Spring 2016

Catalan

HISP-C 492 Readings in Catalan for Graduate Students (3 credits)

Prerequisite: HISP-C 105 or consent of the Instructor

Variable Title: Catalan Political Non-Fictions: Journalism, Documentary, Interventions

The emergence of Catalonia as “a nation without a state” and now “a nation in search of a state” constitutes a singular event in the context of modern Europe. Catalonia as a political and cultural entity has not followed any of the two paths that are common in European regions: neither has it become a sovereign state nor has it gradually dissolved into another, larger national union. Instead, Catalonia occupies an in-between position that is a particularly productive space to explore the puzzling relations between cultures, states, and globalization.

The course will analyze the intersection of culture and politics in a variety of Catalan non-fictional texts, documentaries and interventions. The course builds on one fundamental premise. While the intersection of culture and politics in fictional texts must be deciphered through an allegorical reading, in non-fictional works this intersection takes other forms linked to activism, militancy, reflection, and even, hélas!, truth and beauty. Materials will range from the medieval chronicles of the Catalan kingdoms to leftist and conservative internet blogs. We will also read more canonical works by modern essayists Josep Maria de Sagarra, Josep Pla, Gaziel, and Joan Fuster, paying particular attention to texts written in exile during the Franco era.

The course will be taught in Catalan. Students who have not taken Catalan should seek the consent of the instructor. This course can fulfill the elective 300/400 level requirement for the Spanish major.

HISP-C 492 #11812 11:15A-12:30P MW BH 345 Professor Edgar Illas

Note: This course meets with HISP-C 494 and HISP-C 618

HISP-C 618 Topics in Catalan Literature (3 credits)

Topic: Catalan Political Non-Fictions: Journalism, Documentary, Interventions HISP-C 618 #30168 11:15A – 12:30P MW BH345 Professor Edgar Illas

The emergence of Catalonia as “a nation without a state” and now “a nation in search of a state” constitutes a singular event in the context of modern Europe. Catalonia as a political and cultural entity has not followed any of the two paths that are common in European regions: neither has it become a sovereign state nor has it gradually dissolved into another, larger national union. Instead, Catalonia occupies an in-between position that is a particularly productive space to explore the puzzling relations between cultures, states, and globalization.

The course will analyze the intersection of culture and politics in a variety of Catalan non-fictional texts, documentaries and interventions. The course builds on one fundamental premise. While the intersection of culture and politics in fictional texts must be deciphered through an allegorical reading, in non-fictional works this intersection takes other forms linked to activism, militancy, reflection, and even, hélas!, truth and beauty. Materials will range from the medieval chronicles of the Catalan kingdoms to leftist and conservative internet blogs. We will also read more canonical works by modern essayists Josep Maria de Sagarra, Josep Pla, Gaziel, and Joan Fuster, paying particular attention to texts written in exile during the Franco era.

The course will be taught in Catalan. Students who have not taken Catalan should seek the consent of the instructor. This course can fulfill the elective 300/400 level requirement for the Spanish major.

Note: This course meets jointly with HISP-C 492 & HISP-C 494

Portuguese

HISP-P 491 Elementary Portuguese for Graduate Students (3 credits)

For students from secondary school placed into the second semester of first year study or those with a strong background in Spanish or another Romance Language. Content of P100 and P150 covered at an accelerated pace. Credit not given for both P135 and P150. This course can count for the Spanish major 300/400 level elective.

HISP-P 491 #12670 9:05A - 9:55A MTWR BH 241 STAFF

Note: This class meets with HISP-P 135.

HISP-P 492 Reading Portuguese for Graduate Students (3 credits)

Prerequisite: P200-P250 or equivalent An advanced course on Portuguese composition and grammar, designed to refine students’ knowledge of several language skills. Emphasis on writing, with special attention to syntax and vocabulary development and usage. Students will write compositions, increasing in length and complexity as the semester progresses. This course is recommended as a continuation of P200-P250.

HISP-P 492 #5028 11:15A - 12:05P MWF BH 134 STAFF

Note: This class meets with HISP-P 317.

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

HISP-P 525 #30389 2:30P-3:45P MW SY 0008 Professor Luciana Namorato

Introduction to the study of the structure of the Portuguese language, both from a descriptive and a prescriptive point of view. Focusing on realia, including TV, advertisement and newspaper texts, we will examine topics that are particularly challenging to native speakers of English and Spanish, such as uses of “ser” and “estar,” the subjunctive, verbal aspect and mood, as well as common pronunciation difficulties. Our study will focus on Portuguese phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax, and it will include relevant aspects of historical grammar, dialectology, semantics, and pragmatics. Readings and class discussion in Portuguese.

Note: This class meets with HISP-P 425 & HISP-P 498

HISP-P 695 Luso-Brazilian Colloquium (3 credits)

Topic: Aging, Gender & Society in Lusophone Literature

HISP-P 695 #30429 1:00P-2:15P MW SY 0008 Professor Luciana Namorato

While aging is a universal experience, the meaning of the different stages of life differs dramatically among various cultures. This course examines representations of the aging process in Luso-Brazilian literature and popular culture. Our goal is to understand how the literature written in Portuguese in Brazil, Portugal and Portuguese-speaking African countries represent the young and the elderly vis-à-vis issues of gender, race and economic strata. We will read prose and poetry, and we will closely examine film and television productions, as well as advertisement and newspaper texts in order to better interpret the cultural constructions of age. The theoretical questions and social issues the course examines will touch upon broader themes, such as gender inequality, racial prejudice, consumerism, public health, medical discourse, beauty industry and the politics of everyday spaces. Readings and class discussion in Portuguese.

Note: This course meets with HISP-P 495 and HISP-P 498.

Hispanic Linguistics

HISP-S 511 Spanish Syntactic Analysis (3 credits)

HISP-S 511 #30167 11:15A – 12:30P TR WH 108 Professor Patricia Matos Amaral

This course is a graduate-level introduction to fundamental concepts in syntactic theory and analysis, with a focus on Spanish. It presents and compares the basic theoretical assumptions of different approaches to syntax, in order to understand the motivations of a number of formal and functional (usage-based) theories. Particular attention will be given to syntax and its interface with semantics and pragmatics, and to methodologies that are data-driven and experimental. Emphasis will be on developing skills like identifying linguistic generalizations, constructing a logical argumentation, and testing predictions of hypotheses. The course is designed to include both lecture and seminar formats, the latter being intended for discussion of a specific topic in the analysis of Spanish. Several times during the semester students will form small groups to lead discussions and critically analyze different approaches to the same topic. As part of the course assignments, students will also engage in an individual research project in order to gain hands-on experience in syntactic analysis and argumentation.

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

HISP-S 612 #30797 9:30A – 10:45A TR BH 018 Professor Clancy Clements

VT: Pidgins & Creoles

This course focuses primarily on the structure of pidgins and creoles, and secondarily on the structure of other so-called ‘hybrid’ or mixed languages, and the social conditions under which all these form. We cover different theories of pidgin and creole genesis (monogenesis, polygenesis, bioprogram, substrate, mutual linguistic accommodation, the evolutionary model, creole prototype), and follow this up with an examination of the development of pidgins/creoles, and mixed languages, focusing on the stages of development and the linguistic and extralinguistic factors that influence it. We also touch upon issues related to language planning in language contact settings. The remainder of the course will be dedicated to studying key structures in pidgins and creoles of different geographical areas (Atlantic and Indian Ocean, Asia, and the Pacific islands), the study of the origins and development of such structures. Course requirements include various assignments, in­class presentations, and a final paper project.

Note: This course meets with LING-L636

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

HISP-S 612 #31069 2:30P – 3:45P TR WY 111 Professor Manuel Diaz-Campos

VT: Current Issues in Variationist Sociolinguistics

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 on 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) An 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) Sociolinguistics and historical linguistics, 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

HISP-S 716 Seminar: Second Language Acquisition (3 credits)

HISP-S 716 #13287 4:00P – 5:15P MW AC C103 Dr. Tania Leal

VT: Second Language Processing

The goal of this graduate seminar is to provide an analysis of literature that seeks to address how speakers build representations of the second/target language in real time and how L2 language processing might differ (or not) from L1 processing. We will focus specifically on the field of sentence processing, with a special spotlight on the acquisition/processing of Spanish. Comprehending language in real time involves constructing incremental representations of an incoming sequence of words before they fade from immediate memory. Although this task has usually been argued to be carried out with little conscious effort in L1 processing, the investigation of L2 online processing has shown a more complicated picture. In fact, a number of recent explanations for native vs. learner ultimate-attainment differences have focused more prominently on processing-based differences, producing a spate of demonstrations that the moment-to-moment processing of an unfolding linguistic signal can differ between native and nonnative speakers (e.g. Clahsen & Felser, 2006; Dussias, 2001; Frenk-Mestre, 2002). The course will survey the main camps of thinking in the field of L2 sentence processing (broadly framed under “same-system” vs. “different-system” approaches), as well as various research methodologies that are currently used in psycholinguistics (e.g. self-paced reading, eye-tracking). At the end or the course, students should be familiar with the major experimental results in L2 sentence processing as well as the main L2 psycholinguistic processing models. Participants will be expected to complete weekly readings from a collection of articles and book chapters, present at least one article from the required reading list, and write a proposal for a research project.

Students enrolled in this course should have a background in the field of second language acquisition and linguistic theory (S515 or equivalent) and a basic understanding (Spanish) syntax.

Hispanic Literatures

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

HISP-S 504 #29790 1:00P – 2:15P MW AC C101 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 538 Spanish Literature 18th & 19th Centuries (3 credits)

HISP-S 538 #30613 9:30A – 10:45A MW SY 022 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 578 20th & 21st Century Spanish American Literature (3 credits)

HISP-S 578 #30796 9:30A – 10:45A TR BH 232 Professor Patrick Dove

Topic: Rupture, Revolution, Repetition

This course examines significant trends in Spanish American literature from World War II through the present, while seeking to tease out both the continuities and the breaks or deviations that together make up what we call literary history. Our discussions will focus on the double problem of modernity in Latin America, or the relation—supplementary according to some, compensatory in the thinking of others—between literary modernisms (the avant garde, la nueva narrativa, the Boom, the post-Boom, etc.) on the one hand, and socioeconomic modernization and struggles for political autonomy and self-determination on the other hand. We will also discuss and evaluate key critical terms and concepts for thinking about the relation between literature and national/regional history, such as transculturation, the aesthetic state and national allegory.

During the first half of the semester we will examine various literary “precursors” to the Boom, including avant garde poets such as Huidobro, Vallejo, Neruda, Paz and Pizarnik as well as novels and short stories by Rulfo, Arguedas and Borges, together with a theatrical work by Griselda Gambaro. We will then turn to a selection of prose from the Boom, including Fuentes’s La muerte de Artemio Cruz, Puig’s El beso de la mujer araña and works by Donoso, Cortázar and Roa Bastos. In the final part of the semester we will turn to more recent novels and prose work by the likes of Roberto Bolaño, Carmen Boullosa, Horacio Castellanos Moya, Rodrigo Rey Rosa and Rodolfo Fogwill.

Discussion of primary works will be informed by secondary critical readings that draw from a range of critical tendencies, including thinkers such as Hegel, Marx, Freud, Benjamin, Derrida, de Man, Joan Scott, Angel Rama, Louis Althusser, Fredric Jameson, David Lloyd and Paul Thomas, Néstor García Canclini, Roger Bartra, Gareth Williams, Brett Levinson, Peter Osborne, Josefina Ludmer, Gayatri Spivak and Alberto Moreiras.

HISP-S 618 Topics in Spanish Medieval Literature (3 credits)

HISP-S 618 #30803 1:00P – 2:15P TR WY 111 Professor Ryan Giles

Tradiciones épicas de la Edad Media. This course examines the transmission of heroic traditions on the Iberian Peninsular during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as evidenced by cantares de gesta as well as historiography and clerical poetry. Primary texts include the Poema de mío Cid, Poema de Fernán González, the "Cantar de Roncesvalles," and "Cantar de los siete infantes de Lara," among others.

HISP-S 659 Topics in Colonial Spanish American Literature (3 credits)

HISP-S 659 #30805 5:30P – 8:00P TR WY 111 Professor Kathleen Myers

(1st 8wks)

Abundant written records and visual arts contributed to literal and metaphorical mappings of “New Spain” in the first century after the Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica. As conquest traditions, such as the Nahua tlacuiloque, who both painted codices and interpreted them through oral narrative performances, combined with European textual and aesthetic practices, new materials emerged that reveal complex processes of cultural translation, contestation, and amalgamation. These colonial practices—both geographical and institutional, both imposed and grassroots—shaped New Spain and its subjects. Military and spiritual conquest narratives together with illustrated genealogies and land rights titles, Christianized architecture, and a vast repertoire of devotional images give insight into a process whose legacy continues to shape contemporary Mexico.

This course will focus on three areas of inquiry into the construction of New Spain: Cortés and the conquest paradigm; Franciscan utopias and dis-utopias in the spiritual conquest; ethnic malleability and fixity in the embodiment of colonial categories. We will pair primary readings and images with theoretical readings on hybridity, iconography, and the nature of colonialism. Students will be required to read a core set of common materials and then specialize in one of the areas, selecting additional works to deepen their knowledge. The area of specialization can focus on the colonial period or its legacy in modern Mexico. Students will write short papers, lead a class in their chosen area, and write a project proposal at the end of the course.