(Schedules, texts, and staffing are subject to change)
Linguistics
SPAN 6603M Mexican Spanish Yáñez
The course aims at providing a general and detailed perspective of how the Spanish language in Mexico has become a specific variation of Castillian.We will review materials written during the colonial period and the 19th- and 20th-centuries as well. We will consider phonological, morphological, syntactical, and lexical aspects that characterize Mexican Spanish. Special attention will be given to the influence of Mesoamerican languages, which can be identified in this regional variation. Students will be required to do field work in Guadalajara, in order to obtain a written and oral corpus. (1 Unit)
Required text
: Course pack for purchase in Mexico.
SPAN 6606 Spanish in the United States
Acevedo
This course aims to raise awareness of linguistic contact phenomena, as well as socio-political and ideological research issues underlying the complexity of Spanish in the United States. Students will be working with a variety of linguistic topics related to the analysis of the Spanish language and its role as a minority language in the United States. Topics covered are linguistic variation, diglossia, historical perspectives, attitudes towards language, and language planning. Students will familiarize themselves with the current linguistic research on Spanish in the United States and will identify distinctive linguistic features among different varieties of Spanish in the United States and its historical origins. (1 Unit)
Required texts : Carmen Silva-Corvalán, Sociolingüística y pragmática del español (Georgetown University Press: Washington, D.C., 2001); Ana Roca, ed, Research on Spanish in the United States: Linguistic Issues and Challenges (Cascadilla Press: Somerville, 2000).
SPAN 6610M Introduction to Spanish Linguistics: Words, Structure, and Variation Acevedo
In this introductory class to Spanish linguistics, we examine the Spanish structure, word formation, language variation, and historical language change. Course reading and activities include discussions of research in sociolinguistics and historical linguistics. Students will understand the function of the principal linguistic disciplines applied to Spanish. They will be able to conduct simple syntactic analysis of various types of texts, and identify distinctive linguistic features among various dialects of Spanish-speaking regions. Students will recognize and value the richness of linguistics variety among different Spanish-speaking areas and identify major historical developments of the Spanish language. (1 Unit)
Required text : Milton M. Azevedo, Introducción a la lingüística española (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2008).
Back to top
Culture
SPAN 6617M Culture of Mexico
Franco
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.
SPAN 6636M The Orphic Imperative: Music and Literature in Latin America
Corona
For Luis Rafael Sánchez, one of Puerto Rico's premier writers, “popular music is the greatest cohesive element in Latin America.” His assessment on the importance of music in the region is correct. Throughout the present 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 at large, in particular, on other forms of artistic expression. This is the case of the relation 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: Alejo Carpentier, Concierto barroco (Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1994); Angeles Mastretta, Arráncame la vida (la edición más económica); Luis Rafael Sánchez, La importancia de llamarse Daniel Santos (Mexico: Ediciones Diana, 1989); Juan Villoro, Tiempo transcurrido (Mexico: FCE, 1993).
This course is cross-listed with Literature.
SPAN 6639M Painting and Poetry in the Spanish Colonial Culture of the Golden Age
Saldarriaga
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; satire and the vanitas topus; cultural hybridity, 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. The course will include homework in some of the local museums. No previous knowledge of art is required. (1 Unit)
Required texts : El Greco ed. Michael Scholz-Hänsel (Taschen, 2004); Velázquez. 1599-1660. El rostro de España ed. Norberto Wolf (Taschen, 2005); Renacimiento (Taschen, 2006. ISBN: 978-3-8228-5298-9); Barroco (Taschen, 2006. ISBN: 978-3-8228-5300-9); La poesía de la Edad de Oro. I. Renacimiento ed. José Manuel Blecua (Castalia); Poesía de la Edad de Oro II Barroco ed. José Manuel Blecua (Castalia); course pack for purchase in Mexico.
This course is cross-listed with Literature.
SPAN 6641M Mexican Cinema in the New Milennium Velazco
The popularity of Mexican cinema has grown recently, thanks to a number of films that have done very well at the box office and won recognition at international film festivals. This course explores the development of Mexican cinema in the 21st-century (2000-2009), focusing on the most innovatives filmmakers. It examines thematic and stylistic variety in ficcional films dealing with history, politics, gender, sexuality, and society. We will give special attention to the impact of globalization in Mexican film production. The course will include films by Alfonso Cuarón, Carlos Carrera, Luis Estrada, Julián Hernández, María Novaro, Carlos Reygadas, Gerardo Tort, Maryse Sistach, among others. (1 Unit)
Required texts : Carla González Vargas, Las rutas del cine mexicano contemporáneo: 1990-2006 (Mexico: Conaculta-Imcine, 2006); Rafael Aviña, Una mirada insólita: Temas y géneros del cine mexicano (Mexico: Océano, 2004); course pack for purchase in Mexico.
Back to top
Literature
SPAN 6636M The Orphic Imperative: Music and Literature in Latin America Corona
This course is cross-listed with Culture.
SPAN 6639M Painting and Poetry in the Spanish Colonial Culture of the Golden Age Saldarriaga
This course is cross-listed with Culture.
SPAN 6653M Jalisciense Narrative of the 20th-Century Cham
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.
SPAN 6659M Sor Juana and the Baroque Saldarriaga
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 human body, women educational discourse, and others. (1 Unit)
Required texts : Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Poesía, teatro, pensamiento. Lírica personal. Lírica coral. Teatro. Prosa. ed. de Georgina Sabat de Rivers and Elías Rivers (Espasa-Calpe, 2004); Octavio Paz, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz o las trampas de la fe; Michel Foucault: La historia de la sexualidad, I; course pack for purchase in Mexico.
SPAN 6665M The Latin American Essay: Themes and Tendencies Corona
Central to the formation of a Latin American cultural discourse since the end of the 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. From the perspective of the new cultural history, it will also analyze the impact political events and social movements, the discourse of the social sciences and economy, the languages of the arts and film have had on its development from the newspaper articles of the modernista generation to the neo-Zapatista communiqués, or the 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, Octavio Paz, and Rosario Castellanos. (1 Unit)
Required text: John Skirius, El ensayo hispanoamericano del siglo XX, FCE.
SPAN 6687M Marginality and Fiction Klahn
Marginalized perspectives take center stage in this course. Understanding both the limits of margins, and their advantages of vision, we will study the ways Latin Americans and United States Latinos, through their writings, and in their struggle for political, social, and interpretive power, textually open symbolic spaces where an "ethics of marginality" emerges that is necessarily decentered and plural. Transcending traditional narrative paradigms, these texts contest dominant representations and realities and make a case for emergent historical subjects and their, at times, subversive potential. Read from critical historical perspectives and today's theoretical debates, these texts, re/presenting unmapped terrains, will include chronicles, "testimonios," writings of the self, short stories, and novels. (1 Unit)
Required texts : Rosario Castellanos, Balún Canán; Juan Rulfo, Pedro Páramo; Gabriel García Márquez, El coronel no tiene quien le escriba; Manuel Puig, El beso de la mujer araña; Marta Traba, Conversación al sur; Tomás Rivera, Y no se lo trago la tierra; Cristina Rivera Garza, Nadie me verá llorar; Javier Castellanos, Cantares de los vientos primerizos; Reader with critical articles and short stories/selections from: Miguel Barnet, Rigoberta Menchú, Carlos Fuentes, Elena Poniatowska, Junot Diaz.
SPAN 6675 The Power of Poetry Klahn
This course will re-visit the major movements of 19th-and 20th-century Mexican Poetry (modernismo, poesía pura, las vanguardias, la poesia coloquial, la poesía pos-moderna), and will end with an introduction to more recent 21st-century poets. The course will explore the diverse and conflicting roles played by poetry in the formation of individual and collective identities within Mexican culture.We will study how the “personal” is constructed within/against the ‘social” across time and space through poetic form and language. Approaches will take into consideration ethnicity, subjectivity, nationalism, canon (re)formation, popular culture, gender and sexuality. Poets studied will include: Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera, Enrique González Martínez, Los Contemporáneos, Octavio Paz, Efraín Huerta, Rosario Castellanos, Jaime Sabines, Rubén Bonifaz Nuño, José Emilio Pacheco, David Huerta, Coral Bracho, Kyra Galván. (1 Unit)
Back to top