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Department of Romance Languages and Literatures

Department Website: http://rll.uchicago.edu

Faculty and Staff

Professors

  • Frederick A. de Armas
  • Daisy Delogu
  • Alison James
  • Robert Kendrick
  • Armando Maggi
  • Robert J. Morrissey
  • Larry F. Norman
  • H. Justin Steinberg

Associate Professors

  • Niall Atkinson
  • Dain Borges
  • Larissa Brewer-García
  • Sergio Delgado Moya
  • Agnes Lugo-Ortiz
  • Miguel Martínez
  • François Richard
  • Rocco Rubini
  • Mario Santana
  • Victoria Saramago
  • Jennifer Scappettone

Assistant Professors

  • Pauline Goul
  • Noel Blanco Mourelle
  • Khalid Lyamlahy
  • Maria Anna Mariani
  • Danielle Roper

Senior Research Associate

  • Clovis Gladstone

Research Associate

  • Federica Caneparo

Language Program Directors

  • Alba Girons Masot
  • Ana Maria Lima
  • María C. Lozada
  • Alice McLean
  • Janet Sedlar
  • Veronica Vegna

Instructional Professors

  • Marie Berg
  • Céline Bordeaux
  • Irena Čajková
  • Lidwina van den Hout

Associate Instructional Professors

  • Sylvie Goutas
  • Rebecca Petrush

Assistant Instructional Professors

  • Begoña Arechabaleta Regulez 
  • Celia Bravo Díaz
  • Leonardo Cabrini
  • Sara Dallavalle
  • Irati de Nicolás Saiz
  • Isabelle Faton
  • Pablo García Piñar
  • Georgy Khabarovskiy
  • James León Weber
  • Verónica Moraga
  • Bel Olid
  • Diana Palenzuela Rodrigo
  • Alan Parma
  • Felipe Pieras-Guasp
  • Nicolas Portugal
  • Claudia Quevedo-Webb
  • Juliano Saccomani
  • Gerdine Ulysse

Teaching Fellows in the Humanities

  • Laura Colaneri
  • Eduardo Leão
  • Enrique Macari
  • Maximilien Novak
  • Pablo Ottonello
  • Filippo Petricca

Emeritus Faculty

  • Paolo Cherchi
  • René de Costa
  • Peter F. Dembowski
  • Philippe Desan
  • George Haley
  • Thomas Pavel
  • Elissa Weaver
  • Rebecca West

Staff

  • Jennifer Hurtarte, Graduate Affairs Administrator

Program Overview

We offer PhD programs in three areas of study: French and Francophone Studies, Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Studies, and Italian Studies. Our students are supported by faculty members within and outside the department and we encourage students to take advantage of the University's many interdisciplinary programs.

The Joint PhD Program in Theater & Performance Studies (TAPS) allows students to complement their doctoral studies in Romance Languages and Literatures with a program of study in TAPS that reflects their particular training and interests, encompassing both academic and artistic work. Please visit the TAPS graduate program website for additional information on the joint program.

Size of the Program

There are approximately four to six students in each year's PhD cohort. 

Time to Completion

Each program has slightly different requirements but all PhD students in Romance Languages and Literatures should be ABD (All But Dissertation) by the end of their third year. A general program of study summary is below:

  • Year 1: Coursework; preparation for language requirements; first-year exam
  • Year 2: Completion of coursework; fulfill language requirements; complete qualifying paper; preparation for comprehensive exams
  • Year 3: Comprehensive exams; fulfill language requirements; complete dissertation proposal and colloquium
  • Year 4: Dissertation research and writing; applications for dissertation completion fellowships
  • Year 5: Dissertation research and writing; applications for dissertation completion fellowships; job applications
  • Year 6: Dissertation completion; job applications.

Funding

Information about financial aid can be found on the Humanities Division website.

Teaching

As an integral part of the doctoral program, students will be exposed to a variety of teaching methodologies through coursework, mentoring and workshops, and will gain teaching experience by serving in different roles in our undergraduate program.

Masters Degree Program

The University of Chicago offers Masters-level study in Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish language and culture through the Master of Arts Program in Humanities. In this one-year program, students build their own curriculum with graduate-level courses in any humanities department (including Romance Languages and Literatures) and complete a thesis with a faculty advisor.

Students may also pursue more thorough language training in the MAPH Two-Year Language Option (MAPH TLO). MAPH TLO students begin taking language classes in their first year of the program, weaving language-focused coursework into the traditional MAPH year. Language Option students continue to focus on their language skills in the second year of the program, registering for a minimum of nine total language classes during the two years they are at the University.

Application

The application process for admission and financial aid for all graduate programs in the Division of the Humanities is administered through the divisional Office of the Dean of Students. The Application for Admission and Financial Aid, with instructions, deadlines and department specific information is available online on their website.

Questions about admissions and aid should be directed to humanitiesadmissions@uchicago.edu or (773) 702-1552.

More Information

Graduate Courses

Basque

BASQ 36624. Repression, Resilience, and Gender Politics in Basque Cultural Memory. 100 Units.

This course aims to explore the resilient character of contemporary Basque artistic and cultural production, with a particular focus on the increasing presence of strong female voices. One of the goals will be to explore forms of Basque cultural resistance that question the silencing and homogenizing tendencies of political institutions and their cultural hegemony, thus shedding light on both the dialectic between culture and counterculture and the mechanisms and agents of artistic censorship that come into play. Significant attention will also be given to the narrative poetics of the post-ETA period, during which works by female authors have played a leading role in examining the gender policies that have governed the so-called Basque conflict. The link established between the female figure and the transmission of a "dangerous" memory must be interpreted in the light of the current historical moment characterized by the struggle for the telling of the past and the interrogation of gender. Thus, with a focus on memory and gender, and drawing upon a diverse range of materials -including literary texts, sculptural works, music, and films- the course will provide students with a broad overview of contemporary culture in the Basque Country.

Instructor(s): Amaia Elizalde Estenaga     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Classes will be conducted in Spanish, and prior knowledge of the Basque language or culture is not necessary.
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 36624, SPAN 26624, SPAN 36624, GNSE 26624, BASQ 26624

BASQ 39220. Espacio y memoria en el cine español. 100 Units.

This course aims to present, through the detailed analysis and discussion of a selection of films and documentaries, a critical examination of the relation between the representation of space and the recovery of traumatic memory in contemporary culture, with particular attention to the various perspectives (and conflicts) that emerge from the plurinational and multilingual configuration of the Spanish State. The course is also intended to provide a basic vocabulary (in Spanish) and strategies for the critical analysis of film.

Instructor(s): Mario Santana     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Taught in Spanish.
Equivalent Course(s): SPAN 39220, CATA 39220, SPAN 29220

BASQ 39423. Multilingualism and Multilingual Education. 100 Units.

This course focuses on current approaches to multilingualism and multilingual education from psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, and educational perspectives. Topics to cover include multilingualism and minority languages, the effect of bilingualism on the acquisition of additional languages, definitions and typologies of multilingual education. The course includes different theoretical and research perspectives in the study of multilingual competence and evaluation of multilingual programs in education, such as translanguaging or the study of the linguistic landscape. The course pays specific attention to the analysis of different research methodologies and to the role of minority languages in education and in society.

Instructor(s): Jasone Cenoz     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): LING 29404, LING 39404, BASQ 29423

BASQ 41500. Fundamentos de análisis literario. 100 Units.

What does it mean to read and interpret a text? The critical engagement with literary objects is a craft that requires paying careful and methodical attention not only to the conditions of creation, production, and circulation of works, but also to their various material components and levels of signification. Through the close study of a selection of works of contemporary Iberian literatures, in this seminar we will explore a number of tools for the critical analysis of literature. Special attention will be given to strategies that can be helpful in the process of identifying questions, formulating research problems, and assessing evidence to support your interpretation.

Instructor(s): Mario Santana     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Taught in Spanish.
Equivalent Course(s): CATA 41500, SPAN 41500

Catalan

CATA 33333. Reading Catalan for Research Purposes. 100 Units.

This fast-paced course prepares students to read and do research using texts in Catalan. Students will work on grammar, vocabulary and reading skills, and they will also get introduced to some translation strategies. Part of the texts students will work on will be academic texts in their respective areas of research. This course may fulfill the graduate language requirement in some departments.

Instructor(s): Alba Girons Masot     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Familiarity with a Romance language is highly recommended.
Equivalent Course(s): CATA 23333

CATA 38024. Ficción del siglo XX, tradición y canon: la narrativa en catalán. 100 Units.

El curso ofrece una introducción al concepto de 'tradición' y a sus mecanismos de funcionamiento, y analiza su relación con la creación literaria contemporánea a partir del estudio de tres obras fundamentales de la narrativa catalana del siglo XX: "El quadern gris" de Pla, "Mirall trencat" de Mercè Rodoreda y "Estremida memòria" de Jesús Moncada. Estas obras de géneros distintos -diario y relato- serán puestas en relación con la ficción contemporánea universal: leeremos los textos de Pla a la luz de la tradición diarista contemporánea, de Woolf o Nin a Walser, Pavese, Gombrowicz, Torga, Ribeyro o Piglia; la novela de Rodoreda, desde el conocimiento de las técnicas experimentales del modernism; y la de Moncada, a través de los universos ficcionales de Faulkner, Bassani, Carpentier, o García Márquez, y de la novela clásica de aventuras de Dumas y Verne. El propósito es contribuir no sólo a clarificar un concepto esencial en las humanidades, como es el de 'tradición', sino a situar en el contexto literario de la ficción internacional tres autores de lengua catalana que han devenido clásicos por su éxito comercial y académico, por el elevado número de traducciones que han merecido, y por su ascendiente en autores posteriores. Estudiaremos el proceso creativo de la ficción contemporánea y sus lazos con la tradición a través de un enfoque comparatista que tiene en cuenta cuestiones como la tensión entre literaturas de lenguas minoritarias y literaturas dominantes.

Instructor(s): Javier Aparicio Maydeu     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Taught in Spanish.
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 28024, SPAN 28024, CATA 28024, SPAN 38024, CMLT 38024

CATA 39220. Espacio y memoria en el cine español. 100 Units.

This course aims to present, through the detailed analysis and discussion of a selection of films and documentaries, a critical examination of the relation between the representation of space and the recovery of traumatic memory in contemporary culture, with particular attention to the various perspectives (and conflicts) that emerge from the plurinational and multilingual configuration of the Spanish State. The course is also intended to provide a basic vocabulary (in Spanish) and strategies for the critical analysis of film.

Instructor(s): Mario Santana     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Taught in Spanish.
Equivalent Course(s): SPAN 39220, BASQ 39220, SPAN 29220

CATA 42100. Reading & Research. 100 Units.

Independent study with an individual faculty member.

Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

CATA 41500. Fundamentos de análisis literario. 100 Units.

What does it mean to read and interpret a text? The critical engagement with literary objects is a craft that requires paying careful and methodical attention not only to the conditions of creation, production, and circulation of works, but also to their various material components and levels of signification. Through the close study of a selection of works of contemporary Iberian literatures, in this seminar we will explore a number of tools for the critical analysis of literature. Special attention will be given to strategies that can be helpful in the process of identifying questions, formulating research problems, and assessing evidence to support your interpretation.

Instructor(s): Mario Santana     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Taught in Spanish.
Equivalent Course(s): SPAN 41500, BASQ 41500

French

FREN 31506. Approches à l'analyse littéraire: questionner les classiques. 100 Units.

Ce cours est une initiation aux techniques et méthodes de l'analyse littéraire, prenant le parti de lire, commenter, et questionner des œuvres et textes considérés comme « classiques » en France et dans le monde francophone. On apprendra à analyser les formes littéraires, les figures de style, les procédés esthétiques et stylistiques, les structures et les voix narratives ainsi que les choix syntaxiques et lexicaux. Le cours s'appuiera sur la critique littéraire, avec des auteur·e·s et textes choisi·e·s afin de continuer à interroger la validité de la notion de classique. Qui sont les nouveaux classiques ? Nous ne limiterons pas cette question au contemporain, ou à sa dimension géographique, et remonterons la chronologie linéaire afin de considérer les œuvres qui ont été écartées.

Instructor(s): Pauline Goul     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): FREN 20500, 20503 or consent of instructor.
Note(s): Taught in French.
Equivalent Course(s): FREN 21506

FREN 32410. Proust: The first volume. 100 Units.

This course will undertake in-depth readings of the first volume of Proust's In Search of Lost Time. While we will use a translation, any student who can read the French is strongly encouraged to do so (alongside the English, to facilitate class discussion). By doing close readings, we will explore the famous Proustian world, its textual and cultural complexities, the literary style it inaugurates, as well as the belle époque it depicts. The course will thus consider social, literary, historical, and critical approaches to this seminal text.

Instructor(s): Françoise Meltzer     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): The course is intended for graduate students, but advanced undergraduates (third or fourth years) can take the course with the permission of the instructor.
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 28410, DVPR 42410, FREN 22410, CMLT 22410, CMLT 42410

FREN 33333. Reading French for Research Purposes. 100 Units.

Reading French for Research Purposes prepares students to read and do research using scholarly texts in French. Students will build on their fundamental knowledge of French grammar and the most common vocabulary terms used in scholarly writing, while developing reading comprehension skills and working intensively with academic texts in their areas of research specialty. Students who perform well in FREN 33333/23333 will be able to synthesize key points, arguments and evidence in scholarly texts into their own research. The course also includes practice of skills necessary to pass the Academic Reading Comprehension Assessment (ARCA) in French, administered by the Office for Language Assessment (OLA). Undergraduate students have the option of taking the ARCA, or completing a final assignment in which they identify, cite, and describe the relevance of multiple French secondary texts in their discipline or to a specific project. Note: this course can be counted on a case-by-case basis and with approval from the French Undergraduate Adviser.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Prerequisite(s): PQ for 23333: FREN 10300 or 13333, placement into FREN 20100 or instructor consent. PQ for 33333: FREN 10300 or 13333, placement into FREN 20100, or the equivalent of one year college-level introductory French.
Equivalent Course(s): FREN 23333

FREN 34100. Nature and the Natural in the Middle Ages. 100 Units.

In this course we will undertake a study of nature and ideas about what is "natural" centered around three main axes, and will adopt a variety of relevant critical perspectives (e.g., ecocriticism, studies of gender and sexuality, political theory) to support our analyses. First, we will explore nature as the created world of which humans are a part (as one of God's creations), yet from which they also stand apart (as sovereign caretakers). Second, we will examine how the diffusion of Aristotelian works (notably the Politics) in the later Middle Ages provided a justificatory framework for social and political hierarchies and practices of economic exploitation. Third, we will consider the intersection of nature with gender, sexuality, and reproduction, a topic complicated by the fact that Nature is itself represented, in allegorical terms, as a woman.

Instructor(s): Daisy Delogu     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Reading knowledge of French for all students. FREN 20500, 20503 or a literature course taught in French for those seeking credit for the French major/minor.
Note(s): Taught in English.
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 34103, MDVL 24103, FREN 24100, CEGU 24110, GNSE 24103, ENST 24110

FREN 34210. Écrire le quotidien (XXe-XXIe siècles) 100 Units.

La vie quotidienne abonde... en menues découvertes" (André Breton). Des surréalistes à Annie Ernaux, en passant par Michel Leiris, Roland Barthes, Marguerite Duras, Georges Perec, Nathalie Quintane, ou Maryse Condé, les "écritures du quotidien" - explorations d'espaces urbains, répertoires de tâches professionnelles ou domestiques, enquêtes anthropologiques, notations descriptives, journaux plus ou moins intimes - occupent une place considérable dans le paysage littéraire français et francophone des XXe et XXIe siècles. À travers des analyses littéraires et des exercices de création, et en nous appuyant sur des lectures théoriques (Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau), il s'agira dans ce cours d'étudier et de pratiquer différentes approches littéraires de la vie de tous les jours.

Instructor(s): Alison James     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): FREN 20500, 20503 or a literature course taught in French.
Note(s): Taught in French.
Equivalent Course(s): FREN 24210

FREN 35000. Molière: Comedy, Power and Subversion. 100 Units.

Molière crafted a new form of satirical comedy that revolutionized European theater, though it encountered strong opposition from powerful institutions. We will read the plays in the context of the literary, dramatic, and theatrical/performance traditions which he reworked (farce, commedia dell'arte, Latin comedy, Spanish Golden Age theater, satiric poetry, the novel), while considering the relationship of laughter to social norms, with particular emphasis on sexuality, gender roles, and cultural identities.

Instructor(s): Larry Norman     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): FREN 20500 or FREN 20503.
Note(s): Taught in French.
Equivalent Course(s): TAPS 38470, FREN 25000, FNDL 25001, TAPS 28470

FREN 37000. Neoclassical Aesthetics: Transnational Approaches. 100 Units.

Though "aesthetic" philosophy first developed as an autonomous field in the mid-eighteenth century, it has important roots in earlier eighteenth- and seventeenth-century debates concerning literature and the arts. In the wake of Cartesian rationalism, could reasoned method be reconciled with non-rational creativity, or decorous order with the unruly "sublime"? Just what kind of "truth" was revealed by poetry or painting? What is the value of the Greco-Roman models versus authorial innovation? We will consider the relation between literature and other media (particularly opera and the visual arts) and read French texts in dialogue with other, and often contending, national trends (British, German, Italian). Readings will include Descartes, Pascal, Perrault, Félibien, Dryden, Du Bos, Addison, Vico, Montesquieu, Staël, and A.W. Schlegel.

Instructor(s): Larry Norman     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Reading knowledge of French is required. Undergrads permitted with consent of instructor.
Note(s): Taught in English. Students seeking FREN credit must complete all readings and written work in French.
Equivalent Course(s): SCTH 37000, CMLT 38600, ARTH 48301

FREN 42100. Readings And Research: French. 100 Units.

Independent study with an individual faculty member.

Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

FREN 44700. Becoming Montaigne. 100 Units.

Many great writers seem to have loved Montaigne, from Shakespeare and Emerson to Derrida or Virginia Woolf, who writes: "Surely then, if we ask this great master of the art of life to tell us his secret, he will advise us to withdraw to the inner room of our tower and there turn the pages of books, pursue fancy after fancy as they chase each other up the chimney, and leave the government of the world to others." Even the scholarship on Montaigne is torn between treating his "Essays" as a work of philosophy or a work of literature, a distinction that only makes sense in modernity. A most imaginative writer, Montaigne created the genre of the essay and its characteristic poetics of "entreglose"-the subtitle of a recent book that claims that the essay, inherited from Montaigne, is the postcolonial genre by excellence-somewhere between the self and the world, asking unsettling questions and picking random things as objects. Reading some of his most well-known, and some of his least known essays, this course will, via the practice of the essay, seek to identify and take inspiration from the unique mix of affect, sensibility and philosophy that gave Montaigne the ability to become the writer that he was. While we will read scholarship to help us in this endeavor, the course's outcome is to improve as a writer and foster creative approaches to writing about things.

Instructor(s): Pauline Goul     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Taught in English.

Italian

ITAL 31820. Italo Calvino: the Dark Side. 100 Units.

An intense reading of Italo Calvino's later works: we will contemplate the orbital debris of "Cosmicomics" and "t zero," and we will follow the labyrinthine threads of "The Castle of Crossed Destinies" and the "Invisible Cities." After stumbling upon the suspended multiple beginnings of "If On a Winter's Night a Traveler," we will probe the possibilities of literature with the essays collected in "Una pietra sopra." Finally, we will encounter "Mr Palomar," who will provide us with a set of instructions on how to neutralize the self and "learn how to be dead." The approach will be both philosophical and historical, focusing on Calvino's ambiguous fascination with science, his critique of the aporias of reason and the "dementia" of the intellectual, and his engagement with the nuclear threat of total annihilation.

Instructor(s): Maria Anna Mariani     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Taught in Italian.
Equivalent Course(s): ITAL 21820, FNDL 21820

ITAL 32000. Dante's Divine Comedy II: Purgatorio. 100 Units.

This course is an intense study of the middle cantica of the "Divine Comedy" and its relationship with Dante's early masterpiece, the "Vita Nuova." The very middleness of the Purgatorio provides Dante the opportunity to explore a variety of problems dealing with our life here, now, on earth: contemporary politics, the relationship between body and soul, poetry and the literary canon, art and imagination, the nature of dreams, and, of course, love and desire. The Purgatorio is also Dante's most original contribution to the imagination of the underworld, equally influenced by new conceptualizations of "merchant time" and by contemporary travel writing and fantastic voyages.

Instructor(s): H. Justin Steinberg     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Course conducted in English. Those seeking Italian credit will do all work in Italian.
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 27202, ITAL 22000, MDVL 22003

ITAL 32101. Dante's Divine Comedy III: Paradiso. 100 Units.

An in-depth study of the third cantica of Dante's masterpiece, considered the most difficult but in many ways also the most innovative. Read alongside his scientific treatise the "Convivio" and his political manifesto the "Monarchia."

Instructor(s): H. Justin Steinberg     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Completion of the previous courses in the sequence not required, but students should familiarize themselves with the "Inferno" and the "Purgatorio" before the first day of class.
Note(s): Course conducted in English. Those seeking Italian credit will do all work in Italian.
Equivalent Course(s): ITAL 22101, FNDL 21804, MDVL 22101

ITAL 38424. Displacing Caravaggio: Art, Media, and Contemporary Visual Culture. 100 Units.

Caravaggio is a central figure in the history of Italian art and in the global image of Italy. Caravaggio is also and above all a master of Baroque painting with whom we feel a particular closeness in the name of the themes and modes of his painting. We feel him as our "contemporary" or, maybe, thanks to his works, we are the ones who move another time and another space. This course examines the peculiar relevance of Caravaggio in contemporary visual culture. On one side, we explores the ways in which Caravaggio's techniques, themes, and iconography have been appropriated and reinterpreted in modern and contemporary art and media. On the other hand, Caravaggio's painting is observed through an "anachronistic" perspective, bringing forth valuable insights for critically reflecting on contemporary media practice and visual culture.

Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 28424, ARTH 38424, ITAL 28424

ITAL 38500. Petrarch and the Birth of Western Modernity. 100 Units.

This course offers a close reading of the theoretical works of Petrarch (known as the "father of humanism" or "first modern man") with the aim of pinpointing the literary and rhetorical skills, as well as the self-conscious agenda, that went into the proclamation of a new era in Western history: the "Renaissance." How do we at once pay homage to and overcome a time-honored past without severing our ties to history altogether? Is Petrarch's model still viable today in efforts to forge a new beginning? We will pay special attention to Petrarch's fraught relationship with religious and secular models such as Saint Augustine and Cicero, to Petrarch's legacy in notable Renaissance humanists (Pico, Poliziano, Erasmus, Montaigne, etc.), and to the correlation of Petrarchan inquiry with modern concerns and methodologies in textual and social analysis, including German hermeneutics (Gadamer) and critical theory (Gramsci).

Instructor(s): Rocco Rubini     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Taught in English.
Equivalent Course(s): ITAL 28500, FNDL 28500

ITAL 42100. Readings And Research: Italian. 100 Units.

Independent study with an individual faculty member.

Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

Portuguese

PORT 36304. Literature and Society in Brazil. 100 Units.

This course surveys the relations between literature and society in Brazil, with an emphasis on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The nineteenth-century Brazilian novel, like the Russian novel, was an arena in which intellectuals debated, publicized and perhaps even discovered social questions. We will examine ways in which fiction has been used and misused as a historical document of slavery and the rise of capitalism, of race relations, of patronage and autonomy, and of marriage, sex and love. We will read works in translation by Manuel Antonio de Almeida, José de Alencar, Machado de Assis, Aluísio de Azevedo and others.

Instructor(s): D. Borges
Prerequisite(s): Students taking the course as PORT 26304/36304 must read works in Portuguese.
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 36304, HIST 36304, LACS 26304, PORT 26304, HIST 26304

PORT 42100. Reading And Research. 100 Units.

Independent study with an individual faculty member.

Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

Romance Languages and Literatures

RLLT 34500. Digital Approaches to Text Analysis: opening new paths for textual scholarship. 100 Units.

The purpose of this course is to introduce students of literature, and more generally the humanities, to digital humanities methodologies for the study of text. Among the various digital approaches which will be introduced in class are concordances (retrieving occurrences of words), semantic similarity detection (finding similar passages across texts), sentiment analysis, stylometry (analysis of literary style), and topic modeling (automatic classification of texts). The course will highlight how these approaches to text can provide new avenues of research, such as tracing intellectual influence over the longue durée, or uncovering the distinguishing stylistic features of an author, work, or literary movement. Students need no prior knowledge of such methods, and the course will aim at providing the basics of computer programming in Python to give students the necessary tooling to conduct a digital humanities project. The source material for the course will be drawn from literary sources, and students will be free (and encouraged) to use texts which are relevant to their own research interests.

Instructor(s): Clovis Gladstone     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Students will need to bring a laptop to class.
Equivalent Course(s): RLLT 24500

RLLT 47000. Professional Academic Writing. 100 Units.

This course is open to all RLL students and will be run as a workshop. The primary goal is to work on the Qualifying Paper with the objective of producing a piece of work that might, with subsequent revision, be submitted to an academic journal for publication. This course is also appropriate for anyone who wants to work on a dissertation proposal or chapter. We will cover all aspects of professional writing, from abstracts and grant proposals to revising manuscripts after readers' reports.

Instructor(s): Rocco Rubini     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Open only to RLL students.
Note(s): Taught in English.

RLLT 48800. Foreign Language Acquisition, Research and Teaching. 100 Units.

This course provides students with a foundation in foreign language acquisition and sociolinguistic research pertinent to foreign language teaching, introduces current teaching methodologies and technologies, and discusses their usefulness in the classroom.

Instructor(s): Ana Lima     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Designed primarily with RLL students in mind but open to others.

Spanish

SPAN 31800. Culturas populares en el mundo iberico (siglos XVI-XVII) 100 Units.

The popular classes of early modern Europe engaged in a rich array of cultural practices, including the production and consumption of a wide variety of literary materials. In the Iberian peninsula, moreover, some of the central cultural phenomena of the period are difficult to understand without taking into account the specifically popular social distribution of their uses and appropriations. In this seminar we will explore, for instance, popular readings of the Amadís, carnivalesque discourses and practices, the complexity and multiplicity of the romancero, the development of popular print and pliegos de cordel, the theater of playwrights such as Gil Vicente, Lope de Rueda, Lope de Vega, and Cervantes, or the autobiographies of the Catalan tanner Miquel Parets and the Valencian typographer Juan Martín Cordero. In order to seriously engage in a theoretical discussion about the complex notion of popular culture, we will also read classic essays by Bakhtin, Burke, Ginzburg, De Certeau, Chartier, Gramsci, Frow, Fiske, Caro Baroja, Redondo, and Maravall.

Instructor(s): M. Martinez     Terms Offered: Spring

SPAN 33333. Reading Spanish for Research Purposes. 100 Units.

Reading Spanish for Research Purposes prepares students to read and do research using scholarly texts in Spanish. Students will build on their fundamental knowledge of Spanish grammar and the most common vocabulary terms used in scholarly writing, while developing reading comprehension skills and working intensively with academic texts in their areas of research specialty. Students who perform well in SPAN 23333/33333 will be able to comprehend difficult scholarly texts and begin using them in their own research. The course also includes practice of skills necessary to pass the Academic Reading Comprehension Assessment (ARCA) in Spanish, administered by the Office for Language Assessment (OLA). Undergraduate students have the option of taking the ARCA, or completing another final assignment to complete the course. Note: This course may fulfill the graduate language requirement in some departments.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): PQ for 23333: SPAN 10200, 12001 or 14100, placement in SPAN 10300, or instructor consent. PQ for 33333: While there is currently no strict prerequisite for SPAN 33333, one year of introductory Spanish or the equivalent is highly recommended.
Equivalent Course(s): SPAN 23333

SPAN 33900. El teatro en la corte de Felipe IV. 100 Units.

Spectacle plays flourished in the Spanish Golden Age after Philip IV ascended to the throne in 1621. Many of these plays rework mythological materials and make use of mechanical devices and designs prepared by Italian engineers and artists. Not only did these works appeal to the eyes, thus undermining the preeminent role of the poet. They were ostensibly written in praise of the king and of his courtiers, who were seen as classical deities walking on earth. Philip's minister, the Count-Duke of Olivares, promoted these works and a vision of Philip as a solar king around whom revolved artists and poets, enjoying his vivifying rays and glorifying his reign. Astrology thus plays an important part in the imagery of these works. This course will investigate the oppositions between the verbal and the visual, the laudatory and the critical, the Christian and the pagan in a number of plays written during Philip's reign, culminating with works by "a true master of the polyphony of the theatrical idiom," Calderón de la Barca. The course will also include a chivalric spectacle play by of one the few women playwrights of the period, Ana Caro.

Instructor(s): Frederick de Armas     Terms Offered: Winter

SPAN 35500. New Directions in Afro-Latin Performance. 100 Units.

This class engages contemporary conversations in the study of Afro-Latin performance and explores the work of emerging black performance artists across the hemisphere. Tracing performances of blackness from the Southern cone to the Caribbean, we will examine the ways blackness is wielded by the State and by black communities themselves in performance and visual art across the region. We ask: what is the relationship between race and theatricality? What work is blackness made to do in states organized around discourses of racial democracy and mestizaje? How are notions of diaspora constructed through performances of blackness? We take up these questions in our study of reggaetón, hip hop, samba, el baile de los negritos and examine the works of noted and upcoming black artists such as Victoria and Nicomedes Santa-Cruz, Carlos Martiel, Las Nietas de Nonó, and others.

Instructor(s): Danielle Roper     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Knowledge of Spanish is recommended.
Note(s): While the course will be taught in English, many of the performances and at least four of the readings will be in Spanish.
Equivalent Course(s): TAPS 34880, RDIN 35500, LACS 35501

SPAN 36624. Repression, Resilience, and Gender Politics in Basque Cultural Memory. 100 Units.

This course aims to explore the resilient character of contemporary Basque artistic and cultural production, with a particular focus on the increasing presence of strong female voices. One of the goals will be to explore forms of Basque cultural resistance that question the silencing and homogenizing tendencies of political institutions and their cultural hegemony, thus shedding light on both the dialectic between culture and counterculture and the mechanisms and agents of artistic censorship that come into play. Significant attention will also be given to the narrative poetics of the post-ETA period, during which works by female authors have played a leading role in examining the gender policies that have governed the so-called Basque conflict. The link established between the female figure and the transmission of a "dangerous" memory must be interpreted in the light of the current historical moment characterized by the struggle for the telling of the past and the interrogation of gender. Thus, with a focus on memory and gender, and drawing upon a diverse range of materials -including literary texts, sculptural works, music, and films- the course will provide students with a broad overview of contemporary culture in the Basque Country.

Instructor(s): Amaia Elizalde Estenaga     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Classes will be conducted in Spanish, and prior knowledge of the Basque language or culture is not necessary.
Equivalent Course(s): BASQ 36624, GNSE 36624, SPAN 26624, GNSE 26624, BASQ 26624

SPAN 38024. Ficción del siglo XX, tradición y canon: la narrativa en catalán. 100 Units.

El curso ofrece una introducción al concepto de 'tradición' y a sus mecanismos de funcionamiento, y analiza su relación con la creación literaria contemporánea a partir del estudio de tres obras fundamentales de la narrativa catalana del siglo XX: "El quadern gris" de Pla, "Mirall trencat" de Mercè Rodoreda y "Estremida memòria" de Jesús Moncada. Estas obras de géneros distintos -diario y relato- serán puestas en relación con la ficción contemporánea universal: leeremos los textos de Pla a la luz de la tradición diarista contemporánea, de Woolf o Nin a Walser, Pavese, Gombrowicz, Torga, Ribeyro o Piglia; la novela de Rodoreda, desde el conocimiento de las técnicas experimentales del modernism; y la de Moncada, a través de los universos ficcionales de Faulkner, Bassani, Carpentier, o García Márquez, y de la novela clásica de aventuras de Dumas y Verne. El propósito es contribuir no sólo a clarificar un concepto esencial en las humanidades, como es el de 'tradición', sino a situar en el contexto literario de la ficción internacional tres autores de lengua catalana que han devenido clásicos por su éxito comercial y académico, por el elevado número de traducciones que han merecido, y por su ascendiente en autores posteriores. Estudiaremos el proceso creativo de la ficción contemporánea y sus lazos con la tradición a través de un enfoque comparatista que tiene en cuenta cuestiones como la tensión entre literaturas de lenguas minoritarias y literaturas dominantes.

Instructor(s): Javier Aparicio Maydeu     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Taught in Spanish.
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 28024, SPAN 28024, CATA 28024, CATA 38024, CMLT 38024

SPAN 38800. Problemas críticos y teóricos en el estudio de las culturas ibéricas y latinoamericanas. 100 Units.

En este seminario abordaremos algunas de las problemáticas clave que han estructurado el campo de los estudios literarios hispánicos/ibéricos y latinoamericanos en las pasadas décadas.

Instructor(s): Miguel Martínez     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Taught in Spanish.
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 38802

SPAN 39117. Theater and Performance in Latin America. 100 Units.

What is performance? How has it been used in Latin America and the Caribbean? This course is an introduction to theatre and performance in Latin America and the Caribbean that will examine the intersection of performance and social life. While we will place particular emphasis on performance art, we will examine some theatrical works. We ask: how have embodied practice, theatre and visual art been used to negotiate ideologies of race, gender and sexuality? What is the role of performance in relation to systems of power? How has it negotiated dictatorship, military rule, and social memory? Ultimately, the aim of this course is to give students an overview of Latin American performance including blackface performance, indigenous performance, as well as performance and activism.

Instructor(s): Danielle Roper     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Undergraduates must be in their third or fourth year.
Note(s): Taught in English.
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 39117, GNSE 29117, TAPS 28479, RDIN 39117, LACS 29117, SPAN 29117, TAPS 38479, GNSE 39117, RDIN 29117

SPAN 39220. Espacio y memoria en el cine español. 100 Units.

This course aims to present, through the detailed analysis and discussion of a selection of films and documentaries, a critical examination of the relation between the representation of space and the recovery of traumatic memory in contemporary culture, with particular attention to the various perspectives (and conflicts) that emerge from the plurinational and multilingual configuration of the Spanish State. The course is also intended to provide a basic vocabulary (in Spanish) and strategies for the critical analysis of film.

Instructor(s): Mario Santana     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Taught in Spanish.
Equivalent Course(s): CATA 39220, BASQ 39220, SPAN 29220

SPAN 41500. Fundamentos de análisis literario. 100 Units.

What does it mean to read and interpret a text? The critical engagement with literary objects is a craft that requires paying careful and methodical attention not only to the conditions of creation, production, and circulation of works, but also to their various material components and levels of signification. Through the close study of a selection of works of contemporary Iberian literatures, in this seminar we will explore a number of tools for the critical analysis of literature. Special attention will be given to strategies that can be helpful in the process of identifying questions, formulating research problems, and assessing evidence to support your interpretation.

Instructor(s): Mario Santana     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Taught in Spanish.
Equivalent Course(s): CATA 41500, BASQ 41500

SPAN 42100. Rdgs/Rsch: Spanish. 100 Units.

Independent study with an individual faculty member.

Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

SPAN 43000. Imperialismo, Nación y Cultura en el Caribe Hispánico (el siglo XX) 100 Units.

En este seminario examinaremos las relaciones entre política y cultura en el Caribe hispánico durante el periodo que se extiende de la invasión norteamericana a la región, con la Guerra del 1898, hasta los inicios de la Revolución Cubana de 1959. El triunfo de los Estados Unidos en la guerra finisecular marcó el fin del dominio imperial de España en la zona, iniciándose así toda una nueva era de profundas contiendas geopolíticas y reconfiguraciones culturales. Entre esta se vieron el surgimiento de nuevos tipos de relaciones coloniales y neocoloniales con la emergente metrópoli norteamericana y el reposicionamiento de los discursos sobre raza en los debates sobre la identidad nacional, en sus genealogías y posibles virtualidades-todo ello estructurado por economías y lenguajes fuertes de género (gender). En este sentido, la esfera cultural devino simultáneamente escenario y protagonista de esas pugnas. Mediante una selección de materiales ensayísticos, narrativos y poéticos clave, el curso se concentrará particularmente en los modos en que la literatura intervino en esos conflictos, siendo a la vez constituida por ellos. Entre les autores a estudiar se encuentran José Martí, Antonio Pedreira. Fernando Ortiz, Lydia Cabrera, Julia de Burgos, Nicolás Guillén, Luis Palés Matos, Manuel del Cabral, Juan Bosch y Fidel Castro, entre otros.

Instructor(s): Agnes Lugo-Ortiz     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Taught in Spanish.
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 43000