UC Center, Madrid

This course offers an introduction to the principles and foundations of data science.

This intensive Spanish language and culture course is specifically geared for heritage language-learners who have bilingual communicative skills. It refines existing oral and written skills, while improving formal (linguistic/pragmatic) language proficiency. The course also takes advantage of students' immersion in Spanish life to incorporate intercultural learning and provide further context to the grammatical, lexical, and cultural content of the course. Assessment is based on essays, oral presentations, homework, a cultural blog, midterm and final exams, participation, and attendance. Texts: Alonso Raya, Rosario et al. Gramática básica del estudiante de español. Madrid: Editorial Difusión.

This course examines cultural, literary, and social histories of urban space in Madrid in order to question how the city contributes to shaping identities—cross-cut by gender, sexuality, social class, ethnicity, citizenship, etc.—and in turn, how the urban milieu is negotiated by them. The course takes the contemporary city of Madrid as its point of departure, in comparison with Paris, New York, London, the suburbs, etc., and examines case studies that address the entanglements among urban spaces, politics, and identities from modern and contemporary history. The material is organized into four thematic units: I. (Dis-)Identifying with Identities: identity politics & communities of difference today; spatial identities & non-places; identity politics in recent social movements; Spanish Nationalism and its transgressions in the 20th century. II. Questioning the Public and Private: gender in 19th century society and the home; masculinity, femininity, and homosexual cultural codes in the early 20th century public; reclaiming public space after dictatorship; camera surveillance in the democratic era. III. Desirable Cities, Desiring Cities: consumer desire and the origins of advertising; the surrealist and situationist critiques of urban life; urban decay, revival, and neighborhood struggles against gentrification in defense of the ‘right to the city.' IV. Sensing the City: Memory, Affect, and the Unseen: cultural heritage and historical memory in the urban landscape; Fear, terrorism, security in the city and the suburbs; citizenship, consumerism, and its ‘others'; digital dystopias.

This course compares the political ecologies of Spain and California, two regions of the world with significantly different environmental histories, political systems, and socio-economic and political actors but strikingly similar Mediterranean type ecosystems. In particular, this course focuses on two crucial environmental issues for both these regions—water and land use—and how these have emerged as central items in the political agendas in both regions. The course explores the nature of the so-called “water wars” in California and Spain and how both regions have attempted to reconcile conflicting public and private interests over water use rights. It also looks at landscape planning and how urbanization has often ignored crucial ecological disturbance processes, such as landscape fires, with unforeseen and often catastrophic consequences. The class excursions include a visit to the public company that provides water to the Madrid region, the Canal de Isabel II, to learn about water policy in Madrid, and to the chestnut forest ecosystems of two different autonomous regional community governments in Avila and Madrid to witness the diverging impacts of different governance policies on the same natural system. A meeting with representatives of the Ministry of the Environment to learn about landscape planning is also scheduled.

This interdisciplinary course focuses on one of the most important recent developments in Spanish society: the onset in the 1990s of mass immigration from Europe, Africa, and Latin America. Spain's long history of expulsions, enforced religious uniformity, colonialism, contending regional and national identities and loyalties, and the marginalization of the Roma minority, provides an obvious starting point from which to consider both migrant experiences in Spain, and the way migration is reconfiguring contemporary attitudes and identities in Spanish society. Against this historical background, the course examines the dynamics and demographics of migration to and—again more recently—from Spain, and more generally, migrants' integration into the education system, the labor market, and social, political and cultural life. Class discussions and readings analyze the Spanish response to immigration, whether in the shape of laws and public policies, media representations of migrants, or public attitudes and behavior towards newcomers and ethnic minorities, including racism. The course ends by considering the impact of the ongoing economic crisis on immigrants, and the interplay between migration and current nationalist tensions within Spain, particularly the areas surrounding Catalonia and the Basque Country.

This B1 level intensive Spanish language and culture course is geared for students who have previously completed introductory language course work. It builds on prior language foundations and integrates additional oral and written linguistic skills, improving communication competencies within the B1 and B2 levels. The course also takes advantage of students' immersion in Spanish life to incorporate intercultural learning and provide further context to the grammatical, lexical, and cultural content of the course. Assessment is based on essays, oral presentations, homework, a cultural blog, midterm and final exams, participation, and attendance. Texts: Corpas, Jaime et al. AULA 4 Nueva Edición. Libro del Alumno. Nivel B1.2. Madrid: Editorial Difusión. Alonso Raya, Rosario et al. Gramática básica del estudiante de español. Madrid: Editorial Difusión.