s difficult and contentious past.

We will first build a theoretical base in memory studies (which students may, after this course, use for different contexts, not only Spanish). We will then focus on recent literary and filmic texts regarding Spain, examining the varied positions that these intellectuals have formulated and the ways in which they have negotiated concepts such as witnessing, cultural memory, and individual and national identity in their work. Taking an interdisciplinary approach including literary and film studies, psychology, sociology, and history, we will also look at the degree to which these stances dialogue with or participate in the construction of wider social discourses on the past in democratic Spain.

Some of the questions we will deal with may include: What role does culture, and especially literature, play in a society’s construction of the past and the way it deals with conflict in the present? What place have trauma and witnessing been given in talking about Spain’s relationship to the Civil War and Francoism? How does the “ghostly” manifest in contemporary discussions of memory in and on Spain? Given that understandings of the past shift over time, in what ways have intergenerational issues of transmission of the past and the construction of memory been represented? How does Spain’s painful past affect those who never experienced it and what claim to that past do younger generations have?

Evaluation will likely include presentations, a midterm paper and a final research paper.

HISP-S 695 Graduate Colloquium (3 credits)

Variable Title: Hegel and the Humanities: Language, Thought, and World in the Science of Logic

HISP-S 695 #32826 4:00p – 6:30p T GA0013 Professor Patrick Dove

In this course we will make our way deliberately through Hegel’s opus magnum, the Science of Logic, with an eye to understanding how Hegelian thought has informed a range of intellectual traditions over the last two centuries. By the same token, we will explore how a reading of Hegel’s major work today might open up new ways of articulating what it is that we do in the Humanities. Hegel’s insights into the deep interrelatedness of domains that we often take to be separate or even diametrically opposed—language and logic, thought and reality, concept and object, being and nothingness, the spiritual and the material, activity and passivity, and so on—offer a site for reexamining prevailing ideas about the Humanities and its role in the university and in society as a whole.

While the influence of the Phenomenology (1807) on 20th-century Western thought is clear, the reception of the Logic—first published in 1812 but revised continuously by Hegel up until his death in 1831—follows a less dramatic path. While acknowledging the passages from the Phenomenology that have been made famous through interpretations by Bataille, Kojève, Hyppolite, Sartre, and others in France, and subsequently in other latitudes, we will look at how the Logic both builds on and deviates from the narrative of self-consciousness and its dialectical vicissitudes found in the early text.

Alongside the goal of deepening our familiarity with Hegel’s thought and the Hegelian legacy for post-Idealist thought, one of our primary goals will be to explore what Hegel’s effort to produce a systematic account of the relationship between thought and being can say to us today. The urgency of this question arises in a context in which humanistic work finds itself increasingly under pressure to explain and justify itself according to criteria that are not its own. Hegel’s Logic, by contrast, offers a strong account of thinking as both an end in itself and as a mode of relating to the world that cannot be fully separated from the objective reality it seeks to grasp. The thought that seeks to understand reality is itself already eminently real; and yet thought is also continuously reflecting back upon itself and discovering the particular limitations that impose themselves on its search for truth. Moreover, the inextricable connection between thought and language suggests that any attempt to instrumentalized thinking in the service of exogenous interests and demands is destined to fail: akin to language for Heidegger, thinking constitutes a kind of automaticity that cannot be controlled by a sovereign human subject. While Hegel’s Logic thereby provides us with an opportunity to develop new and more autonomous ways of explaining what we do, the Logic also presents a forceful critique of humanism itself and of the Subject of humanism in particular. This critique could similarly provide a productive departure point for reexamining and rearticulating the importance of the theoretical humanities.

The course structure is intended to provide students with a sustained and serious but practicable engagement with one of the most difficult works in the modern philosophical tradition. Each week we will read approximately two chapters of the Logic. This reading will be supplemented by selections from the work of other thinkers that will help us to situate Hegel’s thought in a specific context. Many of the selections will be derived from intellectual traditions that are informed by Hegelian thought and which understand themselves as either pursuing or pushing back against Hegelianism: for instance, Marxism and post-Marxism (Althusser, Jameson, Laclau), Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, Heidegger and post-Heideggerian French thought (Derrida, Nancy), Levinas, post-colonialism and subaltern studies (Fanon, Said, Spivak, Mignolo), and theoretical reflections on the historical crisis of the modern university (Bill Readings and Willy Thayer). As part of this contextual labor we will also discuss recent scholarship that has sought to contest or problematize the general anti-Hegelian tenor of post-war Western thought: Judith Butler’s Subjects of Desire, Peter Osborne’s The Politics of Time, Slavoj Zizek (any title would do), Catherine Malabou’s The Future of Hegel, and Warren Montag’s Althusser and his Contemporaries.

HISP-S 708: Race, Nation, and Anxieties of Empire in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America (3 Credits)

HISP-S 708 #30696 2:30p– 3:45p TR AC C103 Professor Deborah Cohn

This course explores the role of race and ethnicity in constructions of national identity and transnational relations of hegemony in literature from the Caribbean, Mexico (including Greater Mexico and the border), and Central America. We will cover works from the late 19th century through the 21st century, focusing on the Mexican American War, the Spanish American War, the Cold War, and U.S. interventionism at various moments throughout these periods. We will also examine literary representations of the Haitian Revolution, as well as the shadow that it cast over 19th and 20th century Caribbean and U.S. history. Special attention will be paid to the relationship between race/ethnicity and U.S. imperialism.

Questions that we will address include: what role is afforded to race (relations, conflict, miscegenation) in the representations and constructions of regional and national identity that emerge both from within and outside of the nation? how are the political relations between the U.S. and these regions characterized, and to what extent does race play a role in these relations? what are the privileges afforded to citizenship? to what extent and in what manner are these privileges inflected by race? in what ways are notions of blackness, mestizaje, and whiteness interwoven and interdependent, and how do these notions play out in different nations?

In this course we will read texts by Alejo Carpentier, Junot Díaz, Rosario Ferré, Nicolás Guillén, Langston Hughes, Fernando Ortiz, María Amparo Ruiz de Burton, Luis Rafael Sánchez, Paco Ignacio Taibo, José Vasconcelos, and others, as well as critical materials by María DeGuzmán, Robert Irwin, Amy Kaplan, Gretchen Murphy, and Américo Paredes, among others. Students will write a short paper and a seminar-length final paper, as well as leading discussion in class and other assignments.