Department of Spanish and Portuguese

HISP-S 498 Readings for Honors:  
Variable Title: Cultural Icons of Spain                                                   3 credits
Prerequisite: HISP-S 324 or HISP-S 328 or Consent of Department

This course studies representative Spanish texts from the Middle Ages to the Golden Age (XIII-XVII centuries). We will read and discuss early poetry, theater and prose, observing how classic characters, such as the knight, the go-between, and the rogue; and overarching themes like love and war, tolerance and intolerance, are developed and reinterpreted in changing cultural and historical contexts. This course focuses on iconic historical figures and/or literary characters who continue to resonate in the 20th- and 21st-century cultural imagination. Drawing upon primary texts from the Middle Ages through the Seventeenth Century, the course investigates these cultural icons and considers what they mean in modern times.  Regular class discussion and assignments will be in Spanish, with weekly short lectures.

HISP-S 498    #12228       3:55P-5:10P        TR     BH 133     Prof. Ryan Giles

Note: This class meets with HISP-S 407 #12218
Note: For permission to take this class, e-mail howard21@iu.edu _________________________________________________________________________

HISP-S 498 Reading for Honors:
Variable Title: The Cultural Context                                              3 credits
Prerequisite: One of HISP-S 324, HISP-S 328, HISP-S 331, HISP-S 333, or HISP-S 334 or consent of the Department

This service-learning course will explore the relationship between historical memory and culture in Spain with a special focus on the interaction between regional, national, and global cultures.  Taking key early modern historical periods, the Reconquista (of Muslim Iberia) and the Conquest (of America), as focal points, we will examine how foundational narratives have been created, and revised over centuries, to define Spain—often for political ends.  Our particular emphasis will be on the dynamic rewriting of socio-historical processes in contemporary Spain (ca. 1980 – 2020) and we will analyze a variety of cultural sources, including texts (from literature, politics, and education), art (painting, film, and theatre), and popular culture (festivals, sports, and food).

To understand more deeply how culture is transmitted through language and experience, we will pair our academic work with experiential, service learning.  During part of the semester, students will work together and present elements of Spanish culture to school children at community sites in Bloomington.  This guided experience offers students the opportunity to practice what we are learning by sharing it off-campus one day a week (for eight weeks) and then integrate that service-learning experience with course content through a series of reflective writings.  This course will be conducted entirely in Spanish.

HISP-S 498   #12230     9:35A-11:00A     TR     SY 0009      Prof. Kathleen Myers

Note: Above class is a Service-Learning Course.  The service-learning component takes place during our regular class meeting time on T/R 9:35A-11:00A.
Note: This class meets with HISP-S 411 #12229
Note: For permission to take this class, e-mail howard21@iu.edu _________________________________________________________________________________

HISP-S 498 Readings for Honors:  
Variable Title: Spanish America:  The Cultural Context                               3 credits
Prerequisite:  One of HISP-S 324, HISP-S 328, HISP-S 331, HISP-S 333, or HISP-S 334 or Consent of the Department

In this course we will look at how post-independence (19^th century through present) Spanish American cultural production responds to new forms of colonialism arising after the decline of the old colonial power, Spain. Cultural texts include poems, film, photography and visual art, and short prose works. Our main goal will be to explore how different cultural forms seek to record, remember, transmit, and understand unequal power relations based on economic exploitation, political domination, and racialized social hierarchies. Course material will be taken from three different historical contexts: the Mexican revolution of 1910-1920; revolutionary violence and military dictatorship/state terrorism in the Southern Cone (Argentina and Chile) of the 1970’s and 80’s; and the narco wars and gang violence in Mexico and Central America of the early 21^st century. We will pay close attention to the specific compositional nature of various cultural forms, asking how film, painting, music, poetry, and prose fiction each respond in their own ways to experiences that appear to exceed what ordinary language is capable of conveying. Evaluation based on class participation, short writing assignments, presentations, and a final project.

HISP-S 498      #11246      (3)      9:35A-10:50A       MW        EP 256         Prof. Patrick Dove

Note: This class meets with S498, section #11246
Note: For permission to take this class, e-mail howard21@iu.edu

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HISP-S 498 Readings for Honors:  
Variable Title: Modern Spanish-American Prose Fiction               3 credits
Prerequisite:  HISP-S 324 or HISP-S 328 or Consent of Department.

Beyond Magic Realism: Latin American geographies of wonder and dystopia.

Latin American literature has often been associated with magic realism, a style of writing popularized by Gabriel García Márquez’s classic novel Cien años de soledad. In this class we will read some of the great works of Latin American literature that have surrounded and departed from magic realism, equally reaching worldwide audiences, but depicting geographies and settings alternating between wonder and horror, in a variety of urban and rural, fantastical, historical or futuristic settings. We will read short stories, essays, and novels by Jorge Luis Borges, Alejo Carpentier, and Roberto Bolaño alongside more recent authors such as Mariana Enríquez, Yuri Herrera, and Rita Indiana Hernández, depicting Latin America at the crossroads of colonial wonder and modern dystopia.

HISP-S 498     #30407    (3)    11:10A-12:25P     TR     BH 139     Prof. Anke Birkenmaier

Note: Class meets with HISP-S 420  #29527
Note: For permission to take this class, e-mail howard21@iu.edu
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HISP-S 498 Readings for Honors: 
Variable Title: Spanish Phonetics                                      3 credits
Prerequisite: HISP-S 326 or Consent of the Department

This course studies on the sound system of Spanish. Topics include the articulatory system, the characteristics and description of Spanish sounds, the patterns of Spanish sounds, the historical development of modern Spanish from Latin and the variation of the Spanish sound system. Attention will also be given to differences between Spanish and English sounds. A secondary goal of the course is a more native-like pronunciation as a result of a deeper understanding of how the Spanish sound system works. Course evaluation is based on participation, homework assignments, a class project and presentation, and two exams. 

HISP-S 498    #10365    11:10A-12:25P       MW      LH 030         Prof. Erik Willis

Note: Class meets with HISP-S 425 #5976
Note: For permission to take this class, e-mail howard21@iu.edu
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HISP-S498 Readings for Honors:
Variable Title: Bilingualism and Spanish in U.S.                                    3 credits
Prerequisite: HISP-S 326 or Consent of the Department                    

This course provides a survey of current issues of bilingualism in the Spanish-speaking world with a special focus on bilingualism in the U.S. Using the tools of sociolinguistics, the course examines patterns of language use, acquisition, and attrition, regional characteristics of U.S. Spanish, contact phenomena with English (and other regional languages), as well as contact between varieties of Spanish. In our discussion of the social aspects of U.S. Spanish we also study attitudes, identity, and phenomena related to the use of Spanish in public spaces, and in the education system.

HISP-S 498   #13656   (3)    2:20P-3:35P    TR    GA 0007   Prof. Manuel Diaz-Campos

Note: Above class meets with HISP-S 431, section #13487
Note: For permission to take this class, e-mail howard21@iu.edu
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HISP-S 498 Readings for Honors                (3 credits)
Variable Title: Colonialism To Modernism
Prerequisite: HISP-S 324 or HISP-S 328 or Consent of Department

A captain gone rogue conquering a magnificent city and empire; an escaped nun fighting in the king’s army abroad disguised as a soldier; an Inca scholar publishing in Spain a translation from Italian; a Mexican rascal traveling to the Philippines; a Black man advocating for the rights of white women; an Indigenous author writing the Mexican national novel; a Cuban journalist at the opening of Coney Island; a princess without purpose, a Nicaraguan poet defying President Roosevelt, and a man who believes X-rays will let him photograph the soul; a boy who becomes a gaucho at a time when gaucho lifestyle is disappearing in a modern world.

This cast of both real and fictional characters are part of the unique Latin American cultural archive developed from colonial times to the dawn of the 20^th century. As we discuss these and others iconic figures, we’ll explore what they can tell us about the social, political, ideological, and cultural milieux from which they sprang and that they also helped create. Conducted in Spanish, this class will help you:

• acquire a deeper knowledge and understanding of Spanish American cultures
• improve ethical, critical, and analytical thinking
• develop awareness and appreciation of other cultures, world views, and cultural achievements and a understanding of historical, social, and cultural processes that may be different from those of your own society.
• become better, more sophisticated speaker, reader, and writer in Spanish through regular practice in class discussions, activities, and assignments.
• develop career competencies: communication and teamwork, critical and ethical reasoning, creativity, cultural and intellectual diversity, and professionalism.

HISP-S 498     #30443      (3)        11:10A-12:25P    MW         BH 140       Prof. Alejandro Mejias-Lopez

Note: Above class meets with HISP-S 471 section #29528
Note: For permission to take this class, e-mail howard21@iu.edu
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HISP-S498 Readings for Honors:
Variable Title: Language, Mind, and Thought                     3 credits
Prerequisite: HISP-S 326 or Consent of the Department                    

This course evaluates the interaction between linguistic and cognitive processes in speakers of different languages. We will examine the primary psycholinguistic themes and the notion of embodied cognition through the perception of sound, space, time, and color. We will also explore how sensory perception is affected by language and the effect that bilingualism has on these processes.

Through engagement in critical discussions and assignments, students in this course will:

• gain an understanding of topics on bilingualism and cognition;
• analyze and summarize the main points of empirical and theoretical papers;
• be able to investigate issues in bilingualism and cognition in connection with their own interests;
• critically assess popular beliefs about bilingualism;
• review colleagues’ presentations, by providing rigorous and respectful feedback.

HISP-S 498    #8384      12:45P-2:00P      TR      BH 141     Prof. M. Gabriela Puscama

Note: Class meets with HISP-S 495 # 29540
Note: For permission to take this class, e-mail howard21@iu.edu
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