Graduate Seminars (Spring 2010) Download Course Advising/Registration Form Download PDF of Graduate Seminar Descriptions Spring 2010 Graduate Seminar Descriptions DEPARTMENT OF SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE     SPAN 5120/7120 SEM-Documents of Culture and Documents of Barbarism: Readings in Nineteenth-Century Argentine Literature Professor Juan Pablo Dabove Tuesdays 3:30-6:00 p.m.   The seminar will be devoted to an in-depth examination of nineteenth century Argentine literature, at the time, arguably the better developed and most influential of Spanish America.    The works will be analyzed as expressions of / interventions in the cultural and historical struggles of the nation-state, from its uncertain beginnings to its prosperous (as well as ominous) economic and cultural zenith at the turn of the century.  Similarly, the texts will be analyzed as literary landmarks that illustrate the main developments in nineteenth century literary history, from the essayistic prose of the Enlightenment to Modernism, through Costumbrismo, Romanticism, Realism, the Gauchesca and Naturalism.   Our examination will encompass the entire century, from the secret (and highly controversial) political action plan of Creole Jacobin Mariano Moreno, conceived in the midst of the Independence wars, to the wildly popular sentimental novel of César Duayen (pseudonym of Emma de la Barra), written and published when the old oligarchic order (orden conservador) was approaching its twilight.   List of Works   Moreno, Mariano. Plan de operaciones Echeverría, Esteban El Matadero Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino. Facundo Mármol. José. Amalia Manso, Juana. Los misterios del Plata Hernández, José. Martín Fierro Gutiérrez, Eduardo. Juan Moreira Mansilla, Lucio. Una excursión a los indios ranqueles Cambaceres, Eugenio. En la sangre Lugones, Leopoldo. Las fuerzas extrañas Duayen, César. Mecha Iturbe SPAN 5140/7140, SEM-Género, amor y sexualidad en la literatura española medieval Professor Núria Silleras-Fernández Fridays 3:30-6:00 p.m.   This graduate seminar, taught in Spanish, will focus on a series of topics and concepts relevant for understanding medieval Spanish Literature, such as canon, gender, sex difference, masculinity, authority, misogyny, love, lovesickness, courtly love, la querelle des femmes and sexuality. We’ll study these themes in canonical and non-canonical genres and texts. We’ll mostly read works written in Spanish -- some well-known, such as El Libro de Buen Amor, El Arcipreste de Talavera, La Celestina, El Jardín de nobles doncellas and some Cancionero poetry, along with other, more obscure texts, such as letters and other texts written by women. To acknowledge the linguistic diversity and complexity of Medieval Iberia we’ll also analyze some writings in translation, such as medieval translations from Arabic texts, like Sendebar, and small fragments of texts written in Catalan, such as Francesc Eiximenis’s, Llibre de les dones.    SPAN 5200-7200, SEM-La controversia en torno a Góngora: Góngora y el gongorismo Professor Julio Baena Thursdays 3:30-6:00 p.m.   Góngora is possibly the most controversial author in the entire history of Spanish literature. The controversy over his work, especially over his Soledades, began even before the long poem was finished, and is still open today. Important things are at stage, belonging to all areas of literary criticism and critical thinking: the bounds of language, the meaning of “meaning,” the autonomy of poetry, representation, the construction of subjectivity/objectivity, the context of art, the Baroque, modernity as a point of no return, and many other issues. Góngora’s contemporaries perceive all this—especially his enemies: his friends often read him less well—and therefore react to his poetry as if to a rash, or an infection that threatens the very foundations of their world. On the one hand, Góngora personifies the Baroque—nobody is more Baroque than Góngora—but on the other hand the Baroque abhors Góngora. In Spain, little by little, and culminating in, for instance, Menéndez Pelayo, the Canon judges Góngora as a monster, while, at the same time, in Spanish America, Góngora is received as a source of true inspiration, and, as it were, feels right at home. The Vanguardia (at both sides of the Atlantic) re-evaluates Góngora, claiming him as “one of them”, but Spanish academia continues to this day to belittle his work, and that of his followers. In a country in which regional celebrities are usually overestimated by the local institutions, we find that Villamediana, possibly the best poet ever born in Valladolid, doesn’t even have a street named after him in this city, and his poetry is not even taught in the Universidad de Valladolid. In this seminar, we will try to understand why.   We will read Góngora’s poetry, together with that of select “Gongoristas” such as Villamediana or Soto de Rojas, together with work from the Colonies (Domínguez Camargo) or from a “Marrano” poet (Henríquez Gómez). We will also look at the Spanish mystics—at first glance the very opposite to Góngora—to look for clues as to the crisis of language. We will read important theoretical work by authors such as Michel de Certeau, Julia Kristeva, Roland Barthes, Roman Jakobson, Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio, Agustín García Calvo, as well as specific criticism on Góngora by Menéndez Pelayo, Dámaso Alonso, Jorge Guillén, John Beverley, Crystal Chemris, Humberto Huergo, and many others.   SPAN 5210/7210 SEM-Approaches to 18-19 Century Spanish Canon Professor Ricardo Landeira Mondays 3:30-6:00 p.m.   The seminar will delve into some of the most salient texts of the 18th and 19th century peninsular Spanish literature. All four genres will be examined and will be represented by, among others, Moratin, Duque de Rivas, Zorrilla, Espronceda, Becquer, Larra, Pardo Bazan, Valera, Clarin and Blasco Ibanez. Close reading of the selected works will be the predominant critical method. One oral presentation, one long monograph and active weekly seminar participation will determine the final class grade.   SPAN 5220/7220 SEM-Making the Imperial Past Present: Literature and National Memory Crosslisted with Comparative Literature Professor Javier Krauel Wednesdays 3:30-6:00 p.m. If the recent debates about historical memory in Spain have taught us anything, it is that professional historians have lost their monopoly on providing knowledge of the past. Politicians, journalists, independent citizens and, importantly, essayists and novelists, are continually producing knowledge about past events. Taking its cue from contemporary debates on historical memory, this course will examine the public use of history in Spain at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, focusing on narratives about the Spanish empire. Just when the referent (the Spanish Empire) was vanishing, stories proliferated about the “discovery,” conquest, and colonization of America. We will explore some of these narratives and their political implications as they appear both in the works of canonical intellectuals (Menéndez Pelayo, Miguel de Unamuno, Ángel Ganivet, Ramón del Valle-Inclán, and José Ortega y Gasset, among others) and in more elusive cultural objects such as the 1892 commemorations of Columbus’s first voyage. This will allow us to reconsider some central concepts that have dominated theoretical approaches to the interplay between literature and history in twentieth-century discussions—among them, the debate between positivistic and constructivist approaches to historical scholarship, the distinction between different types of memory (social vs. cultural), and the relationship between nationalism and historical knowledge. The main focus of this course will be the Spanish literary tradition, but theoretical readings will be done in English. Depending on the interests of the class, there may be readings from other traditions.   SPAN 5320/7320 SEM-Mestizaje, Transculturación, Hibridez, Heterogeneidad Professor Leila Gómez Thursdays 7:00-9:30 p.m.             En este seminario examinaremos los conceptos teóricos latinoamericanos que han marcado el cauce más profundo del debate crítico cultural y literario a lo largo del siglo XX y XXI: el mestizaje, la hibridez, la transculturación y la heterogeneidad. Estudiaremos los textos teóricos pertinentes de José Vasconcelos, Ricardo Rojas, Fernando Ortíz, Ángel Rama, Néstor García Canclini y Antonio Cornejo Polar así como sus críticos y sus resonancias con la teoría postcolonial (Homi Bhabha y Robert Young). Fuertemente reflexivo, este curso se propone asimismo poner en diálogo la teoría latinoamericana con la literatura: con poesía selecta en traducción del quechua y Yawar Fiesta, de José María Arguedas, Hombres de maíz, de Miguel Ángel Asturias, Oficio de tinieblas, de Rosario Castellanos, Yo, el Supremo, de Augusto Roa Bastos, Sota de bastos caballo de espadas, de Héctor Tizón y The Purple Land, de William Henry Hudson. Un capítulo de este seminario estará dedicado a estudiar el concepto de hibridez en la literatura latina en Estados Unidos, particularmente en The House in Mango Street, de Sandra Cisneros.   SPAN 5400/7400 SEM SEM-Lenguas en contacto; fenómenos lingüísticos Professor Esther Brown Wednesdays 3:30-6:00 p.m. KTCH 231   This course is a graduate-level introduction to the study of contact linguistics. We will examine different contact situations and current theoretical approaches to the study of different types of contact-induced change. Social and linguistic factors of contact situations will be examined, as well as issues of societal and individual bilingualism. Emphasis will be given to case studies of Spanish in contact in which hypotheses are tested empirically and students will be required to work with Spanish data.