The seminar will draw on Anibal Quijano's work to explore three major themes: the intertwined notions of race and gender in Latin America; the understanding of gender and patriarchy in the work of contemporary decolonial feminist theory; and the oppressive intersectional inequalities introduced by the Conquest and colonization that continue to shape our world. Although Quijano's scholarship tends to be read in a disjointed and disconnected way, this course will take a more unified approach. This seminar will be taught by PLAS fellow Rita Segato, an internationally acclaimed anthropologist and feminist thinker.

The course deals with philosophy as practiced in Latin America from the Spanish Conquest until the contemporary period. Unifying themes are race, identity, and the relationship between European influences and the specific circumstances of Latin America. We will explore these themes by examining the following topics among others: the use of Aristotelian ideas in debates about the appropriate treatment of the indigenous populations of the Americas; and ways in which Latin American thinkers employed ideas of the French enlightenment, Comte's positivism and Marxist concepts to articulate programs for political and cultural change.

In this second course of the elementary Spanish sequence, students will continue to develop their communicative and intercultural competence by exploring social issues relevant to their lives, and by taking an in-depth look at the diversity of the Spanish-speaking world. The course integrates language and culture, and promotes all three communication modes (interpersonal, interpretative, and presentational). Cultural diversity is introduced through a variety of texts (news, short movies, podcasts, etc.). By the end of the course, the students will be able to perform at an intermediate proficiency level, and be ready for SPA 107.

An intermediate/advanced language course that consolidates and expands the skills acquired in beginner's Spanish. Students will continue to develop their ability to comprehend and communicate in Spanish while using the four basic skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The course's linguistic goals are achieved in the context of examining the history, cultural production, practices, language, and current reality of the U.S. Latino community. Materials include oral, written and audiovisual texts. By the end of the course, students will be able to express more complex ideas, orally and in writing, with greater grammatical accuracy.

SPA 108 is an advanced language course that aims at strengthening and consolidating comprehension and production of oral and written Spanish while fostering cultural awareness and cross-cultural examination. Students will improve their linguistic proficiency while exploring the various mechanisms that affect how our identity is constructed, negotiated, and/or imposed. Particularly, the course will examine the ways in which gender and national identities develop and consolidate themselves by exploring cultural production (journalism, literature, cinema and the visual arts, etc.) in the Spanish speaking world and beyond.

An advanced Spanish-language course that focuses on medical and health topics in the Hispanic/Latino world. Students will learn and practice specific vocabulary and structures useful for conducting a medical interview in Spanish. Aspects of Latin American and Hispanic/Latino cultures in the health and medical fields are explored by means of examining authentic texts and through the contribution of guest speakers. The course includes a telecollaboration project with students from a Colombian medical school.

SPA 207 seeks to develop advanced language skills and raise cultural awareness by studying language in its contexts of use. An exciting selection of literary and cinematic productions from the Hispanic world provide the basis for a critical discussion of cultural meanings and social relations, while offering the chance to explore difference registers and styles. SPA 207 students tackle original writing assignments that enhance their ability to express complex ideas in Spanish and hone their oral skills with debates, role-plays and projects that encourage independent learning and invite participation and collaboration.

A course designed to improve speaking abilities while learning about Hispanic cultures and cinema in context. The course aims to provide the students with lexical and grammatical tools to allow them to engage in formal and informal discussion on a variety of topics informed by the films provided. Additionally, there will be several writing exercises throughout the semester that will help students improve their writing abilities. By the end of the course, students should have a better command of all linguistic skills, especially listening comprehension, fluency and accuracy in their speech.

Offered as an overview of the social, cultural, and political aspects that forge linguistic variation in the Spanish-speaking world, students discuss issues of power, identity, globalization, policymaking, social status, gender, and ideology to understand cases of linguistic variation and change. Students will recognize particular features distinguishing one dialect from another, while gaining knowledge of the development of these differences. This course will enrich a student's view of Spanish as a social construct, either as a native/heritage speaker or as a Spanish learner, and will allow students to develop their analytical skills.

How do we represent meaning to ourselves and to others in contexts of difference? What social and historical conceptions of language are operational in our scriptural practices and cultures of scholarship? Because texts are embedded in, and shaped by, communities with shared histories and social practices, by experiencing different ways of reading and writing, we can explore not only new words, but new worlds. This course offers substantial practice to help students write creatively and credibly in Spanish, using the writing process recursively to present their ideas in an articulate, sophisticated manner.

Since 2018 the feminist movement has massively and transnationally re-emerged. Particularly in the Spanish-speaking world, the enormous momentum of its struggle has generated profound political, social, and cultural transformations. In this course we will study the so-called 4th Feminist Wave from a varied number of media (literature, film, social media, archives, etc.) created by artists, intellectuals, and activists from the Spanish-speaking world. The aim of the course is to promote a rigorous knowledge of the recent history of feminism in The Americas and Europe and to encourage reflection on the relevance of its claims and achievements

An introduction to Latin American cultures and artistic and literary traditions through a wide spectrum of materials. We will discuss relevant issues in Latin American cultural, political, and social history, including the legacy of colonialism and indigenous resistance, the African diaspora, national fictions, popular and mass culture, gender and racial politics. Materials: essays by Ángel Rama, short stories by Julio Cortázar and Samanta Schweblin, poems by Afro-Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén and period Cuban son music; paintings by Mexican muralists, films by Patricio Guzmán and Jayro Bustamante, writings by indigenous activist Ailton Krenak.

Flotsam. Jetsam. Hunger. Nudity. Lone survivors washed ashore. What can tales of shipwreck tell us about the cultures, societies and technologies that produce them? We read narratives and watch films of disaster and survival from the sixteenth century to the present, with an eye to how these texts can challenge or reinforce the myths that empires and nation-states tell about themselves and others.

This course examines the paradoxical position of Spanish in the United States. The course aims to place the issues and controversies related to linguistic subordination and the maintenance of Spanish and in the broader context of Latino communities and their social and historical position in the United States. In addition, it tries to equip students with critical resources to address topics such as the relationship between language and identity, political debates around Spanish and English, and bilingualism and the processes of racialization of linguistic minorities.

SPA 307 is an advanced language course. Its main purpose is to develop and reinforce accuracy and fluency in both writing and speaking Spanish. Students will also learn to identify linguistic features that characterize different genres, as well as social and cultural factors that aid in the interpretation and understanding of different texts and types of speech. More specifically, the course aims at providing the tools for discourse analysis, raising awareness of the social and ideological values that permeate discursive practices, and developing autonomy and proficiency as an advanced learner of Spanish language.

The ways in which individuals and societies define space and place is very revealing. The investigation of space and place-how cultures turn material, racial, and/or metaphysical settings into human landscapes defining home, neighborhood, and nation-is a deeply important optic that dramatizes social, racial, political, and religious factors. At the same time, it can be used to track the changes of these realities over time. Because of its unique mix of Jews, Christians, and Moors, medieval Iberia offers near laboratory conditions for the study of space and place in their racial, ethnic, literary, religious, and political identities.

Why write or read novels in the age of hyper-information and immediacy? What can the novel tell us about the present and its conflicts? In this course, we will reflect on different forms of present-day violence through the quiet and careful reading of 5 novels by young Spanish writers. The course will facilitate interaction and collaboration with students at Northwestern University, and during April students from both universities will participate in a virtual encounter with some of the authors, as well as in an online workshop.

An introduction to the history of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) and its repercussion in literature, art, architecture and music. In addition to discussing the major Revolutionaries, including Madero, Zapata, Villa, we will study figures who sough to create a cultural revolution in the arts: Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti, Diego Rivera, Mariano Azuela, among others.

Global capitalism has often imagined Latin America as a collection of "raw" commodities ready to be extracted. In this class, we explore this way of conceiving the region through its cultural production. Throughout the semester, we will engage with various "exemplary" commodities, including bananas, rubber, and sugar. We will look at their representations in literature, art, movies, and economic texts, but also at how commodities themselves -as material objects with a history- have shaped aesthetical forms. This approach will serve as an entry point for understanding inequality, neocolonialism, patriarchy, and climate change in the region

This course is an introduction to the practice of literary translation from Spanish to English, with a focus on fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. After a series of translation exercises, each student will select an author and work to be translated as the central project for the class, and will embark on the process of revising successive drafts. Close reading of the Spanish texts is required, as is a deep engagement with the translations of fellow students. Subjects of discussion will include style, context, the conventions of contemporary translation, and the re translation of classics.

This seminar relates Caribbean music to historical and contemporary migratory issues. It examines questions of listening, memory, joy, diaspora, and the Anthropocene through genres like: son, bolero, calypso, salsa, reggae, merengue, bomba, and reggaeton. Attention to gender, sexual and racial inequities in portrayals of migrant cultures as symbolic of multiculturalism, while migrants are stigmatized as risks to security. Seminar speaks to current global context of displacement with focus on climate change's impact on the Caribbean. We study music, sound, performance, literary, ethnographic and historical texts, visual arts, and journalism.

This course offers an introduction to key terms, concepts and issues in the fields of second-language acquisition and language-teaching pedagogy as it relates to the teaching of Portuguese and Spanish. Students acquire theoretical knowledge and develop and practice skills that prepare them to teach foreign languages, select content and create materials, assess student performance, and reflect upon their own teaching practice. The teaching of culture/literature and use of technology are also considered.

The "Spanish Pacific" designates the geographical space Spain colonized or aspired to rule in Asia between 1521, the year Ferdinand Magellan reached the East by sailing West, and 1815, the year when the yearly galleon that linked Mexico to the Philippines stopped operating. It includes the Philippines and the Marianas - territories ruled by the Spanish Crown - but also parts of China, Japan, and other parts of Asia that Spanish officials and missionaries imagined as extensions of their American colonies. This course introduces the Spanish Pacific through the examination of a varied selection of primary sources written mainly in Spanish.

An overview of the major works that emerged after the Cuban Revolution and of the debates about the relationship between culture and politics. The focus on the seminar is on the interrelation between architecture, film, and literature. What was the architecture of the Cuban Revolution? How was it portrayed in films and novels? How did debates about politically-engaged art and social realism enter into the field of architecture? Special focus in the Art Schools (ISA), Housing Complexes, and Architectural Pavilions erected in the 1960s.

The three cities that we "visit" were major population centers in their own right prior to the arrival of the European invaders in the 16th century. We ask ourselves, both how they became colonial cities and how might we, as readers in the 21st century, see the traces of these transformations in the cultural artifacts produced by Spanish, Criollo, Indigenous, and Afro-Peruvian authors. The palimpsest as metaphor for the city would imply that many layers of writing, traces and erasures may be observed on the urban surface.

This course introduces students to important texts from the immense body of scholarship on slavery, anti-slavery movements, and post-emancipation culture in the Iberian Atlantic world, focusing primarily on the "slave societies"of 19th-century Cuba and Brazil and their connections to the greater Caribbean. Grounded in historiography, the course includes literature, court documents, visual culture, studies of post-emancipation movements, theories from the black radical tradition, and films about Latin American slavery. Sub-topics include insurrections, autobiography, religion, the role of translators, conucos/provision grounds, fashion.