Spring 2001

Spanish-110 Elementary Spanish
See Course Offerings for times     Staff
This course is intended for students with no previous study experience in Spanish.  Spanish 110 introduces you to the language and to Hispanic culture while promoting the development of your four language skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing.  You will develop your ability to communicate in Spanish in everyday, practical situations and will begin reading and writing short texts.

Spanish-115 Spanish for Medical Professionals Elementary I
MW 6-8:15      Staff
See CGS Course Guide for description.

Spanish-120 Elementary Spanish
See Course Offerings for times     Staff
Prerequisite:  SPAN 110 at Penn or placement score within the range set  for level 120.
Spanish 120 is the second semester course for students who have taken Spanish 110.  Students who test into a second level Spanish course through the placement test should take Spanish 121.

Spanish-125 Spanish for Medical Professionals Elementary II
MW 6-8:15      Staff
See CGS Course Guide for description.

Spanish-130 Intermediate Spanish
See Course Offerings for times     Staff
Prerequisite:  Spanish 120 or placement score within the range set for level 130.
Spanish 130 is the third course in Spanish in the basic language sequence.  Grammatical structures are continually reviewed throughout this course while a rich input of material in Spanish is provided on current topics of interest within the Hispanic world, with the goal of increasing your range of vocabulary and linguistic structures as well as knowledge of the culture.  Classroom activities such as role plays and debates provide you with opportunities to create with the language in meaningful contexts.  A literary anthology is used in conjunction with the text to introduce you to Hispanic literature and art.

Spanish-135 Spanish for Medical Professionals Intermediate I
TR 6-7:45      Staff
See CGS Course Guide for description.

Spanish-140 Intermediate Spanish
See Course Offerings for times     Staff
Prerequisite:  Spanish 130 or placement score within the range set for Spanish 140.
Spanish 140 is the fourth semester of Spanish.  The course has a similar format as Spanish 130 but continues to present a variety of input in the language so that you are able to use your Spanish in increasingly more complex and hypothetical situations as well as in simple, daily routines.  In addition, short literary texts, videos and class presentations will be subjects for classroom discussion.  A proficiency exam on the four skills is required for completion of this course.

Spanish-145 Spanish for Medical Professionals Intermediate II
TR 6-7:45      Staff
See CGS Course Guide for description.

Spanish-180 Spanish Conversation in Residence
Must be resident of the Modern Language College House.

Spanish-202 Advanced Modern Spanish
See Course Offerings for times   Staff
Prerequisite:  Spanish 140 and/or having passed the proficiency exam.  This course is the fifth semester of Spanish designed for students who desire to perfect their language skills beyond the required intermediate proficiency level.  Oral skills are given priority with some focus on sociolingustic use of the language.  Listening and reading materials provide opportunities for students to be exposed to authentic language and to integrate these forms into their speaking.  Some expository writing is done with the goal of perfecting the student's command of linguistic structures and cohesive devices.

Spanish-208  Business Spanish I
       TR 3-4:30      Freeman
This course is designed to develop the use of Spanish for business purposes.  In addition to technical vocabulary; an outline of geography, demography, forms of government and current economic issues relevant to Latin American countries and Spain is presented in lectures, readings and translations.

Spanish-212 Advanced Spanish Syntax
See Course Offerings for times   Staff
A rigorous advanced grammar course.  Emphasis on acquisition of a solid knowledge of all important points of Spanish grammar, plus rules governing colloquial usage.  Required of all majors.  Also useful for non-majors who wish to improve their language skills before beginning literary courses or for those who want a practical working knowledge of Spanish for career work.  Classwork is mostly discussion and correction of frequent exercises.

Spanish-214 Advanced Spanish Composition
MWF 11-12     Staff
TR 12-1:30     Staff
A course designed to develop the student's style in writing Spanish and to increase his vocabulary. Practice of advanced syntactical structures and stylstic devices.  Essentials of business correspondence and epistolary style (colloquial and formal) are also covered.  Spanish 212 is recommended as a prerequisite, but is not required.  Compositions are corrected by the instructor and discussed in class or individually with the student.

Spanish-222 Perspectives in Spanish Literature II
MWF 10-11     Staff
MWF 12-1
This course will examine Spanish texts from the enlightenment in the late 1700's to the middle of the twentieth century in Spain.  The reading list will reflect our interest in the development of a "modern" literary style which includes the development of the novel; from Rationalism to Romantic and post-Romantic poetry and theatre; and the fantastic and avant-garde; and post-civil war realism.
Leandro Fernandez de Moratin, Jose Cadalso, Mariano Jose de Larra, Jose Zorrilla, Rosalia de Castro, Galdos, Emilia Pardo Bazan, Unamuno, Juan Ramon Jimenez, and Camilo Jose Cela are among the selected authors whose work we will be reading from an anthology: Foster, David W. Literatura Espanola Tomo II, de 1700 hasta la actualidad.  Midterm exams, final paper.

Spanish-224 Perspectives in Spanish American Literature II
MWF 11-12      Salessi
MWF 12-1
Fulfills arts and letters distribution requirement.  An introduction to Spanish American Literature from the Romantic period to the present, with emphasis on the relations among literature, culture and civilization.  Several authors and genres are studied including: Jose Hernandez, Domingo Sarmiento, Jose Marti, Rubei Dario, Alfonsina Storni, Jorge Luis Borges, Juan Rulfo, Pablo Neruda, O. Paz, CGM, Rosario Ferre, Luisa Valenzuela.

Spanish-225   Spanish In The World
Espanol en el mundo
MW 4:30-6:30    Esposito
This course will explore the social aspects of the Spanish language in the world.  It will principally deal with the position and history of Spanish in Spain, in Spanish-speaking America, and in the United States.  We will deal with the unity and diversity of Spanish and its speakers in topics such as dialect varieties, regional languages, linguistic identity, languages in contact etc.  The class will be conducted in Spanish, with readings in both Spanish and English.

Spanish 248   Don Quixote
         Brownlee, M
Unquestionably the best known book written in Spanish, Don Quixote is recognized as the first modern European novel; a text offering - among its many riches - a heroic paradigm as profound and enduring as the modern myths of Hamlet, Don Juan and Faust.

This course will explore a variety of issues staged by Cervantes' work; from the representation of gender, to definitions of nationhood set against the backdrop of colonial expansion and imperial decline, to the function of literature in a newly constituted print culture, to the evolution of the Early Modern subject and its consequences for the emergence of the novel.

(In translation)

Spanish 251  Spanish American Literature in Translation
   Subtitle:  Latin American Travel Narrative
TR 10:30-12      Braham
From its origins in the fantasies of Christopher Columbus, Latin America has materialized as an artifact of the touristic imagination, the objectives of the scientific voyage, and the conditions of exile.  This course will examine many genres of travel writing, both fiction and non-fiction, including the captivity narrative, the picaresque journey, the taxonomic expedition and the travel guidebook.  Readings will represent foreign travelers to Latin America as well as Latin Americans abroad.  In English.

Spanish 314  Workshop In Creative Writing:
   Imagined Cities
   TR 10:30 - 12:00    Ponte
An intensive workshop on creative writing to guide and stimulate the participants' imagination in the creation of literary "cities."  The course will analyze actual as well as imaginary cities constructed by various writers as preparatory work before engaging in the literary creation of "cities", taking that noun in its most wide and diverse acceptation.  Readings on Italo Calvino, Walter Benjamin, Alejo Carpentier, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, among others.

Spanish-317  Spanish Phonetics and Morph
     Distribution III: Arts & Letters
     TR 1:30-3:00          Esposito
This course is an introduction to Spanish linguistics, with emphasis on the Spanish sound system and the structure of the Spanish verb.  Topics to be covered include articulatory phonetics, use of the phonetic alphabet, English and Spanish contrastive phonology, regional and social variations of Spanish pronunciation, structural semantics, the Spanish lexicon, word formation and inflection.  Practical work in the language laboratory is available for those who need practice in improving their pronunciation.  Required of majors.  Readings in both Spanish and English.  Quizzes, mid-term, and final examination.

Spanish 330  Jews, Christians and Moors -
Coexistence and Conflict
TR 10:30-12     Brownlee, M
As a result of its unique racial, ethnic and religious evolution, Medieval Spain offers a vivid forum for the study of hegemonic political, social, religious, gender and medical discourses as well as marginal forms of resistance to them.  The dynamic interplay of these factors which collectively define Medieval Spanish culture will be considered through our discussions of the parameters of the epic mentality in the Cid and Fernan Gonzalea, the irreverent spiritual commentary of the Libro de Buen Amor, the lyric collection of Shem Tov in the fourteenth century and the fifteenth century cancioneros, as well as the romanticized figure of the Moor in El Abencerraje y la hermosa Jarifa.

Spanish 390  Politics and Literature in Revolutionary Cuba:
   The Short Story    Ponte
   TR 1:30 - 3:00
This course will study the social and political implications of revolutionary Cuba and its reflection in the short story written in the island during the last forty years.  Special attention will be given to the so-called "special period" of the nineties.  Class discussion will address texts and films based on some of those texts to identify the relationship between literary imagination and social circumstance.  Issues of literary realism, committed writing, censorship, etc, will be discussed.  The authors read include, among others, Virgilio Piñera, Eliseo Diego, Edmundo Desnoes, Antonio Benítez Rojo, Senel Paz, Arturo Arango, Soleida Ríos, and Ana Lidia Vego Serova.  Films include "Memorias del subdesarrollo," "Los sobrevivientes," "Fresa y chocolate" and "Lista de espera."
 

Spanish 392  Colonial Latin American Literature
TR 3-4:30     Braham
An examination of Colonial Latin American intellectual discourse through historical and literary texts.  We will study the relationships between language and power, history and literature, politics and material culture, as well as the development of nationalism.  In Spanish.

Spanish 394  Spanish American Fiction
   Recent Spanish American narrative
   MWF 1-2     Laddaga
This course will concentrate in narratives (mostly short stories) written by Spanish American writers born after 1955.  We will connect the texts to the social and political history of this period, and pay special attention to the representations in them of the city in an age of chaotic urbanization, of emerging forms of youth culture, and of the influence of the mass-media in everyday life.

Spanish 395  Hispanic Theater
   TR 12-1:30     Regueiro

Spanish-401  Conference for Majors
MWF 12-1     Salessi
A survey of Latin American Literature and culture of the turn of the century.  Special attention will be given to the Latin American enunciation of such turn-of-the-century topics as literature and the new cosmopolis, fashion, libraries, decadence and regeneration, sexual politics and the rise of the Latin American labor movement.  All works studied are from the required reading list for Spanish majors.  Course is required for all majors.