Undergraduate Courses

For more detailed information including course description, sample reading list, and instructor, please visit the Registrar Office's course offerings page.

Spanish Undergraduate Courses

Beginner's Spanish I
Subject associations
SPA 101

SPA 101 presents the basic structures and vocabulary of the Spanish language at elementary/low intermediate levels of proficiency. It is designed to develop students' linguistic, communicative, strategic, and intercultural competence in all three modes of communication: interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational. Through multimedia and content-based material, the course fosters an appreciation of the rich culture of the Spanish-speaking world. The learners actively engage in activities that promote the exchange of real-world information. The custom-made digital textbook allows for immediate feedback and autonomous learning.

Instructors
Adriana G. Merino
Intensive Beginner's and Intermediate Spanish
Subject associations
SPA 103

SPA 103 is an accelerated, intensive course that covers in one term the most relevant structures and vocabulary from SPA 101 and SPA 102. The course is designed for students who have previously studied Spanish at elementary levels. Language is embedded in the discussion of cultural and social issues of contemporary concern to develop speaking, listening, writing, and reading skills.

Instructors
Eliot Raynor
Intermediate Spanish
Subject associations
SPA 105

An intermediate language course that focuses on oral and written communication and the consolidation of listening and reading skills. In this course students will enhance their linguistic skills through the analysis and discussion of various types of texts (literature, film, visual culture, music, interviews, etc.) that focus on global and cross-cultural aspects of Spain and Latin America. In particular, the course will familiarize students with the concept of neocolonialism as a way to bridge language learning with the context in which cultural values and meanings are produced. SPA 105 prepares students for SPA 108.

Instructors
Nadia Cervantes Pérez
Intermediate/Advanced Spanish
Subject associations
SPA 107

An intermediate/advanced language course that consolidates and expands the skills acquired in beginner's Spanish. Students will continue to develop their ability to comprehend and communicate in Spanish while using the four basic skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The course's linguistic goals are achieved in the context of examining the history, cultural production, practices, language, and current reality of the U.S. Latino community. Materials include oral, written and audiovisual texts. By the end of the course, students will be able to express more complex ideas, orally and in writing, with greater grammatical accuracy.

Instructors
Iris I. Hauser
Advanced Spanish
Subject associations
SPA 108

SPA 108 is an advanced language course that aims at strengthening and consolidating comprehension and production of oral and written Spanish while fostering cultural awareness and cross-cultural examination. Students will improve their linguistic proficiency while exploring the various mechanisms that affect how our identity is constructed, negotiated, and/or imposed. Particularly, the course will examine the ways in which gender and national identities develop and consolidate themselves by exploring cultural production (journalism, literature, cinema and the visual arts, etc.) in the Spanish speaking world and beyond.

Instructors
Gorka Bilbao Terreros
Medical Spanish
Subject associations
SPA 205

An advanced Spanish-language course that focuses on medical and health topics in the Hispanic/Latino world. Students will learn and practice specific vocabulary and structures useful for conducting a medical interview in Spanish. Aspects of Latin American and Hispanic/Latino cultures in the health and medical fields are explored by means of examining authentic texts and through the contribution of guest speakers. The course includes a telecollaboration project with students from a Colombian medical school.

Instructors
Paloma Moscardó-Vallés
Studies in Spanish Language and Style
Subject associations
SPA 207

SPA 207 seeks to develop advanced language skills and raise cultural awareness by studying language in its contexts of use. An exciting selection of literary and cinematic productions from the Hispanic world provide the basis for critical discussion of cultural meanings and social relations, while offering the chance to explore difference registers and styles. SPA 207 students tackle original writing assignments that enhance their ability to express complex ideas in Spanish and hone their oral skills with debates, role-plays and projects that encourage independent learning and invite participation and collaboration.

Instructors
Anais Holgado-Lage
Spanish Language and Culture through Cinema
Subject associations
SPA 209

A course designed to improve speaking abilities while learning about Hispanic cultures and cinema in context. The course aims to provide the students with lexical and grammatical tools to allow them to engage in formal and informal discussion on a variety of topics informed by the films provided. Additionally, there will be several writing exercises throughout the semester that will help students improve their writing abilities. By the end of the course, students should have a better command of all linguistic skills, especially listening comprehension, fluency and accuracy in their speech.

Instructors
Amina B. Shabani
Introduction to Latin American Cultures (CD or LA)
Subject associations
SPA 222 / LAS 222 / LAO 222

An introduction to modern Latin American cultures and artistic and literary traditions through a wide spectrum of materials. We will discuss relevant issues in Latin American cultural, political, and social history, including the legacies of colonialism, the African diaspora, national fictions, gender and racial politics. Materials include short stories by Jorge Luis Borges and Samanta Schweblin; poems by Afro-Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén and Mexican poet Sara Uribe; paintings by Mexican muralists; films by Santiago Mitre and Claudia Llosa; writings by Indigenous activist Ailton Krenak.

Instructors
Gabriela Nouzeilles
Languages of the Americas (CD or EC)
Subject associations
SPA 233 / LIN 233 / LAS 233

This course explores the vast linguistic diversity of the Americas: native languages, pidgins, creoles, mixed languages, and other languages in North, Central, and South America, including the Caribbean. We will examine historical and current issues of multilingualism to understand the relationship between language, identity, and social mobility. We will discuss how languages played a central role in colonization and nation-building processes, and how language policies contribute to linguistic loss and revitalization. This course has no prerequisites and is intended for students interested in learning more about languages in the Americas.

Instructors
Dunia Catalina Méndez Vallejo
Of Shipwrecks and Other Disasters (LA)
Subject associations
SPA 235 / LAS 235

Flotsam. Jetsam. Hunger. Nudity. Lone survivors washed ashore. What can tales of shipwreck tell us about the cultures, societies and technologies that produce them? We read narratives and watch films of disaster and survival from the sixteenth century to the present, with an eye to how these texts can challenge or reinforce the myths that empires and nation-states tell about themselves and others.

Instructors
Nicole D. Legnani
Identity in the Spanish-Speaking World (CD or LA)
Subject associations
SPA 250 / LAS 250 / HUM 251 / LAO 250

How are ideas of belonging to the body politic defined in Spain, Latin America, and in Spanish-speaking communities in the United States? Who is "Latin American," "Latinx," "Boricua," "Chino," "Moor," "Indian," etc.? Who constructs these terms and why? Who do they include/exclude? Why do we need these identity markers in the first place? Our course will engage these questions by surveying and analyzing literary, historical, and visual productions from the time of the foundation of the Spanish empire to the present time in the Spanish-speaking world.

Instructors
Mariana Bono
Spanish in the Community (CD)
Subject associations
SPA 304 / LAO 304

This course examines the paradoxical position of Spanish in the United States. The course aims to place the issues and controversies related to linguistic subordination and the maintenance of Spanish in the broader context of Latino communities and their social and historical position in the United States. In addition, it tries to equip students with critical resources to address topics such as the relationship between language and identity, political debates around Spanish and English, and bilingualism and the processes of racialization of linguistic minorities.

Instructors
Alberto Bruzos Moro
Ways of Reading and Writing in Spanish (LA)
Subject associations
SPA 307

SPA 307 helps you become an expert reader and writer in Spanish. By engaging with a variety of textual genres, you will learn to recognize the relationship between the form of a text and the intention of its author, identify literal and implicit meanings, and understand them within the culture in which they are produced. We engage in literacy exercises to explore a variety of topics and issues within the Spanish-speaking world, such as urban sociology, political activism, migration, and mobility. By the end of the semester, you will bring together form and function to read and write sophisticated pieces. This course is taught in Spanish.

Instructors
Mariana Bono
Dunia Catalina Méndez Vallejo
Caribbean Currents (LA)
Subject associations
SPA 316 / LAS 376

The Caribbean has been at the center of modernity and globalization since the 15th century, when European, African, and Asian migrants joined indigenous inhabitants in a violent crucible that produced new cultures, landscapes, rhythms, and political imaginations. This course begins with classic reflections on the Caribbean before centering on recent literature and art from Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. Recent works address issues such as debt, migration, climate change, gender, music, and the afterlives of slavery in the region.

Instructors
Rachel L. Price
Junior Seminar: Spanish and Portuguese-Speaking Worlds (LA)
Subject associations
SPA 330 / POR 330

This seminar has been designed to assist SPO concentrators in the production of their fall JP. With such end, the seminar will be conducted as a writing workshop. The emphasis of the first part of the seminar will be on introducing students to the approaches, critical concepts and tools utilized in cultural studies in the Luso-Hispanic and Latinx world. In the second part of the seminar, students will be expected to write and share their JP-in-progress, as well as comment on their peers' ongoing work. By the end of the semester, students should have completed about eighty percent of their independent work.

Instructors
Christina H. Lee
Topics in Latin American Cultural Studies: Invaders as Ancestors, Gods and Vampires (LA)
Subject associations
SPA 350 / LAS 349

Familiar and unfamiliar beings, under the guise of gods, ancestors or vampire-like creatures, dominate representations of conquest and invasion. Drawing on texts by indigenous and Spanish authors alike, we examine the reception of these mythic beings and their place in historical narratives of the conquest of Mexico, the American Southwest, and the Andes.

Instructors
Nicole D. Legnani
Found in Translation: The Theory and Practice of Spanish - English Translation (LA)
Subject associations
SPA 368 / TRA 368

This course will explore the theory and practice of translation, focusing on English-to-Spanish translation. Through readings, class discussions, workshops, and conversations with guest speakers, students will explore the main theoretical approaches to translation and the most common linguistic and cultural issues of different text types. At the end of the course, you will be familiar with some fundamental debates on translation, acquire Spanish translation skills, become conscious of your translation approaches and procedures, and be ready to undertake a large translation project.

Instructors
Catalina Arango
Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in Cervantes (LA)
Subject associations
SPA 375

When the name of Miguel de Cervantes is mentioned, readers tend to think of the character Don Quijote -most often his idealism or madness. But far beyond that, the radically new work that is Don Quijote - along with several of Cervantes - other creations -offer unorthodox and challenging perspectives on race, ethnicity, gender, class, and human nature. His theater, his highly experimental Exemplary Stories, and the Persiles all offer Mediterranean dramas of exiles, slaves, captives, renegades and male and female protagonists in the confrontation of identity and the hegemonic categories of the Spanish empire.

Instructors
Marina S. Brownlee
The Skins of the Film: Latin America and the Politics of Touching (CD or LA)
Subject associations
SPA 388 / LAS 358

Film is comprised of multiple surfaces: the screen, the actors, the structure of the darkroom, the mobile devices of the audiovisual present, the bodies that vibrate around us, the actual strip of plastic that records the images... Critics have already broadly debated how film touches us politically and emotionally. This seminar formulates a different question: how do we touch film? In Latin America, the interaction between filmic skins is founded on the relationship between art and politics. We will consider how filmmakers debate the politics of the surface and how spectatorship poses a deeply political problem for the region.

Instructors
Javier E. Guerrero

Portuguese Undergraduate Courses

Introduction to Portuguese I
Subject associations
POR 101

Students will be taught the fundamental skills of oral comprehension, speaking, reading and writing, while gaining exposure to the Portuguese-speaking world through the media, literature, film and the music of Brazil, Portugal and Lusophone Africa.

Instructors
Luis Gonçalves
Introduction to Portuguese for Spanish Speakers
Subject associations
POR 106

Normally open to students already proficient in Spanish, this course uses that knowledge as a basis for the accelerated learning of Portuguese. Emphasis on the concurrent development of understanding, speaking, reading, and writing skills. The two-semester sequence POR 106-109 is designed to provide in only one year of study a command of the language sufficient for travel and research in Brazil, Portugal, and Lusophone Africa.

Instructors
Andréa de Castro Melloni
Luis Gonçalves
Intermediate Portuguese
Subject associations
POR 107

Students will continue to develop their speaking, reading and writing skills while being exposed to realia related to the Lusophone world, such as daily news, reports, short stories, chronicles, videos, films, critical reviews, etc. Through different communicative genres, students will learn not only the language but also the culture, art and lifestyle of a range of Portuguese-speaking societies.

Instructors
Andréa de Castro Melloni
Intermediate Portuguese for Spanish Speakers
Subject associations
POR 109

Students will further develop their language skills, especially those of comprehension and oral proficiency, through grammar review, readings, film, and other activities. The two-semester sequence POR 106-109 is designed to give in only one year of study a command of the Portuguese language sufficient for travel and research in Portuguese-speaking countries.

Instructors
Andréa de Castro Melloni
Intensive Portuguese
Subject associations
POR 199

An intensive course designed for students who have fulfilled the language requirement in Spanish or another Romance language. Knowledge of one of these languages provides the basis for the accelerated learning of Portuguese. This one-semester 'crash' course teaches fundamental communication skills--comprehension, speaking, reading and writing--and some exposure to cultural aspects of the Portuguese-speaking world, but does not offer an in-depth study of grammar.

Instructors
Nicola T. Cooney
The Sweet Pain of Saudade (LA)
Subject associations
POR 310 / LAS 359

This course explores the supposedly "untranslatable" concept of saudade. We will consider its political, economic, cultural and aesthetic manifestations and social implications through analysis of literary and sociological texts, music, cinema, and more from across the Lusophone world. Topics will include im/migration and the transnational experience, music and performativity, the role of nostalgia in politics and the colonial experience, national mythmaking and depictions of utopia. Particular attention will be paid to the prevalence of saudosismo in popular culture, where classical texts and forms often make surprising appearances.

Instructors
Nicola T. Cooney
Junior Seminar: Spanish and Portuguese-Speaking Worlds (LA)
Subject associations
SPA 330 / POR 330

This seminar has been designed to assist SPO concentrators in the production of their fall JP. With such end, the seminar will be conducted as a writing workshop. The emphasis of the first part of the seminar will be on introducing students to the approaches, critical concepts and tools utilized in cultural studies in the Luso-Hispanic and Latinx world. In the second part of the seminar, students will be expected to write and share their JP-in-progress, as well as comment on their peers' ongoing work. By the end of the semester, students should have completed about eighty percent of their independent work.

Instructors
Christina H. Lee