Courses & Requirements

SPA-101: Elementary Spanish I (4.00)

ELEMENTARY SPANISH I--Fundamentals of Spanish for speaking, listening, writing and reading. Emphasis on proficiency achievement and cultural awareness of the Hispanic world. Not open to students with one or more years of Spanish in high school. All students with more than one year of Spanish are required to take the placement test.

SPA-102: Elementary Spanish II (4.00)

ELEMENTARY SPANISH II--Continuation of 101. All students with more than one year of Spanish are required to take the placement test.

SPA-201: Intermediate Spanish I (4.00)

Grammar review, conversation, listening, comprehension, composition and reading. All students with more than one year of Spanish are required to take the placement test.

SPA-202: Intermediate Spanish II (4.00)

Continuation of 201 including an introduction to the critical reading of literary texts. All students with more than one year of Spanish are required to take the placement test.

SPA-205: Advanced Conversation (4.00)

Continued study of Hispanic cultures with special emphasis on the development of conversational, written and listening expression in Spanish.

Course requisites: SPA-202 or higher with a minimum grade of C-

SPA-212: Spanish for Business (4.00)

This course provides an opportunity to learn how Spanish is used in business negotiations, financial transactions, entrepreneurship, management, and corporate relations. Students learn to communicate appropriately and effectively through the study of different kinds of written and visual texts and through frequent writing and role-playing. Given the diversity within the Hispanic World, special attention is also devoted to cross-cultural and linguistic differences and similarities within the region.

Course requisites: SPA-202 or exemption from language requirement

SPA-221: Spanish for the Health Professions (4.00)

This course provides students with Spanish language skills needed to communicate effectively in medical settings. The course reviews basic medical terminology related to anatomy, diseases, and symptoms, and presents common phrases present in doctor-patient interactions, and cultural topics relevant to patient care. Topics covered include patient intake, medical history-taking, and treatment plans. The course also provides an understanding of important cultural nuances, the different cultural backgrounds of Latine patients in the U.S., and the challenges they face in the U.S. healthcare system. The course includes a service-learning component. (Cross-listed with PH-221.)

Course requisites: SPA-202 or exemption from language requirement

SPA-250: Advanced Grammar and Communication (4.00)

This course provides review and further study of Spanish grammar and stylistics through the examination of "real-world" texts from newspapers, literature, scholarly essays, etc. Students will complete focused exercises and more open forms of writing in order to prepare for advanced academic work in Spanish.

Course requisites: SPA-202 or higher (with a minimum grade C‒) or exemption from language requirement

SPA-321: Latin American and Latine Cultures through Literature and the other Arts (4.00)

From a historical perspective and through the analysis of different cultural representations and practices— prehispanic myths, graffities, urban culture, photography, literature, music, film, food—the course draws a panoramic image of Latin America and how its culture has been determined by colonialism, imperialism, racism, social inequity, political turmoil, and extractivism. The course places Latin America and its diaspora as sites of struggle and resistance that are not only objects of study but also sites of knowledge production. The corpus includes different theoretical approaches such as ecocriticism, health humanities, care studies, and gender studies in order to understand the complexity of Latin American and U.S. Latine cultures.

Course requisites: SPA-205 or SPA-250

SPA-322: Spanish Culture through Literature and the other Arts (4.00)

Located at the confluence of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, Spain has been a cross-roads of various cultures since prehistory. Enduring contacts with its European and African neighbors and with more distant peoples in the Americas and Asia have shaped its development and still influence contemporary Spain. This course examines representative works of literature and the other arts (painting, architecture, film, music, etc.) in order to understand Spain's past and present, and its place in the world.

Course requisites: SPA-205 or SPA-250

SPA-325: Hispanic Cultural Studies (4.00)

Cultural studies combines literature, film, television, art, music and the press in dynamic ways to represent today's society. Disciplines such as gender studies, history, economics and other social sciences can also inform cultural studies. This interdisciplinary approach exposes students to the cultural complexities within Hispanic communities and better prepares them to interact with native speakers once outside the classroom.

Course requisites: SPA-205 or SPA-209

SPA-360: Women & Films of P Almodóvar (4.00)

ALL ABOUT WOMEN ON THE VERGE: WOMEN AND THE FILMS OF P. ALMODÓVAR. Pedro Almodóvar, Spain's best known film maker, has stood the test of time and come to personify the emergence of a revitalized Spanish culture in the wake of thirty-six years of military dictatorship. In fact, many attribute the international prominence of contemporary Spanish cinema to the popularity of his films beyond the borders of his native country. But while few question the significance of his artistic vision, his works have often aroused strong criticism, in spite of his own claims that he "loves women," for the sometimes-questionable treatment of female characters. In addition to viewing a selection of films by Almodóvar, students will read and discuss the different kinds of texts that have been written about his films (i.e., scholarly journal articles, newspaper reviews and popular opinion) as well as consider more general notions regarding the interpretation of film and the portrayal of women in the arts. Cross-listed with ENG/WS-360.

Course requisites: ENG-110 prereq required (or permission)

SPA-362: Between El Dorado and La Madre Patria: Trans-Atlantic Migrations in the Hispanic World (4.00)

This course examines portrayals in literature and film of the migration experiences of Spaniards in the “New World” and Latin Americans in Spain, the so-called “Motherland.” Special attention will be paid to the conquerors and colonists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the political refugees who fled the Franco dictatorship of the twentieth century, and Latin American migrant workers who sought opportunities in Spain in the early twenty-first century.

Course requisites: SPA-250 – AND – SPA-321, SPA-322, or SPA-325

SPA-367: Writing Disease in Latin American and Latine Literature (4.00)

Using health humanities as a field of inquiry and practice, this course provides the skills needed to read and understand stories of illness. Through the analysis of representations of disease in Latin America, we will understand disease as an ordinary and extraordinary human experience that goes beyond medical diagnosis, etiology and statistics. We will interpret illness as a personal story: as someone’s journey of physical pain, suffering, uncertainty, anxiety, fear of dying, and cure. By encountering such stories and by the powerful immersion that literature provides, the course will theoretically define empathy and compassion and will explore its importance within health care. The corpus includes theoretical approaches to narrative medicine, textual representations of disease in Latin American literature, and writers’ personal accounts of their own illnesses. (Cross-listed with PH-367.)

Course requisites: SPA-250 – and – SPA-321, SPA-322, or SPA-325

SPA-369: The Extraordinary Body in Latin American Literature (4.00)

This course explores the uncanny presence of the extraordinary body—monsters, cyborgs, copycats, chimeras, ghosts, etc.—in Latin American gothic literature. By reading a corpus that runs from the turn of the nineteenth century to the present, the course traces the different ways in which gothic bodies do not conform to normativity, ableism, and biopolitics. Through the lens of disability studies, the course analyzes gothic bodies as “misbehaved” and examines how they challenge normative identities and hegemonic discourses. The course also studies how bodies are represented as sites of horror, desire, and resistance that interrogate questions of identity, citizenship, belonging, and trauma. Key topics explored include the intersection of medical discourses, technology, the fantastic, and folklore; the interweaving of the supernatural with socio-political realities; and the undermining of colonial legacies through Gothic aesthetics.

Course requisites: SPA-250 – and – SPA-321, SPA-322, or SPA-325

SPA-371: Motherhood in Contemporary Spanish, Latin American, and Latine Cultures (4.00)

This course explores the experience of motherhood as a physical and cultural event that affects women’s bodies and identities. From desired maternities to imposed ones, from conventional mothers to dissident ones, this course analyzes different representations of motherhood in contemporary Spanish, Latin American, and Latine cultural production (literature, films, art and photography) and its relationship with social conventions, culture, race, medical care, gender, illness, violence and loss. This course reviews the turning points in the life of a mother such as gestation, parenting, relationships between mothers and sons/daughters, anxiety, and the sorrow and mourning of a child’s death. The course deconstructs the idealized vision of motherhood and its relationship to the societal mandate of being a woman but at the same time presents it as an act of desire and resistance. The course also shows the different ways in which being a mother in contemporary contexts are determined by coloniality, racism, social inequity, and violence.

Course requisites: SPA-250 – and – SPA-321, SPA-322, or SPA-325

SPA-410: Directed Reading (1.00)

Directed reading courses are open to qualified juniors and seniors to pursue reading outside a program's listed courses. See the Special Curricular Opportunities section for more information.

SPA-440: Directed Research (4.00)

Directed research courses are open to junior and senior majors to work with a faculty member on a project related to a particular field of intellectual or artistic interest. See the Special Curricular Opportunities section for more information.

SPA-450: Internship (4.00)

For juniors and seniors who want a more-focused academic component to accompany their internship, the independently designed 450 may be an option. Students must identify a faculty sponsor and complete detailed paperwork for approval from the Career Exploration Center. See the Special Curricular Opportunities section for more information.

SPA-490: Senior Thesis (4.00)

A senior thesis gives students the opportunity to write a thesis about a project related to a particular field of intellectual or artistic interest. See the Special Curricular Opportunities section for more information.