Fall 2002

GRADUATE COURSES IN SPANISH
FALL 2002

(Course information subject to change)
(Cross-reference with Department Roster)

Spanish 630
The Love of Poetry in the Age of Pestilence
Prof. Solomon
W 2:00-4:00

Focusing on the metaphor of love as a disease, we will explore the social, political, and biological implications of writing about amorous desire as manifested in poetic works from Al-Andalus, Southern France and Northern Spain. Our readings include works by Andalusian poets (Ibn Hazm, Ben Sahl de Sevilla) selections from troubadour poets (Guilhem de Peitieu , Jaufré Rudel), an overview of Catalan writers (Jordi de Sant Jordi, Ausias March), and a detailed selection of the poets from the 15th-century Castilian cancioneros. Additionally, we will read and discuss
treatises on love (Andreas Capellanus) and medical works on sexual desire (Arnau de Vilanova, Jacme Roig). Papers and class discussion in Spanish.

Spanish 682
Graduate Seminar in Literary Theory
Prof. Alonso
T 1:30-4:30

This course begins with an overview of major statements on poetics and literary theory from Plato to the twentieth century. We will then study in detail more contemporary theoretical statements with a view to acquiring a broad knowledge of modern literary criticism. Throughout the semester we will attempt to identify topics and issues that are of particular relevance to students working within the Hispanic literary and critical tradition. Among the authors studied will be Plato, Aristotle, Longinus, Dante, Castelvetro, Lessing, Arnold, Taine, Saussure, Barthes, Derrida, de Man, Althusser, Butler and Latour. Papers and class discussion in Spanish.

Spanish 684
The Realist Novel
Prof. López
R 1:00-3:00

The nineteenth-century novel develops in Spain several decades after it appears in other European countries such as France, Russia, Germany, Italy, and Portugal. Contrary to what happens in these cases, the Spanish novel of this period is not linked to the appearance of a new social reality (e.g., the emergence of the bourgeoisie as a dominant class) nor to the birth of a nationalistic discourse. Historically, it is linked to the 1868 revolutionary process, but most of the major titles appear after 1875--that is, once the revolution has been defeated. In this context the novel unfolds as a critical discourse that seeks to maintain alive the revolutionary ideology once the revolution has failed in its struggle to question power in a national landscape resigned to a slow-paced industrial modernization and characterized by social and ideological conservatism. The purpose of this course is to study the development of the novel as a critical discourse in this context. Concentrating on Clarín's La Regenta and Galdós' Fortunata y Jacinta, we will study the novel as an alternative and even subversive discourse in the context of the Spanish Restoration.

Spanish 690
Art, Literature, and Society in Latin America at the End of the 20th Century
Prof. Laddaga
M 2:00-4:00

The last twenty-five years have seen the occurrence of deep changes in the structure and dynamics of Latin American societies. The processes of globalization and the dismantling of the institutions of the development State have resulted in the opening of spaces where new models of subjectivity and social integration are deployed. At the same time, artists and writers have seen the boundaries of their disciplines redrawn or displaced. How can these processes be read in certain key artistic and literary productions of the period? We will read and discuss some of the central theorizations of social and cultural transformation in recent decades (Gilles Deleuze, Toni Negri, Peter Sloterdijk, Marcel Gauchet, Scott Lash, David Held, Bruno Latour), as well as analyze some key tranformations in the region after the crisis of the development State in the textual and artistic productions of Latin American artisits and writers (Fernando Vallejo, Osvaldo Lamborghini, César Aira, Adolfo Couve, etc.).