Fall 2024: 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. Kris Cropsey, T 8:00-9:25 / Th 8:00-9:20
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. Mariana Reyes-Payán, Section A, MWF 11:50-12:45
Prof. Maggie Broner, 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. Offered Fall and Spring.
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 273: Cultures of the Latinx/a/o U.S. Topic: Narratives of Home: Memory, Displacement, and Community Activism in Latinx Cultural Production
GE: MCD / OLE CORE: PAR
Prof. Kristina Medina-Vilariño, T 9:35-11:00; Th 9:30-10:50
Prof. Maggie Broner, Section B, MWF 12:55-1:50
Prerequisite: Spanish 250 or Spanish 251 or permission of the instructor
In your Spanish gateway course (250/251) you learned about the shifting definitions of family and gender in Latin America and/or Spain. Along the way, you also analyzed the role of religion and other key social institutions in shaping citizens; and you have learned how political changes and historical events in the “Hispanic world” have constantly transformed definitions of “home,” moral values, and national culture. These changes often drive communities to new demands for civil rights, education, equity, and social justice.
You are now ready to talk about how similar processes have shaped Latino/a communities in the United States. In this course we will consider the ways in which historical events lead to a multi-layered process of identity construction for Latino/xs in the United States. Intended Learning
Outcomes:
• You will learn how migration and displacement have shaped the work of Latinx artists, intellectuals, activists, and community leaders.
• We will examine how different Latinx communities reconstruct their own identity in the United States, making sense of their histories of displacement, and creating a new space to call their own. Among the topics to be covered will be gender politics, civil right movements, racial identities, and education.
• We will examine the work of authors such as Sonia Sotomayor’s My beloved dream, Borderlands/ La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa, and Tato Laviera’s “Puerto Rican Obituary,” films such as Frances Negrón Muntaner’s Brincando el Charco, and community projects addressing social issues such as “el voto latino.”
This course will include a Civic Engagement Component, including visits to community initiatives and from community leaders. For more information on this requirement please visit http://wp.stolaf.edu/ace/. This course may count for Latin American Studies majors and/or Race and Ethnic Studies with the Director’s agreement.
Counts as a 270-level elective for the Spanish major. Spanish 273 may be repeated with a different topic.
Counts Toward Majors: Latin American Studies, Performance, Political Science, Race and Ethnic Studies
Counts Toward Concentrations: International Relations, Latin American Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies
Spanish 275: Exploring Hispanic Literature, Topic: Artistic Portraits and Intertexts in Latin American Literature
GE: ALS-L / OLE CORE: CRE
Pro. Kristina Medina-Vilariño, T 1:20-2:45 / Th 2:15-3:35
Prerequisite: Spanish 250 or Spanish 251
Ferdinand de Saussure and Julia Kristeva, key figures in the fields of cultural anthropology, linguistics, and literary theory, have argued that the meaning transferred from reader to writer is always mediated by a set of codes previously established by other texts. In literature, these sets of codes often stem from previous artistic works, such as paintings, fashion designs, artistic movements, films, or literary texts. In this class students will explore literary texts from different genres (poetry, short stories, essays, theater, and novel and epochs (from Colonial Literature to Postmodernism), which make implicit or explicit reference to other forms of art and popular culture. In order to analyze each text, we will (a) learn and apply different literary approaches to form and content, and (b) establish a dialogue between the multiple codes embedded in them. Some of the works to be discussed are: “Oración for Marilyn Monroe” a poem by Ernesto Cardenal; La contadora de cuentos, a short novel by Hernán Rivera Letelier; and Quíntuples by Luis Rafael Sánchez. Students will be provided with most texts via public web access.
Texts:
• Novel: La contadora de películas de Hernán Rivera Letelier (please buy online, it will not be available at St. Olaf College’s bookstore.)
• Quíntuples by Luis Rafael Sánchez (please buy online, it will not be available at St. Olaf College’s bookstore.)
• Other readings via Moodle.
This course is required for the Spanish major. Spanish 275 cannot be repeated.
Counts Toward Majors: Latin American Studies, Performance, and Political Science Counts Toward Concentrations: International Relations and Latin American Studies
Spanish 276: Spanish as a First and Second Language
Prof. Maggie Broner, MWF 2:00-2:55
Prerequisite: Spanish 250 or 251
¿De qué se trata Español 276?
¡Bienvenides, Bienvenidxs, Bienvenidos, Bienvenidas! al español como primera y segunda lengua. 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 (Critical Language Awareness–Clark) 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.
Offered Fall and Spring.
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 275 cannot be repeated.
Counts Toward Majors: Latin American Studies, Performance, Political Science, and Race and Ethnic Studies
Counts Toward Concentrations: Applied Linguistic Studies, Latin American Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies, and International Relations
Spanish 314: Literature and Society in Latin America, Topic: “Contemporary Argentine Theatre: From Text to Stage”
GE: ALS-L / OLE CORE: WRITING IN THE MAJOR
Prof. Ariel Strichartz, T: 9:35-11:00 / Th 9:30-10:50
Prerequisite: Spanish 275
Since the beginning of the 20th century, Argentina’s history has been marked by the mass immigration of impoverished European emigrants seeking to “hacer la América;” urbanization and the growth of the middle class; a series of authoritarian governments, the most recent being the military dictatorship of 1976-1983; the democratic transition and the concomitant focus on human rights; and in 2023, amid an increasingly unstable economic situation, the election as president of the far-Right, populist candidate Javier Milei.
Intertwined with this complex history, Argentina’s cultural production is rich and prolific: even those unfamiliar with the details above automatically think of the tango and the narrative works of Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar when Argentina is mentioned. But did you know that Argentina has long been one of the richest centers for theatre in Latin America? In Buenos Aires alone there are more than 300 theatres!
In this course we will focus on the many ways in which Argentine theatre has responded to the country’s political, economic, and social reality during the 20th and 21st centuries. Some of the questions we’ll explore include the following:
• What is the “landscape” of Argentine theatre today? What is the role in Argentine society of the various theatre “circuits” (official; commercial; alternative)? What kinds of works are staged in each circuit? What kind of spectators make up the different publics?
• How have Argentine playwrights, directors, actors, and other theatre practitioners responded to the context in which they live and work? Which aspects of theatre as a genre have they employed in order to communicate with their public?
• What do the plays we study suggest about the nature of theatre itself, its possibilities and limitations for understanding the world?
In addition to the detailed analysis of play texts, which will be enriched and informed by a series of historical, conceptual, and theoretical readings, course requirements include the following: • in-class staging of select scenes and one-act plays (in pairs or groups, depending on the scene/play)
• creation of a miniature model [maqueta] of the scenography of one of the works studied in the course (in pairs)
A tentative list of the authors whose work we will study includes Florencio Sánchez, Armando Discépolo, Roberto Arlt, Carlos Gorostiza, Griselda Gambaro, Roma Mahieu, Javier Daulte, Susana Torres Molina, and los Macocos.
Counts as a 300-level course required for the Spanish major. Spanish 399 may be repeated with a different topic.
Counts Toward Majors: Performance and Political Science
Counts Toward Concentration: International Relations
Spanish 399: Seminar in Spanish Studies, Topic: Cross-cultural Writers of Influence — the Cases of Mario Vargas Llosa and Isabel Allende
OLE CORE: WRITING IN THE MAJOR
Prof. León Narváez, MWF 10:45-11:50
Prerequisite: Spanish 250 or 251 and at least one course at the 270 level
Mario Vargas Llosa and Isabel Allende, prolific writers, have had an impact on Latin American literature and on many readers. In this course we will explore their lives, their thinking and their cultural/intellectual impact through autobiographies and novels written by them.
Their lives are enriched by participating in more than one culture, by a devotion to communicating through the written word, and by their activities as public intellectuals.
What can we learn from them about a bicultural lifestyle, about critically important values that they affirm and their reasons for what they believe, about how to be a good citizen, and about what any society needs to function well to the benefit of its citizens?
Key course materials:
Mario Vargas Llosa:
El pez en el agua (selections from the autobiography)
La tía Julia y el escribidor (novel)
Isabel Allende:
La suma de los días (selections from the autobiography)
La casa de los espíritus (novel)
Counts as a 300-level course required for the Spanish major. Spanish 399 may be repeated with a different topic.
Counts Toward Majors: Performance and Political Science
Counts Toward Concentration: International Relations