Provides an introduction to the 1612 novel Don Quixote, widely celebrated as the first modern novel and translated across languages. Through study of the novel and its contemporary adaptations in literature, film, television, and popular culture, students will consider the lasting social, cultural, and political impacts of Miguel de Cervantes’s novel. Students will focus especially on the depiction of readers and books, consumption of information, and censorship. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Ltn Am, Caribbean & Latinx St. (Same as: LACL 1020)

Terms offered: 2021 Fall Semester; 2025 Fall Semester

This course offers an introduction to the language and cultures of the Spanish-speaking world. Students will learn general forms, structures, and vocabulary based on project-based learning where students acquire language through a rich content environment. As an entry-level course, this class is designed for students with little or no prior Spanish language experience. Three class hours per week, plus a required weekly conversation session with a learning assistant. This course prepares students for HISP 2203 (Intermediate Spanish I).

Terms offered: 2021 Fall Semester; 2022 Spring Semester; 2022 Fall Semester; 2023 Fall Semester; 2024 Fall Semester; 2025 Fall Semester

This course is designed to develop student’s language skills based on project-based activities and to build cultural understanding of the diversity in various regions of the Spanish-Speaking world. The course practices specific grammar problems, multi-paragraph writing in Spanish, and discussions on increasingly complex topics through readings, audio and short-subject films, both fiction and non-fiction. Three class hours per week and one weekly conversation session with assistant. This course prepares students for HISP 2204.

Terms offered: 2021 Fall Semester; 2022 Spring Semester; 2022 Fall Semester; 2023 Spring Semester; 2023 Fall Semester; 2024 Spring Semester; 2024 Fall Semester; 2025 Spring Semester; 2025 Fall Semester

This course is designed to develop student’s language skills based on project-based activities and building cultural understanding of the diversity in various regions of the Spanish-Speaking world. The course practices specific grammar problems, written compositions and discussions on increasingly complex topics through readings, audio and short-subject films, both fiction and non-fiction. Three class hours per week and one weekly conversation session with assistant. This course prepares students for HISP 2305.

Terms offered: 2021 Fall Semester; 2022 Spring Semester; 2022 Fall Semester; 2023 Spring Semester; 2023 Fall Semester; 2024 Spring Semester; 2024 Fall Semester; 2025 Spring Semester; 2025 Fall Semester

This course examines the history, politics, and cultures of the Hispanic World, from the 20th century to the present. Key moments include the Mexican Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, the Cuban Revolution, dictatorships in Chile and Argentina, and Latinx movements in the US. Through the study of a wide variety of literary and cultural icons from La Malinche and Octavio Paz, Pedro Almodóvar and Carmen Laforet, to Nancy Morejón, Julio Cortazár and Luís Valdez, students will reflect on individual experiences and collective movements. The course provides students with advanced practice in grammar, reading, speaking, listening, writing and research in Spanish. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 2205)

Terms offered: 2021 Fall Semester; 2022 Spring Semester; 2022 Fall Semester; 2023 Spring Semester; 2023 Fall Semester; 2024 Spring Semester; 2024 Fall Semester; 2025 Spring Semester; 2025 Fall Semester

Designed for heritage speakers (who grew up speaking Spanish in the home), bilinguals, and other Spanish-speaking students. The class will examine nonfictional accounts of current events and issues in the Hispanic world written by leading Spanish and Latin American authors and journalists. Throughout the semester, students will conduct research on a given topic or a particular environment of their choosing, writing their own nonfictional accounts of their research. Students will gain valuable real world experience researching, reporting, and working with speakers of Spanish in Brunswick or the surrounding communities. Through work specifically tailored to individual needs, students will hone their writing skills and build confidence in the language. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 2306)

Terms offered: 2022 Spring Semester; 2023 Spring Semester; 2025 Spring Semester

Designed for students who were exposed to Spanish at home or had extended exposure in a Spanish-speaking community or country. Builds on the linguistic and cultural competence students already have in order to expand their language skills in a wide variety of contexts, with particular emphasis on writing skills in Spanish. Throughout the semester, students will engage in a critical exploration of the (socio)linguistic and cultural diversity of Latinx and diaspora communities in the US by looking at themes such as language and migration, language use and variation in multilingual communities, and language and identity, among other topics related to the dynamic situation of Spanish in the US Students will also strengthen their command of specific grammar points and achieve more confidence using Spanish through the implementation of projects in which they deepen their knowledge and understanding of communities while reflecting on their individual experiences. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Ltn Am, Caribbean & Latinx St. (Same as: LACL 2308)

Terms offered: 2024 Spring Semester; 2024 Fall Semester; 2025 Fall Semester

Examines theater and poetry in Spain and Latin America from the eleventh-century verses of Jewish and Muslim authors to the twentieth-century works of Nobel Prize winners. Through class discussions and critical analysis, students will discover how the structure, form, content, and performance of poetry and theater relate to a work’s aesthetic movement, historical context, and contemporary adaptations. Some of the topics for discussion include: religious conflicts and their influence in literary forms; the cultural and political implications of the colonization of the Americas, its legacy, and the resistance to it; the Baroque, its innovative aesthetic techniques, and its transatlantic influence; the mechanisms used by writers to subvert discourses of patriarchy; the importance of Indigenous cultures in the development of Latin American nations and cultural traditions; and the political and artistic relationships with the US and other European avant-garde movements. Conducted in Spanish. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 2409, THTR 2409)

Terms offered: 2021 Fall Semester; 2022 Spring Semester; 2022 Fall Semester; 2023 Spring Semester; 2023 Fall Semester; 2024 Spring Semester; 2024 Fall Semester; 2025 Spring Semester; 2025 Fall Semester

Examines narrative forms and essays in Spain and Latin America from pre-Conquest times until the twentieth-century works of Nobel Prize winners. Through class discussions and critical analysis, students will discover how the structure, form, and content of narratives and essays relate to a work’s aesthetic movement, historical context, and contemporary trends in Hispanic cultures. Topics include religious conflicts and their influence in literary forms; the cultural and political implications of the colonization of the Americas, its legacy, and the resistance to it; the aesthetic and social renovation of Early Modern Spain, including the first modern novel, Don Quixote; the mechanisms used by writers to subvert discourses of patriarchy; the importance of Indigenous cultures in the development of Latin American nations and cultural traditions; and the political and artistic relationships with the US and other European avant-garde movements. Conducted in Spanish. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 2410)

Terms offered: 2021 Fall Semester; 2022 Spring Semester; 2022 Fall Semester; 2023 Spring Semester; 2023 Fall Semester; 2024 Spring Semester; 2024 Fall Semester; 2025 Spring Semester; 2025 Fall Semester

A study of contemporary Spain through the analysis of a wide array of texts (essay, press, film, advertisement, music, etc.), aimed at understanding the complexities of a society and culture as determined by geographical, linguistic, and ethnic diversity and by forces of history and tradition vis-à-vis modernity and political change. Conducted in Spanish.

Explores the creation, representation, and marketing of US Latino/a identities in American literature and popular culture from the 1960s to the present. Focuses on the experiences of artists and writers of Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Dominican origin, their negotiations with notions of race, class, gender, and sexuality in the United States, their role in the struggle for social rights, in cultural translation, and in the marketing of ethnic identities, as portrayed in a variety of works ranging from movies and songs to poetry and narrative. Authors include Álvarez, Blades, Braschi, Díaz, Hijuelos, Ovejas, Pietri, and Quiñones. Readings in English, discussions and writing in Spanish. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 3005)

What do gold, tomatoes, and ants in the sixteenth century have to do with U.S. Latina/os today? This class reads colonial Latin American authors (e.g. Bartolomé de las Casas, el Inca Garcilaso de la Vega) alongside writers who focus on Latinas/os in the US in the last two centuries (e.g. María Ruiz de Burton, Sandra Cisneros, Arturo Islas) to explore this question. By reading works from different historical periods, considers how objects connect long histories of colonialism in the Americas to nineteenth- and twentieth-century ideas of national belonging. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 3006)

The course is designed as a cultural history of Spanish language and cultures through its dictionaries, across time periods (early modern to more contemporary) examining questions of power and authority, collection practices, and how dictionaries change over time. The class will approach asymmetrical relationships between Spain and Latin America, Spanish and Spanglish in the US, and the political, social, and commercial value of language in these contexts. Bringing in the vocabularies of indigenous, enslaved Africans and immigrant languages, students will engage in an in-depth exploration of lexicographers including Antonio de Nebrija, Sebastián de Covarrubias, Andres Bello, and Maria Moliner. Key works include: Tesoro de la Lengua Española o Castellana, the Diccionario de Autoridades, the Diccionario de la Lengua Española, the Moliner, Larousse, and Clave. Course is taught in Spanish and will feature opportunities for collaboration with Ilan Stavans (Amherst) and his students on this topic. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Ltn Am, Caribbean & Latinx St. (Same as: LACL 3307)

Terms offered: 2021 Fall Semester

Explores the professionalization of Spanish theater, starting in Spain with the development of the three-act comedia and moving across the Atlantic within public theaters, courtyards, convent theaters, and the streets. Examines the topic of performance, considering staging, costuming, set design, the lives of actors, and adaptation in both historical and contemporary contexts. Playwrights of special focus include: Calderón de la Barca, Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, María de Zayas, Ana Caro, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and Juan Ruiz de Alarcón. Taught in Spanish. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies; Theater. (Same as: LACL 3210, THTR 3503)

Takes the Spanish Civil War as a case to study the way in which war in its many facets has been represented in cinema from the 1930s to the present. Examines how the subject of war is taken up by different genres: newsreel, documentary, adventure, drama, horror, fantasy, and romantic comedy. Analyzes films from Spain alongside examples from the United States, Britain, France, and Mexico, paying special attention to how the political dimensions of the Spanish war, in the international context of the fight against Fascism, are subject to different interpretations of the conflict’s significance for history. Conducted in English. Writing assignments in Spanish.

Terms offered: 2024 Spring Semester

Provides a semester immersion in the reading, words, and libraries of “Don Quixote” and its author, Miguel de Cervantes. Alongside close reading of the novel, students explore the material culture of early modern Spain as well as its afterlife and emergence into the digital world. The course also provides an introduction to manuscript and book culture through intensive collaboration with Bowdoin College special collections. Course readings, discussion, and writing in Spanish.

Introduces students to film produced in Spain, from the silent era to the present, focusing on the ways in which cinema can be a vehicle for promoting social and cultural values, as well as for exposing religious, sexual, or historical taboos, in the form of counterculture, protest, or as a means for society to process change or cope with issues from the past. It looks at the role of film genre, authorship, and narrative in creating languages for perpetuating or contesting tradition, and how these apply to the specific Spanish context. Taught in English. Written assignments in Spanish.

Terms offered: 2022 Spring Semester; 2025 Fall Semester

Examines how cinema portrays urban spaces in Latin America, Spain and USA from an aesthetic point of view that facilitates discourses on Hispanic history and identity. It looks at the city (Barcelona, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Habana, Los Angeles, Madrid, Mexico DF and New York) as a cinematic setting for narratives on crime, immigration, political activity and romance, and how it conveys utopic or distopic views of physical and social urban development. Also considers how cities lend themselves as transnational subjects for directors who cross national boundaries, such as Luis Buñuel, Woody Allen, Pedro Almodóvar and Alejandro González Iñárritu. Conducted in English. Writing assignments in Spanish. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 3217)

Terms offered: 2023 Spring Semester

Through the exploration of art, literature, architecture and the unique worldview of the ancestral Andean societies, this course will take a look at the different ways in which the three main countries in the Andes—Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia—have dealt with processes of social, political, and cultural modernization since the late nineteenth century until the present day. Readings will include works by Peruvian, Bolivian, and Ecuadorian writers to examine modernist, avant-garde and postmodernist aesthetics. Students will analyze how internal migration to the cities of Lima, Quito and La Paz has reconfigured them, changed their urban dynamics, and impacted the economy and the natural environment. One example students will engage with includes architecture from iconic Bolivian architect Freddy Mamani ,who invented the construction of the Cholets in the city of El Alto, Bolivia. Cholets offer a unique way of connecting urban space to Aymaran identity (an identity that is very connected to the land in Boliva). Students will also address the issue of migration and the reconfigurations of Andean identities in the United States, through the works of Bolivian author Edmundo Paz Soldán and the Ecuadorian-American writer Ernesto Quiñónez and his experience living in Harlem. Taught in Spanish. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Ltn Am, Caribbean & Latinx St; Urban Studies. (Same as: LACL 3215, URBS 3211)

Terms offered: 2022 Fall Semester

Studies the main topics, techniques, and contributions of Colombian Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez as presented in “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” Explores the actual locations and the social, cultural, and literary trends that inspired the creation of Macondo, the so-called village of the world where the novel takes place, and the universal themes to which this imaginary town relates. Contemporary authors include Fuenmayor, Rojas Herazo, and Cepeda Samudio . This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 3218)

Terms offered: 2022 Fall Semester

Explores the concept of madness and the varying ways in which mental illness has been represented in twentieth-century Latin American fiction. Readings include short stories and novels dealing with the issues of schizophrenia, paranoia, and psychotic behavior by authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Carlos Fuentes, Cristina Rivera Garza, and Horacio Quiroga. . Also studies the ways in which certain authors draw from the language and symptoms of schizophrenia and paranoia in order to construct the narrative structure of their works and in order to enhance their representation of social, political, and historical conjunctures. Authors include César Aira, Roberto Bolaño, Diamela Eltit, and Ricardo Piglia, . This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 3219)

Terms offered: 2023 Spring Semester

This course explores a range of literary and cultural texts related to the theory, practice and experience of medicine, health and healing in the early modern Hispanic world. Students will analyze how early Spanish literature impacts our understanding of contemporary health practices and examine how health histories provide insight into racial and ethnic health disparities and general inequities in health care systems. Topics include drug trials, herbalists and apothecaries; health and spiritual practices; gardens and gardeners; diet and food; healer and patients; and race, ethnicity, gender and medicine. The course provides an introduction to the topics of narrative medicine and the health humanities. Course is taught in Spanish. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 3220)

Terms offered: 2024 Spring Semester

Discusses the historical, social, and political consequences of the clash between tradition and modernity in Latin America during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as seen through novels, short stories, and film. Particular attention will be given to the ways in which the processes of modernization have caused the coexistence of divergent worlds within Latin American countries. Analyzes different social and political reactions to these conflictive realities, focusing on four cases: the Mexican Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile, and Andean insurgencies in Perú. Authors to be read may include Reinaldo Arenas, Roberto Bolaño, Simón Bolívar, Jorge Luis Borges, Cromwell Jara, Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel García Márquez, José Martí, Elena Poniatowska, and Juan Rulfo, among others. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 3223)

Who speaks in a text? What relationship exists between literature and identity? How can we portray ourselves in specific political contexts? Addresses these and other questions by studying contemporary Southern Cone literary texts that deal with problems of subjectivity and self- representation in poetry and novels. Concentrates on texts that display a literary “persona” in contexts of violence and resistance (the dictatorships of the 1970s) and in more contemporary Latin American ones. Some authors include Borges, Gelman, and Peri-Rossi. Films and contextual historical readings used. Taught in Spanish. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 3225)

Terms offered: 2023 Fall Semester

What kind of stories do bodies tell or conceal? How does living in a gendered and racialized body effects the stories told by women? How do bodies and their stories converge with History or complicate historical “truths”? These are some of the questions addressed in this study of contemporary writing by women from the Hispanic Caribbean and the United States Latinx/Chicana communities. Feminists of color frame the analysis of literature, popular culture and film to guide an examination of the relation of bodies and sexuality to social power, and the role of this relation in the shaping of both personal and national identities. Theorists include Alexander, Barriteau, Curiel, Mendez and Segato. Novelists include Álvarez, Buitrago, García, Indiana Hernández, and Santos-Febres. Taught in Spanish with readings in Spanish and English. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Gender Sexuality and Women St; Latin American Studies. (Same as: AFRS 3226, GSWS 3226, LACL 3226)

Questions what is meant by 'avant-garde': how it was manifested in the Hispanic world in the first half of the twentieth century; how contemporaneous politics shaped or became shaped by it; how this relates to the world today. Focuses on poets such as Aleixandre, Garcia Lorca, Borges, Neruda, Huidobro, Storni, Lange, Novo, and Vallejo, while also considering a wide array of manifestos, literary journals, films, and other art forms from Spain, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Mexico, and Brazil. Taught in Spanish with some theoretical and historical readings in English. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 3227)

From the first chronicles of Columbus, who believed he had arrived in "The Indies,” to the fantasies of global visitors lured by the comforts of secluded resorts, imagination has been a defining force impacting both the representation and the material lives of Caribbean people. Explores the historical trends that have shaped Caribbean societies, cultural identities, and intellectual history through a panoramic study of twentieth-  and twenty-first-century fiction, essays, and films, with a focus on authors from the Hispanic Caribbean and US-Latinas of Caribbean descent. Engaging with the responses from Caribbean intellectuals to the challenges of the distorting mirror, addresses: how  writers and artists have responded to the legacy of colonialism, slavery, and the plantation economy; how literature and art have depicted dominant trends in the region’s more recent history such as absolutist regimes, massive migrations, the tourist industry, and even natural disasters; how the Caribbean drawn by artists and intellectuals relates to global representations of the region. Authors include Piñera, Padura, Santos-Febres, and Chaviano. Taught in Spanish. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Africana Studies; Latin American Studies. (Same as: AFRS 3228, LACL 3228)

Terms offered: 2025 Spring Semester

Did feminism exist in the early modern period? Examines key women authors from the early Hispanic World, considering the representation of gender, sexuality, race, and identity in distinct political and social contexts. Focuses on Mexican author Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651-1695) and Spanish author María de Zayas (1590-1661), alongside other prominent women writers from the period. Students read short stories, essays, poems, and personal letters. Conducted in Spanish. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Gender Sexuality and Women St; Latin American Studies. (Same as: GSWS 3231, LACL 3231)

Terms offered: 2022 Fall Semester; 2024 Fall Semester

Why does Mexican literature have so many ghosts as characters? What distinguishes the representation of ghosts in Mexican literature from their representation in American gothic literature? In this seminar we will read contemporary Mexican literature through the figure of the ghost. I argue that the ghost in Mexican literature allows us to think and analyze a variety of topics such as immigration (US-Mexico), exile, politics, trauma, race and environment. Readings may include works by Rulfo, Fuentes, Tario, Nettel, Luiselli, Mendoza, Herrera, and Bicecci. The course is conducted in Spanish. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Ltn Am, Caribbean & Latinx St. (Same as: LACL 3234)

Terms offered: 2023 Fall Semester; 2025 Fall Semester

Explores the representation of Mexican history in literature by Mexico’s most canonical writers of the twentieth and early twenty-first century. Key moments in the history of Mexico discussed include the Mexican Revolution and its legacy, the struggles for modernization, the 1968 massacre of Tlatelolco, the concept of the border from a Mexican perspective, immigration to the United States, and the War on Drugs. Literary texts in a variety of genres (short stories, novellas, novels, theater, essays, chronicles and film) are complemented by historical readings and critical essays.. Authors include: Mariano Azuela, Sabina Berman, Rosario Castellanos, Luis Humberto Crosthwite, Carlos Fuentes, Yuri Herrera, Jorge Ibarguengoitia, Octavio Paz, Valeria Luiselli, Elmer Mendoza, Guadalupe Nettel, Octavio Paz, Juan Rulfo, Daniel Sada, Paco Ignacio Taibo II, and Helena María Viramontes This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 3235)

An investigation of the short story as a literary genre, beginning in the nineteenth century, involving discussion of its aesthetics, as well as its political, social, and cultural ramifications in the Spanish-speaking world. Authors include Pardo Bazán, Borges, Cortázar, Echevarría, Ferré, García Márquez, and others. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 3237)

Terms offered: 2021 Fall Semester; 2025 Spring Semester

Examines terrorism and the way it is represented in literature and the arts through the study of one particular case--the war between the State and the Shining Path Maoist guerrilla that has taken place in Peru during the last three decades. Authors include Daniel Alarcón, Fernando Ampuero, Alonso Cueto, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Julio Ortega, as well as filmmakers such as Francisco Lombardi, John Malkovich, Josué Mendes, and Pamela Yates. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 3238)

An examination of the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges’s work, focusing not only on his short stories, poems, essays, film scripts, interviews, and cinematic adaptations, but also on the writers who had a particular influence on his work. Also studies Latin American, European, and United States writers who were later influenced by the Argentinian master. An organizing concept is Borges’s idea that a writer creates his own precursors. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 3239)

Terms offered: 2022 Spring Semester

Explores the production of Romantic images of Spain and their lasting influence on literature from the nineteenth century to the present. Works by Spanish Romantics (de Castro, Becquer, Espronceda, Zorrilla) and those by others, mostly writing in English, for whom Spain is a romanticized backdrop (Byron, Dos Passos, Hemingway, Irving, Longfellow), are examined in light of the aesthetic and cultural foundations of the movement in Europe (historical hindsight, the political dissent, finding national identity). Also discussed are the resulting Romantic archetypes (Don Juan, Carmen, bandits and bulls) and the way in which these arise and evolve through interaction and contact. Readings in English and Spanish, discussions and required writing in Spanish.

Focuses on the literal and metaphorical practices of dressing and undressing as depicted in the literature of Early Modern Spain. Considers how these practices relate to the (de)construction of gender and empire throughout the period. What does dress have to do with identity and power? What might nakedness reveal about ideal and defective bodies? These questions are enriched through exploration of a series of images in collaboration with the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. Authors considered during the semester include Ana Caro, Miguel de Cervantes, Teresa de Jesús, Tirso de Molina, Fernando de Rojas, and María de Zayas. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Gender Sexuality and Women St. (Same as: GSWS 3316)

In order to explain the present we look at the past. But how do we choose the regions of the past pertinent for our understanding of the present? Latin American writers seem obsessed with one particular period: the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in which hundreds of novels have been set. Studies a variety of twentieth- and twenty-first-century Latin American novels set in the Colonial period. Focuses on fictions that establish connections and implicit comparisons between sixteenth- and seventeenth-century political, cultural, and social phenomena and current conjunctions in diverse Latin American nations. Topics include: theories of postcolonialism, historical and collective memory, discourses on history and literary representation, and historical continuities between the Colonial period and five contemporary Latin American countries (México, Colombia, Cuba, Argentina, and Peru.) Authors include Reinaldo Arenas, Carmen Boullosa, Alejo Carpentier, Gabriel García Márquez, and Abel Posse, among others. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 3249)

How do artists distinguish their contemporary moment from the past? What challenges does it pose to literature and film? Building on ideas by Agamben, Benjamin, and Didi-Huberman, explores these questions in the context of contemporary Argentinean, Chilean, and Uruguayan poetry, short stories, novels, and films. Topics include post-dictatorship societies, text/image dynamics, new forms of subjectivity, human/post-human interactions, and economic and bio-political violence, as seen in works by Sergio Chejfec, Cristina Peri Rossi, Nadia Prado, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, Pedro Lemebel, Fernanda Trías, and others. Taught in Spanish. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 3250)

Terms offered: 2021 Fall Semester

The enduring armed conflict in Colombia has nurtured a culture of violence, with effects in every sector of society. Among its better-known actors are the leftist guerrillas, the right-wing paramilitary forces, and the national army, all influenced by the rise of drug trafficking in the Americas and by United States interventions. This course focuses on how contemporary Colombian writers and artists have responded to war, and how they resist the erasure of memory resulting from pervasive violence. In light of the most recent peace process, the course also examines how artists, activists, and civil society are using aesthetics, arts, and performance to face challenges such as healing the wounds of conflict and inventing peace in a society whose younger generations have no memory of life without violence. Materials include articles in the social sciences, movies, and TV series, along with literary works (Abad, García Márquez, Restrepo, and Vásquez, among others). This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 3251)

In 1970, the Chilean Salvador Allende became one of the first Marxists in the world to be democratically elected president of a country. His attempted reforms led to years of social unrest. In 1973, a right-wing military coup led to what would be General Augusto Pinochet’s seventeen years of brutal dictatorship. This course discusses that period of Chilean (and Latin American) history through locally produced sources, both from the social sciences and the arts, with a focus on literature (Bolaño, Meruane, Lemebel, Neruda, Lihn) and cinema (Ruiz, Larraín), with the goal of understanding the ways in which Latin American nations deal with their historical past with regard to issues of memory, collective memory, postdictatorial political negotiations, human rights, and social reconciliation. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 3252)

Terms offered: 2024 Fall Semester

Is poetic form political? How is subjectivity displayed in literary works that do not include narrations or “coherent” autobiographical plots? What connection does a museum of natural history have with poetry? How can language resist violence? This course explores these and other questions by studying different ways in which the relationship among subjectivity, language and politics has been rethought in contemporary Latin American poetry. We will address questions regarding self-figuration and the construction of a poetic persona through topics such as: biopolitical crisis; intersections of different genres and mediums (i.e., text/image relationships); post-human subjectivities; family genealogies; and writings about disease and death. Although we will read mainly poetry, the course will also include some fiction and films, as well as several theoretical readings. Some of the authors that we will read include Kamenszain, Gelman, Berenguer, Montalbetti, Watanabe, Lihn, and Prado. Taught in Spanish. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Latin American Studies. (Same as: LACL 3254)

The 1960s Latin American Boom changed world literature, opening global book markets to writers of the postcolonial world and their distinctive styles. Yet it centered on male writers. “A New Boom?” explores the conditions favoring the last decade’s apparent “explosion” of Latin American women writers in world literature. Discussions focus on key authors and the context of their works, their themes, and aesthetic innovations, and the market forces affecting the dissemination of women’s cultural production. Topics include the ambitions of twenty-first-century women in Latin American cities, and the obstacles they face (i.e., violence and marginalization); the role of editors and other stakeholders in featuring women’s voices; the place of readers in advancing new tastes and sensitivities; and the intersection of gender with race, ethnicity, sexuality, education, and other factors fostering the inclusion of some writers over others. Readings include Melchor, Ojeda, Quintana, Reyes, and Shweblin. Course will be taught in Spanish. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Gender Sexuality and Women St; Ltn Am, Caribbean & Latinx St. (Same as: GSWS 3257, LACL 3257)

Terms offered: 2024 Spring Semester

Through an exploration of self-fashioning and performance from early modern to contemporary Iberian cultural production (Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan theater, dance, film, visual arts, music), this course will study how marginalized groups have historically constructed and negotiated their identities in response to official narratives of both exclusion and appropriation. We will examine theoretical and cultural debates surrounding race, ethnicity, gender, and identity in Spanish discourses of culture and nationhood. Topics include early to contemporary Spanish portrayals of exile, colonization, and the periphery; Roma identity and representation; and Afro-Iberian contributions to the history of music and theater. The seminar will involve active workshops with theater and dance components (no prior experience required). All discussions and assignments will be in Spanish with some theoretical perspectives in English. (Same as: AFRS 3215)

Terms offered: 2025 Spring Semester

Examines the contemporary cultural productions of the Mapuche people, an Indigenous group who primarily reside in the nations today known as Chile and Argentina. In particular, this course will explore contemporary Mapuche poetics and aesthetics through the lens of translation. Offering an introduction to the most important voices in Mapuche literature over the last fifty years, this course will consider the role and place of translation in Mapuche cultural production, where practices of self-translation, hybrid writing, and oralitura between Spanish and Mapudungun, the Mapuche language, have served as important means of self-decolonization and linguistic revitalization in the face of ongoing forces of colonization. Students will learn about the history, culture, and cosmology of the Mapuche people, gain an appreciation for the community’s artistic productions, particularly as they relate to translation, and undertake some translations of their own. All discussions and assignments will be in Spanish with some theoretical perspectives in English; many of the primary texts assigned will be in both Spanish and Mapudungun, or some combination of the two. Students will also gain an introduction to the Mapuche language through the course readings. This course originates in Hispanic Studies and is crosslisted with: Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies. (Same as: LACL 3260)

Explores Mediterranean crime fiction or “noir” (novels, short stories, graphic novels, films) whose events describe and question the society in which the crime has taken place and that actively engage with the idea of otherness. The course examines how fiction fosters questions about a paradigm of thinking and solving crimes. Does a different provenance make a difference in how one approaches crime and evil? Writers and filmmakers may include: Jean-Claude Izzo, Costa Gavras, Driss Chraïbi, Camilleri, Massimo Carlotto, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán and Alicia Giménez Bartlett. Conducted in English, with students reading works in the original language or in translation as appropriate. Includes a fourth discussion hour in either French, Italian, or Spanish, with the respective professors to be scheduled following registration. This course originates in Romance Languages and Literatures and is crosslisted with: Francophone Studies; Hispanic Studies. (Same as: ITAL 3300, FRS 3300)