Fall 2025: Spanish Major Course Descriptions
All courses are taught in Spanish.
Spanish 250: Family and Gender Roles in Spain: 1900 to Present
GE: FOL-S & WRI / OLE CORE: WLC & WAC
Prof. Marit Hanson, T 9:35 – 11:00, Th 9:30 – 10:50
Prerequisite: Spanish 232 or placement in Spanish 250 or 251
In this course, you’ll explore Spain’s “revolución familiar” – dramatic changes in family structures and gender roles, the rights of women and members of the LGBTQ+ community, and relationships between generations. While some of these changes may seem to parallel those that have occurred in other countries (including the U.S.), the way they came about in Spain is unique. Together we’ll examine the history of families and gender roles from the early 1900s to the present day through a variety of “cultural texts” – informational texts about trends in society at large (from videos to official documents) as well as narratives that capture the human experiences of individuals and families: both stories of the lives of real people and a historical novel that creatively portrays a society in transition. In the process, we will work on developing our academic language skills in Spanish, especially through writing with the use of textual evidence. The course includes participation in three out-of-class conversation groups. Offered Fall and Spring.
Key course materials: Novel, Historia de una maestra (Josefina R. Aldecoa); films and videos, packet of readings from a variety of sources.
Spanish 250 or 251 is required for the Spanish major (only one of the two courses can count for the major).
Note: Spanish 250 (equivalent to Spanish 251) is the first course in the Spanish major but is open to any student who has completed Spanish 232 or placed into the 250-level. 250-level courses cannot be repeated, and students cannot count both 250 and 251 for the Spanish major. Either Spanish 250 or 251 counts as the prerequisite for 270-level courses and above.
Spanish 250 or 251 is required for the Latin American Studies major.
Counts Toward Majors: Gender & Sexuality Studies, Latin American Studies, Performance, Political Science, and Women’s and Gender Studies
Counts Toward Concentrations: Family Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, International Relations, Management Studies, and Women’s and Gender Studies
Spanish 251: Gender and Race in Latin America
GE: FOL-S & WRI / OLE CORE: WLC &WAC
Prof. Jonathan O’Conner, Section A, MWF 1150 – 1245
Prof. Mariana Reyes-Payán, Section B, MWF 12:55 – 1:50
Prerequisite: Spanish 232 or placement in Spanish 250 or 251
This course focuses on gender and race in Latin America and explores gender roles, femicide, intersectionality, activism, and Latin America’s deep-rooted history of activism and resistance to oppression. To capture a wide range of experiences and voices, we work with short stories, articles, podcasts, films, songs, and poems from across Latin America. We include objective sources that focus on providing information, as well as subjective sources that narrate human experiences—people’s stories. In the process, we also work on developing our academic language skills in Spanish, especially through writing with the use of textual evidence. Includes participation in 3 out-of-class conversation groups.
Spanish 250 or 251 is required for the Spanish major (only one of the two courses can count for the major).
Note: Spanish 250 (equivalent to Spanish 251) is the first course in the Spanish major but is open to any student who has completed Spanish 232 or placed into the 250-level. 250-level courses cannot be repeated, and students cannot count both 250 and 251 for the Spanish major. Either Spanish 250 or 251 counts as the prerequisite for 270-level courses and above.
Spanish 250 or 251 is required for the Latin American Studies major.
Counts Toward Majors: Gender & Sexuality Studies, Latin American Studies, Performance, Political Science, and Women’s and Gender Studies
Counts Toward Concentrations: Gender and Sexuality Studies, International Relations
Spanish 271 – The Cultures of Spain
“Human Rights and the Quality of Life in Spain”
Prof. León Narváez, MWF 11:50 – 12:45
Periodic examples of genocide in Europe and elsewhere may lead to the conclusion that human beings never change. Some may believe that there is no hope for humanity, no possibility that people will treat each other better over time. Yet there are examples that give us hope. Spain is one of those examples. In this course we will explore the affirmation of human rights in Spain over time in spite of long periods of repression and periods of extreme tension between liberal and authoritarian tendencies about what people are allowed to do and to say. How will we approach this topic? We will learn about historical periods in Spain and discuss them in terms of what were the rights of the people of the time and their apparent quality of life. Were people allowed to express their cultural identity, their sexual orientation, their political and social views, and to exercise influence without violence over public policy? What were the efforts made to ensure their personal safety and personal development? What were their economic rights and access to healthcare, education, etc.? With regard to these questions, we will focus on the 20th century up to today. We will read historical summaries and more, including two novels that reflect the changing milieu for human rights and personal development in Spain, one set in the Spain of the dictator Francisco Franco and the other in the democracy of our time. Through the experiences of the two central characters, both women, we will explore how a change in the rights of the individual and the nature of the state may result in greater possibilities in life for ordinary citizens and we will consider their responses to those possibilities.
Texts:
Nada (Carmen Laforet)
Esos cielos (Bernardo Atxaga)
Además, se leerán resúmenes de aspectos de la historia de España con un enfoque en los siglos
XX y XXI.
Counts as a 270-level elective for the Spanish major
Spanish 275: Exploring Hispanic Literature
Topic: Intertextualidades Masculinas en la Literatura Latinoamericana
-con un enfoque caribeño
GE: ALS-L / OLE CORE: CRE
Prof. Kristina Medina-Vilariño, T 120 – 2:45, Th 2:15 – 3:35
Prerequisite: Spanish 250 or Spanish 251
El cantante puertorriqueño de trap, Bad Bunny, se presentó en febrero del 2020 en el Tonight Show vestido con falda. La imagen impresa en su camisa llevaba un reclamo de que “mataron a Alexa [,] no a un hombre con falda.” Alexa fue una mujer transgénero asesinada en un violento crimen de odio en Puerto Rico que aún queda sin resolver. Este violento incidente se convirtió en un punto de referencia crucial en la sociedad moderna puertorriqueña, y criticaba las representaciones del género o la sexualidad de Alexa publicadas en los medios masivos de comunicación en PR. Las masas de fans aplaudían el acto de Bad Bunny, en persona y online, incluyendo algunos escritores y artistas activistas LGBTQ+. Sin embargo, en mayo del 2021, un sector del senado en el Capitolio de Puerto Rico, defendía la legalidad de las terapias de conversión. Estas últimas han sido reconocidas como “tortura” por muchos sectores sociales que defienden los derechos humanos, y ven las terapias de conversión sexual como una práctica violenta de homofobia y transfobia.
Este contraste refleja el choque de distintas ideologías que operan entre las comunidades caribeñas más allá de Puerto Rico y alcanzan a sus diásporas. Mientras que el contrato social de gran parte de lo/a/e s jóvenes caribeños en el 2024 pareciera ser la aceptación de una mayor libertad sexual y el rechazo de cualquier binario de género, la realidad diaria nos recuerda que las expectativas culturales no han cambiado del todo.
Este curso explora el concepto de la masculinidad en el caribe latinoamericano a través de la literatura, el cine y la cultura popular. Analizaremos textos literarios, incluyendo poesía, novela, crónica y ensayo. Los estudiantes explorarán la relación entre intertexto, cultura, raza, política y masculinidad dentro de movimientos sociales y políticos, con un énfasis en el discurso literario anticolonialista. Algunas secciones de los textos incluidos en esta clase contienen un lenguaje sexual gráfico.
Al final del semestre los estudiantes crearán un proyecto digital comparativo, enfocado en el tema del curso y sus respectivas profesiones.
Spanish 276: Spanish as a First and Second Language
Prof. Kris Cropsey, MWF 12:55 – 1:50
Prerequisite: Spanish 250 or 251
¿De qué se trata Español 276? En este curso estudiaremos diferentes aspectos relacionados al uso y adquisición de la lengua española en contextos transnacionales y transculturales. En particular, usaremos una aproximación crítica para estudiar el español de los Estados Unidos, en Hispanoamérica y en España. Durante el curso haremos particular hincapié en los procesos de adquisición del español como primera y segunda lengua en cuanto atañe a los hablantes del inglés como primera lengua y a los hablantes de herencia del español en los Estados Unidos.
Tentative reading list:
• Packet of journal articles and book chapters (available through the Bookstore)
• Mi mundo adorado by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor (available through the Bookstore)
• Materiales para SPAN 276 (course handouts available through the Bookstore)
This course is required for the Spanish major. Spanish 276 cannot be repeated.
Counts Toward Majors: Latin American Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies, Spanish
Counts Toward Concentrations: Applied Linguistic Studies, Latin American Studies, Race and Ethnic
Spanish 312: Voices Of The Spanish-Speaking World
Topic: Music And Politics In Latin America
OLE CORE: WIM
Prof. Kristina Medina-Vilariño, T 9:35 – 11:00, TH 9:30 – 10:50
Prerequisite: Spanish 250 or Spanish 251 and one 270-level course
Counts toward Performance, Political Science, Spanish, and Gender and Sexuality Studies majors. Also counts toward International Relations, and Gender and Sexuality Studies concentrations and Latin American Studies.
Over the last three decades reguetón, bachata, and salsa songs have been in the top-ten music charts of radio stations as representatives of “latino music” in the United States. These genres have become cultural symbols of a Latin American festive essence, but their popularity renders invisible a more rich cultural tradition told by political expressions of Latin American music. In this course we will explore the connections between music, history, politics, and culture in Latin America. This course will examine genres such as “la Nueva Canción”, corridos, rock, tango, reggae, and danza, to determine the role that musicians have played in larger social narratives. We will also discuss El hombre del acordeón, a novel by Marcio Veloz Maggiolo’s.
Spanish 399: Seminar in Spanish Studies
GE: WRI & WIM
Food Studies in Latin America: Oppression, Resistance, and Creativity
Prof. Ariel Strichartz, MWF, 10:45 – 11:40
Do you think of the kitchen as a space associated with servitude and tedious tasks, or as a site of creative freedom? What is the connection between the kitchen (and the domestic sphere it represents) and the public sphere thought to exist beyond its reach? Why has society traditionally discounted as menial the work of a female cook in a domestic kitchen, while praising as an elevated art form that of a male chef? How might culinary acts such as cooking, feeding, and eating perpetuate, destabilize, or invert systems of power? In acts such as eating when one element or body is subsumed within another, which can be said to have more power?
In this course, we will explore these questions as we analyze the many representations of “food spaces” such as kitchens and dining rooms and the acts of cooking, feeding, and eating in works from Mexico, Cuba, and Argentina. In addition to the novel, short stories, plays, and film that will make up our daily diet, we’ll have occasional servings of readings from a variety of fields, including philosophy, anthropology, and theology, intended to enrich our perspectives on food and to help us think through the broader questions posed above.
Tentative primary works include the novel Como agua para chocolate (Laura Esquivel, Mexico); the plays El gordo y el flaco (Virgilio Piñera, Cuba); Cocinar el amor (Hugo Salcedo, Mexico); Puesta en claro (Griselda Gambaro, Argentina); and Carne (Eduardo Rovner, Argentina); and the stories “Lección de cocina” (Rosario Castellanos, Mexico); “Alta cocina” (Amparo Dávila, Mexico); “La carne” and “La cena” (Virgilio Piñera, Cuba)
In addition to analyzing the textual representation of all things culinary, we’ll also explore the interdisciplinary field of food studies and its relevance for understanding Latin America today. Throughout the semester, students will carry out an individual project within food studies related to one of their academic areas of study or interest (biology; political science; anthropology; economics; pre-health professions; etc.) and within a Latin American context; this project may also be related to an aspect of food activism in Latin America.