University of Barcelona

This course focuses on the basic concepts of phonetics and phonology and applies them to the phonological system of Spanish. Topics include: physical and physiological characteristics of sounds; articulatory and acoustic classification of Spanish vowels and consonants; variation in the pronunciation of Spanish, including geographical and social varieties of Spanish; the phonological system of Spanish: inventory of phonemes and their characterization by distinctive features; phonological oppositions; the Spanish syllable; prosodic units-- accent and intonation. 

This course introduces various types of linguistic mechanisms and ways of thinking that can be harmful or defective. It considers pejorative terms that are used to denigrate other people based on their social identity, such as race, ethnic group, nationality, religious group, and sexual orientation. The course also discusses issues related to conceptual ethics, which considers concepts that are not the most useful for describing reality and how to revise or modify them to achieve different theoretical or practical objectives. Finally, the course examines the mechanism of silencing, which consists of speech acts aimed at incapacitating the audience from performing certain types of speech acts, altering the meaning of their words or the type of actions they can perform with them. 

This course introduces the language, culture, and society of Catalonia and builds basic linguistic and cultural competence. It offers practical notions of the Catalan language, as well as general information about the culture and society: traditional festivals of Catalonia, customs, and distinctive characteristics of this autonomous community, which has its own language and culture.

This course focuses on the aesthetic theoretical foundations of image composition. It discusses the parameters for camera use that determine image capture and the principles of scene lighting to achieve a desired aesthetic and narrative result.

This course provides an introduction to medical robotics and its applications. It covers recent developments in robotics for medical applications, position and orientation (POSE) of a robotic system, the kinematics of arm-type and vehicle-type robots, the trajectory of an arm-type robot end effector, and the different biomedical system controls.

The course provides a historical and critical analysis of 20th century Spanish literature. It examines tradition and originality in literary texts throughout history; the classical foundations of literature; the evolution of rhetorical and poetic tradition; and genre theory. Topics include the modernist revolution, the new art of the novel, the war novel and novelists of exile, the rehabilitation of realism, novel and memoir, literature and experimentation, novel and democracy, and thinking through novels.

This course provides an introduction to iconography and iconology and considers the power of the symbol. It covers the foundations of aesthetics and philosophy of the image, hermeneutic methods, and analysis of images and artistic languages. The course discusses the creation, revolution, and destruction of images between East and West; iconological schools; and literal iconoclasms. Finally, it examines the origins of medieval aesthetics to the invention of art in modernity, considering subliminal, ancient, and contemporary iconoclasms.

Topics in this introductory political science course include: politics; the state; democracy; elections; collective action; institutions and public policy.

This course presents a critical analysis of Spanish Romanticism literary texts, the evolution of rhetorical and poetic tradition, and genre theory. Topics include: history, ideology, and poetics; theater and historical drama; journalism and literature; narrative prose; poetry.

This course offers 40 hours of intermediate study of Spanish language for students at a B1.1 to B2.2 level, according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.