Major-Level Spanish Courses – Spring 2024
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. León Narváez, 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. Maggie Broner, MWF 12:55-1:50
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 Towards Majors and Concentrations: Gender & Sexuality Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies, and Latin American Studies.
Spanish 275: Exploring Hispanic Literature – “The Spanish Civil War Through Literature”
GE: ALS-L (OLE Core: CRE)
Prof. Gwen Barnes-Karol T 9:35-11:00 / Th 9:30-10:50
Prerequisite: Spanish 250 or Spanish 251
You’ve read works of literature in Spanish in culture classes at St. Olaf – Historia de una maestra, Cenizas del Izalco, a selection of short stories, or perhaps even the sci-fi thriller La piel fría. Now you are ready for the next step – reading literary works not just as cultural documents, but also as “literature.”
In this course, we’ll explore the creative process that underlies selected literary works in Spanish from four genres (poetry, short stories, a novel, and a play) by analyzing the how different authors make use of a variety of elements to produce works of imagination to share with their readers/audiences. Our specific point of departure in this edition of the course will be a historical event – the Spanish Civil (1936-39). An internal conflict that took on international importance in the 1930s and is now considered to be the prelude to WWII, the Spanish Civil War quickly sparked artistic responses by Spaniards (Picasso’s 1937 painting Guernica) and foreigners alike (Ernest Hemingway’s 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, made in to an Academy Award-winning film in 1943). The war continues to be the seminal event in 20th-century Spanish history and even today inspires novelists, playwrights, movie directors, and graphic novelists as the country wrestles to process its painful history.
We’ll analyze the works below with regard to the specific creative elements their authors use to respond to the war and in relation to their historical and artistic context:
- Poetry: War-time poems written by famous literary figures of the day as well as by everyday Spanish citizens that express their reactions to the war in real time (in conjunction with poster art from the period);
- Short stories: selected microstories from the 1938 collection Valor y miedo by Arturo Barea that highlight the human dimension of war-time life in Madrid and in the countryside;
- Novel: Réquiem por un campesino español, by Ramón J. Sender, a novel originally writen in Albuqurque, New Mexico, and published in Mexico because it was banned by the Franco regime, about how war impacts human bonds of friendship; and
- Theater: Fernando Fernán-Gómez’s Las bicicletas son para el verano, an award-winning play by one of the 20th-century Spain’s foremost actors/playwrights, that explores the interactions among neighbors in a Madrid apartment building as they sharer hopes, dreams, worries, sorrows, fears, and food.
The course also requires viewing films outside of class and two approved “comunidad de práctica” activities (for examples, la Mesa avanzada, or Casa Hispánica/Presente/Somos events).
This course is required for the Spanish major. Offered Fall and Spring.
Counts Toward Majors: Latin American Studies, Performance, and Political Science
Counts Toward Concentrations: International Relations and Latin American Studies
Note: SPAN 275 cannot be repeated.
Spanish 276: Spanish as a First and Second Language
Prof. Maggie Broner, MWF 2:00-2:55
Prerequisite: Spanish 250 or Spanish 251
¿Qué significa hablar bien una lengua? ¿Qué lenguas tienen poder en Estados Unidos y el mundo hispanohablante? ¿Por qué es el español una lengua minoritaria en los Estados Unidos? ¿Por qué se enseña el español como una lengua extranjera y no como una segunda lengua en los Estados Unidos? ¿Por qué los libros de texto de español introducen el uso de “vosotros” pero no “vos”? ¿Qué es Spanglish y quién lo habla?
This course will critically explores these, and other, questions related to the acquisition and use of Spanish as first, Heritage, and second language in a social context. The course introduces the cognitive and social processes involved in learning, acquiring, and using Spanish as a second language. In addition, Span 276 explores Spanish as a first and Heritage language through the study of the different varieties of Spanish spoken in the Spanish-speaking world, with particular emphasis on Spanish and English bilingualism in the U.S. The questions also invite us to look at the intersections between language, power, and identity. In order to do all this, this course will introduce some foundational notions from the fields of Second Language Acquisition, Hispanic Linguistics, and sociolinguistics.
Tentative reading list:
- Packet of journal articles and book chapters (available through the Bookstore)
- Mi mundo adorado by Supreme 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. Offered Fall and Spring.
Counts Toward Majors: Performance, Political Science, and Race and Ethnic Studies
Counts Toward Concentrations: Linguistic Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies, and International Relations
Note: SPAN 276 cannot be repeated.
Spanish 312: Voices of the Spanish Speaking World: “Women on the Verge”
OLE CORE: WRITING IN THE MAJOR
Prof. Jonathan O’Conner, MWF 12:55-1:50
Prerequisite: Spanish 250 or Spanish 251 and one 270-level course
Recent events in Spain highlight decades of progress towards greater gender equity, as well as the persistence of gender-based discrimination and inequities, including active challenges to gender rights. In this course, we will work with a wide range of sources from modern Spain that highlight voices from the margins, including films such as Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women on the Verge, 1988) by Pedro Almodóvar that advocates for women’s social independence and solidarity, as well as the novel La hija extranjera (2015) by Najat El Hachmi that explores the perspective of a young woman seeking to reconcile her complex Moroccan and Catalonian identities. We will briefly consider the contrasting values of the Segunda República and Franco’s dictatorship before focusing on the Spain’s 50 years of democracy. We will examine the intersection of categories of experience including class, race, gender identity, religion, and sexuality. Our work will be informed by feminist theory. Together, we will explore a wide range of voices, as we seek to understand diverse experiences, struggles, successes, and challenges that remain.
- Counts as a 300-level course required for the major
- Counts Toward Major and Concentration: Gender and Sexuality Studies
Spanish 314: Literature and Society in Latin America: Culinary Metaphor in Latin America
GE: ALS-L (OLE CORE: WRITING IN THE MAJOR)
Prof. Ariel Strichartz
T 11:45-1:10 / Th 12:45-2:05
Prerequisite: Spanish 275
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 the many representations of “food spaces” such as kitchens and dining rooms and the acts–cooking, feeding, and eating–associated with them. Through the analysis of selected narrative works (novels and short stories), plays, essays, and films that span several centuries of cultural production from Mexico and Cuba, we will investigate the metaphorical capabilities of food, “el media simbólico por excelencia,” for responding to a wide range of Latin American sociopolitical contexts. Our analysis of literary works will be enriched and informed by a series of theoretical and conceptual readings from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including philosophy, theology, and anthropology.
Tentative primary works include the novels El hombre, la hembra y el hambre (Daína Chaviano, Cuba) and Como agua para chocolate (Laura Esquivel, Mexico); the plays El gordo y el flaco (Virgilio Piñera, Cuba); Cocinar el amor (Hugo Salcedo, Mexico); and the stories “Lección de cocina” (Rosario Castellanos, Mexico); and “El lobo, el bosque y el hombre nuevo” (Senel Paz, Cuba).
In addition to analyzing the literary representation of all things culinary, we’ll also explore the interdisciplinary field of food studies and its relevance for the study of Latin America. 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.
- Counts as a 300-level course required for the major
- Counts Toward Majors: Performance and Political Science
- Counts Toward Concentration: International Relations