Spanish (SPAN)
Chair: Professor Becky J. Boling
Professors: Becky J. Boling, Coco Colteaux, Patrick H. Dust
Associate Professor: Humberto R. Huergo
Assistant Professor: Silvia L. López
Adjunct Senior Lecturer: Diane Pearsall
Visiting Instructors: Michael Joy, Cynthia J. Kauffeld
Adjunct Instructor: Mar Valdecantos
Adjunct Lecturer: María E. Doleman
Language Courses:
Language courses 101, 102, 103, 204 are a sequential series of courses designed to prepare the student in the basic language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) through the study of grammar, literature, and culture, and/or to provide the foundation for pursuing advanced work in language and literature. Spanish 205, 206 and 207 are designed to develop the student's spoken and written mastery of the language through compositions and intensive oral work based on cultural and literary topics. Admission to these courses is determined either by appropriate high school CEEB or Carleton placement test scores or by completion of the previous course in the sequence with a grade of C or better.
Literature Courses:
We examine literary works for both their aesthetic and human values. Our literature courses have a number of goals: to refine and expand students' linguistic ability, to broaden their cultural understanding, to improve their ability to engage in literary analysis, to enhance their knowledge of literary history and criticism, and to help students better understand themselves and the human condition. In our discussions, we address universal themes and concerns, but we also try to uncover what is peculiarly Hispanic or Latin American about the works.
Requirements for a Major:
Sixty-six credits including one of the following courses (205 or 206) and Literary and Cultural Studies 245, the latter normally taken during the junior year. Courses 101, 102, 103, 204 do not count toward the major and no more than 12 credits in the 205-209 sequence may be applied to the major. Similarly, students may not apply over two 240-255 level literature courses to the major. In addition to 66 credits in the major, 6 credits are required in literature outside the major, read in the original language or in translation. Majors must complete at least two courses in Latin American literature and two courses in Peninsular Literature (Spain) before winter term of the senior year. Students also write an integrative exercise during senior year.
Concentration: See separate section for Latin American Studies Concentration.
Programs Abroad: Participation in a Carleton or in another approved foreign study program is highly recommended for students majoring or concentrating in the above areas. Students interested in study abroad should consult the section on international off-campus programs, and discuss alternatives with faculty in French or Spanish and with the Director of Off-Campus Studies.
Language Houses: Students have the opportunity to immerse themselves in the language by living in the Language House. The Associate is a native speaker, and students organize and participate in numerous cultural activities in the language houses.
Certificate of Advanced Study in Foreign Language and Literature or Foreign Language and Area Studies: In order to receive the Certificate of Advanced Study in Spanish, students must fulfill the general requirements (refer to Academic Regulations) in the following course distribution: six courses completed with a grade of C- or better in Spanish beyond 103, including at least two upper-level literature courses (300-395). No more than 12 credits from non-Carleton off-campus studies programs may be applied toward the certificate.
Spanish Courses
SPAN 101. Elementary Spanish Fundamentals of grammar and vocabulary. Readings designed to give the student a foundation in speaking, listening, comprehension, reading and writing. Readings aim at increasing understanding of Spanish and Latin American cultures. 6 credits cr., ND, Fall—Staff
SPAN 102. Elementary Spanish Fundamentals of grammar and vocabulary. Readings designed to give the student a foundation in speaking, listening, comprehension, reading and writing. Readings aim at increasing understanding of Spanish and Latin American cultures. 6 credits cr., ND, Winter—Staff
SPAN 103. Intermediate Spanish Review of basic structures of grammar and vocabulary. Intended to improve both active and passive language skills and to expand the student's knowledge and comprehension of Spanish and Latin American literature and culture through the reading and discussion of modern texts. 6 credits cr., ND, Winter,Spring—Staff
SPAN 204. Intermediate Spanish Review of basic structures of grammar and vocabulary. Intended to improve both active and passive language skills and to expand the student's knowledge and comprehension of Spanish and Latin American literature and culture through the reading and discussion of modern texts. 6 credits cr., ND, Fall,Spring—Staff
SPAN 205. Conversation and Composition A course designed to develop the student's oral and written mastery of Spanish. Advanced study of grammar. Compositions and conversations based on cultural and literary topics. There is also an audio-video component focused on current affairs. Prerequisite: 204 or proficiency. 6 credits cr., ND, Winter—H. Huergo
SPAN 206. Morelia Program: Conversation and Composition This course takes advantage of the native setting in order to expand and develop skills in conversation and composition. In addition, it involves an advanced study of grammar and utilization of on-site resources in order to guide the student toward greater cultural and linguistic fluency. 6 credits cr., ND, Winter—Non-Carleton Faculty
SPAN 207. Exploring Hispanic Culture Cross-listed with LTAM 207. Designed for the person who wants to develop greater fluency in speaking, writing, and reading Spanish in the context of a broad introduction to Hispanic culture. Short stories, plays, poems, films, and short novels are read with the goal of enhancing awareness of Hispanic diversity and stimulating classroom discussion. Prerequisite: Spanish 204 or proficiency. 6 credits cr., RAD,ND, Spring—C. Kauffeld
In our literature courses the approach is mainly literary, but with interdisciplinary dimensions. Representative works are analyzed and discussed not only for their aesthetic worth, but as human documents that speak clearly of the social, political, economic, philosophical, religious, psychological and general cultural reality of the country. In peninsular literature courses every effort is made to point out and relate these findings meaningfully to the Latin American reality, as evidence of the Spanish cultural legacy to the New World.
SPAN 240. Survey of Spanish Literature This course introduces the student to the reading of major texts in Spanish within the framework of a survey of the literary movements in Spain from the Middle Ages to the contemporary period. Recommended as a foundation course for further study. Not open to seniors. Prerequisite: Spanish 204 or proficiency. 6 credits cr., AL, Not offered in 2000-2001.
SPAN 242. Introduction to Latin American Literature Cross-listed with LTAM 242. An introductory course to reading major texts in Spanish provides an historical survey of the literary movements within Latin American literature from the pre-Hispanic to the contemporary period. Recommended as a foundation course for further study. Not open to seniors. Prerequisite: Spanish 204 or proficiency. 6 credits cr., AL, Winter—S. López
SPAN 244. Twentieth-Century Spanish Literature: Modernism and Existentialism in Pre-Franco Spain Widely known as the "Silver Age" of Spanish literature, this period offers for our enjoyment the works of some extraordinary novelists, poets, and essayists. After examining the "modernist" styles of Juan Ramón Jiménez (Nobel Prize), Antonio Machado, and Valle-Inclán, we shall go on to look at the existentialist labors of Unamuno, Pío Baroja, "Azorín," and others. Key themes include: the art of poetry in an age of science, symbolist forms of love, regenerate Spain, religion vs. atheism, the value of ideals in a finite existence. Prerequisite: Spanish 204 or proficiency. 6 credits cr., AL, Not offered in 2000-2001.
SPAN 245. Hybrid Cultures: Introduction to U.S. Latino Literature Cross-listed with AMST 253. The course will focus on the problem of identity in the writings of the four major groups of Latinos in the U.S.: Mexican Americans, Cuban Americans, Dominican-Americans, and Nuyoricans. It will address the diversity of problems that surface depending on whether the writers are immigrants, first generation English speakers, native to the Southwest but marginalized from American culture, urban dwellers or rural pobladores, men or women, gay or straight. Since this course is offered in the Spanish section, an emphasis is placed on the problem of language (bilingualism and translation), its relation to a general American identity (American defined here as belonging to the Americas, not only the U.S.), and more broadly to what we have to understand as hybrid cultures. In English. 6 credits cr., AL,RAD, Not offered in 2000-2001.
SPAN 246. Morelia Program: Introduction to Mexican Literature: The Twentieth Century Cross-listed with LTAM 246. A survey of Mexican literature from Juan Rulfo to Elena Poniatowska. Other authors include: Carlos Fuentes, Elena Garro, Sergio Pitol, Juan Jose Arreola, Jose Emilio Pacheco, and Juan Villoro among others. 6 credits cr., AL,RAD, Not offered in 2000-2001.
SPAN 248. Morelia Program: Drama and Performance in Latin America Cross-listed with LTAM 248. Study of contemporary Latin American Theater as a field of experimentation. The course intends to familiarize the student with major trends in theater from Expressionism to Teatro colectivo. The discussions of representative modern plays reveals their multiple nature as spectacle and literature. For this reason, another facet of this study will be the actual theatrical experience. Depending on the season, students will have ample opportunity to attend performances of several plays in Morelia, Mexico. 6 credits cr., AL,RAD, Winter—D. Pearsall
SPAN 255. Women Dramatists in Latin America: Staging Conflicts Cross-listed with LTAM 255,WMST 255. This course will examine contemporary plays written by Latin American and U.S. Latina women from a woman centered perspective. Issues will range from women and political repression to a critique of gender roles. As we read the plays, we will consider both the literary qualities of dramatic texts and the semiotics of staging and its potential for public advocacy. Dramatists that may be included are Luisa Josefina Hernández, Elena Garro, Griselda Gambaro, Sabina Berman, Maruxa Vilalta, Marcela del Río, Albalucía Angel, Aida Bortnik and U.S. Latina playwrights María Irene Fornes and Margarita Tavera Rivera. Prerequisite: Spanish 204 or proficiency. 6 credits cr., AL,RAD, Not offered in 2000-2001.
SPAN 260. Topics in Hispanic Literature: Fictional Autobiographies in Spain: The Art of Life Well Told (Lived) Fictions that purport to be "autobiographies" may be lyrical or narrative in nature, but they all claim to reveal the deepest and most significant "truth" of the life they portray. This course problematizes that claim and examines way in which writers construct rather than objectively describe human experience. Themes discussed are the subjectivity of self-perception, limitations on self-expression, the role of the perception of others in the creation of identity, the influence of ideals on the self-portrayed, etc. Works include a picaresque novel, romantic and modernist poetry, memoirs of men and women and selected novellas. Prerequisites: Span 204 or equivalent. 6 cr., AL, Fall—P. Dust
SPAN 260. Topics in Hispanic Literature: Forces of Nature Cross-listed with LTAM 260. This course examines nature and its relationship to Latin American identity across the last 200 years, but with emphasis on the twentieth-century. Paradise regained and lost, monster or endangered habitat, Nature plays a central role in Latin American development and its literature. Its literary image has varied greatly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, at times suggesting the lost Garden of Eden, at other times mirroring human cruelty, and recently coming center stage in the ecological novel. Among the authors studied in this course are Sarmiento, Quiroga, Gallegos, Rulfo, Sepulveda, Rossi and Montero. Prerequisite: Spanish 204 or proficiency. 6 credits cr., AL,RAD, Spring—B. Boling
SPAN 320. Spanish Theater An examination of different aspects of Spanish theater across the centuries. Themes can include the Classical Period (Golden Age Dramatists), Romantic Theater (including the Don Juan myth), Paradigms of Tragedy and Comedy, Twentieth-Century Pre-Civil War Drama, High and Low Forms of Theater, a Comparative Study of the Works of Valle-Inclán, Garc"a Lorca and Buero Vallejo, etc. Prerequisite: Spanish 204 or proficiency. 6 credits cr., AL, Not offered in 2000-2001.
SPAN 322. The Novel in Spain A study of the richness and variety of novelistic forms produced in Spain from the Renaissance to the present, dealing with either a particular period (i.e., seventeenth century, nineteenth-century Realism, the Impressionist novels of the early twentieth century, Neorealism in the Post-War Years, etc.) or adopting a comparative perspective (i.e., The Nature and Development of the Picaresque from the Sixteenth Century to the Present, Fictional Models and Historical Realities, etc.). Attention may be given to problems in the theory of the novel as well as to diachronic and stylistic considerations. Prerequisite: Spanish 204 or proficiency. 6 credits cr., AL, Not offered in 2000-2001.
SPAN 324. Contemporary Spanish Poetry Close reading and discussion of a limited number of works by some of the most important Spanish poets in the twentieth-century including Antonio Machado, Juan Ramon Jimenez, Salinas, Lorca, Cernuda, and Valente. Ties between Latin American and Spanish poets will be considered also. Prerequisite: Spanish 205 or the equivalent. 6 credits cr., AL, Winter—H. Huergo
SPAN 330. Cervantes: Don Quijote: Hero or Fool? Few books have made us laugh so much or reflect more deeply about human existence than Don Quijote. This masterpiece of world literature is many things: the first "novel," an apology for limitless idealism, a symbol of the spiritual grandeur of Renaissance Spain, a comedy, a portrait of madness, a melancholy meditation on human failure, a burlesque epic, a paradox, a manual for would-be revolutionaries, a tragedy, etc. We will examine all these dimensions--and more--in a study of selected chapters from the book. We will learn why Don Quijote is a masterpiece and why it speaks so powerfully to later generations, including our own. Prerequisite: Spanish 204 or proficiency 6 credits cr., AL, Spring—P. Dust
SPAN 334. Texts and Nations: Nineteenth-Century Latin America Cross-listed with LTAM 334. This course will focus on the literature written in the period following Latin American independence in the nineteenth century all the way to the Mexican revolution. The central organizing concept will be that of the nation as an imagined community that is created discursively and is intimately bound to the functioning of the state, the creation of a national identity, and ultimately the invention of the people (with all its gender and ethnic inflections). We will examine closely different kinds of primary texts: fiction, essays, poetry, newspaper articles, manifestoes. All primary and theoretical texts will be in Spanish. Selections from: Sarmiento, Bello, Echeverría, Hernández, Martí, Darío, del Casal, Rodó, Gómez de Avellaneda, Matto de Turner, Machado de Assis. Prerequisite: Spanish 204 or proficiency. 6 credits cr., AL,RAD, Fall—S. López
SPAN 336. Genealogies of the Modern: Turn of the Century Latin America Cross-listed with LTAM 336. In this course we will examine what the literary tradition has come to name "modernismo." We will cover the period between 1870 and 1910. We will study it in the context of the experience of modernity, that is the configuration of emergent cities, urban culture, mass media, technological innovation and the modernization of the figure of the writer. Particular attention will be given to the understanding of the modern in a non-European context and its relation to what we know today as modern Latin American identity. Selections from: Martí, Darío, Rodó, González Prada, Gutiérrez Nájera, Lugones, Agustini. Prerequisite: Spanish 204 or proficiency. 6 credits cr., AL,RAD, Not offered in 2000-2001.
SPAN 340. Latin American Prose: Dictatorships and Revolution in the Latin American Narrative Cross-listed with LTAM 340. This course briefly examines the origins and development of the Latin American narrative and then focuses on the literary reaction to dictatorship and revolution. It stresses a critical reading and discussion of major works by Azuela, Castellanos, and Fuentes (Mexico), Asturias (Guatemala), and Allende (Chile). The emphasis is on Mexico and the literary interpretation of the Revolution of 1910 and the society that grew out of it. Prerequisite: a 240 level literature course is strongly recommended. 6 credits cr., AL,RAD, Winter—B. Boling
SPAN 342. Latin American Prose: Psychological and Magical Realism in the Latin American Narrative Cross-listed with LTAM 342. This course examines Authors' attempts to explore the inner, psychological struggle of individuals striving to come to terms with the external realities of their lives. It explores the innovative stylistic techniques that they use to develop such themes as solitude, alienation, and exploitation. Authors included are Bombal, Borges, Sábato, Cortázar, García Márquez, Rulfo, and Valenzuela. Prerequisite: a 240 level literature course is strongly recommended. 6 credits cr., AL, Not offered in 2000-2001.
SPAN 344. Women Writers in Latin America: Challenging Gender and Genre Cross-listed with LTAM 344,WMST 344. The course will study texts (written by women) that deal critically with issues of gender, challenging implicit and explicit patriarchal values. Emphasis will also be placed on how these women have experimented with narrative and poetic genres to express their personal concerns and to deconstruct orthodox structures. Authors usually included: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Storni, Agustini, Castellanos, Poniatowska, Molloy, Valenzuela, Ferré, Garro, Peri Rossi, Allende. Prerequisite: a 240 or 300 level literature course is recommended. 6 credits cr., AL,RAD, Fall—B. Boling
SPAN 346. Methods of Teaching Modern World Languages Cross-listed with FREN 346,GERM 347,RUSS 346,EDUC 346. Methods of, and curricular materials for, the teaching of modern world languages in the secondary school. Prerequisite: Senior standing, permission of the instructor and Educational Studies 234. 6 credits cr., ND, Not offered in 2000-2001.
SPAN 350. Recent Trends in Latin American Narrative: Pop Culture and Testimony Cross-listed with LTAM 350. Postboom narratives question the nature of telling stories, from Rigoberta Menchú's testimony to Tomás Eloy Martínez's novelistic history of Eva Perón's embalmed body. Galeano, Alegría, Puig, Vega, and Esquivel combine fiction and reportage or recontextualize the romance and detective novels. Emerging with these narratives is the ecological novel which refashions the standard Latin American theme of "civilización y barbarie." What makes these texts literature? How has the craft of author changed, and what constitutes a postmodern narrative discourse? In Spanish. Prerequisite: a 240 or 300 level literature course recommended. 6 credits cr., AL,RAD, Not offered in 2000-2001.
SPAN 360. Topics in Hispanic Literature: The Avant-Garde in Spain, 1910-1930 The term Avant-Garde (frontline) refers to the various artistic movements that shook Latin America and Europe during the first half of the twentieth centure: Picasso's Busim, Surrealism, Functionalism, Abstraction, etc. This course examines the impact of the Avant-Garde in Spain by looking at the works of some of the movement's most prominent figures, including Bunuel (cinema), Dali (painting), Lorca (poetry and drama), Moreno Villa (criticism and poetry), and Ortega y Gasset's aesthetic theory. Topics of discussion include early twentieth century literature, art, music and cinema. Movie screenings every week. Prerequisite: Spanish 240 or the equivalent. 6 credits cr., AL, Spring—H. Huergo
SPAN 400. Integrative Exercise S/NC, ND, Fall, Winter, Spring 6 credits cr., Not offered in 2000-2001.