SPAN 398 - Spanish-American Seminar

FDR: HL
Credits: 3
Planned Offering: Fall, Winter

Prerequisites:SPAN 240 and either SPAN 215 or 275. A seminar focusing on a single period, genre, motif, or writer. Recent topics have included “Spanish American Women Writers: From America into the 21st Century,” “20th Century Latin America Theater,” and “Past, Memory, and Identity in Contemporary Argentina’s Cultural Products.” May be repeated for degree credit if the topics are different.

Winter 2014 Topic:

SPAN 398: Beyond the Revolution: Artistic Expression in 20th-Century Mexico (3). Prerequisites: SPAN 240 and either SPAN 215 or 275. This course examines the artistic reaction to the Mexican Revolution and seeks to understand the aesthetic impact on 20th-century Mexican artists from a wide variety of genres. The multi-genre approach includes examples from narrative, poetry, essay, and visual arts (murals and film), among others. As a broad survey of 20th-century Mexican masterpieces, the selected materials illustrate how different artists chose to approach, incorporate, and respond to the ideals and outcomes of Mexico’s social and political revolution. Barnett.

Fall 2013 Topic:

SPAN 398-01: Spanish-American Seminar: Fictions of Self-Representation (3) Prerequisites: SPAN 240 and 275. The course examines forms of self-representation through the reading of literary and non-literary works. In addition to conceptual discussions of how artists use fictionalized forms of self-portraiture in diverse Latin-American contexts, special attention is paid to issues of subjectivity, self-empowerment, authority, and reader recognition, among others. Primary texts focus mainly on the 19th and 20th centuries. (HL) Botta.