Spanish

The course analyzes key texts in the development of contemporary theater in Spain and Latin America. The course explores the history of contemporary Hispanic theatre through examination of key authors, texts and trends in Spain and Latin America since the beginning of the 20th century.

This course provides a study of the role of emotions within modern and contemporary Latin American narrative and novels. Topics include: characterization of the emotions of love, hate, fear, hope, happiness, sadness, and disgust; the role emotions play in novels and how it affects the body; the social, ideological, and esthetic dimensions of emotions. Texts include: Juan Rodolfo Wilcok, LOS AMANTES; Nona Fernández, CHILEAN ELECTRIC; Ana Peluffo, EL CLAVE EMOCIONAL. CULTURA Y AFECTO EN AMÉRICA LATINA; Mariana Enriquez, EL CHICO SUCIO.

This course explores the characteristics, phases of development, trends, works, and authors of 20th century Latin American literature. Topics include: the pro-indigenous novel; reality transfigured; the current panorama of Latin American literature; modernity and post-modernity.

This Spanish language course corresponds to intermediate advanced level (B2 on the CEFR). By the end of the course students can understand the main ideas in complex texts that are concrete and abstract; interact with native speakers with sufficient fluency and naturalness; produce clear and detailed texts on various topics and defend points of view on general topics indicating pros and cons. The course integrates topics on Chilean culture. 

In this course, students examine a selection of key theater texts by contemporary Spanish dramatists from the early 18th century to the present. Students analyze how the selected plays are representative of trends and innovations in the contemporary Spanish stage. Throughout the course, students work not only with the dramatic texts but also with documents illustrative of their performance histories, such as filmic or journalistic records, in order to contextualize the dialogue between writing and performance from a historical, cultural and theatrical perspective. Special attention is paid to the ways in which theater is disseminated and how commercial and/or political considerations can affect the trajectory of a dramatic text, from page to stage.

This course analyzes the history and dialectology of Latin American Spanish, with special focus on Chilean history and linguistic documentation of the colonial and post-colonial eras. Topics include: the concept of Latin American Spanish-- unity and diversity, Latin American Spanish and Atlantic Spanish; the influence of Andalusia and genetic matrices; diastratic-diatopic variation and zoning; historical aspects-- periodization of Latin American Spanish; koineization and standardization processes; linguistic contact-- indigenous substrata and immigrant languages.

This course examines the problems, methods, and results of semantics and pragmatics, with an emphasis on how they complement one another. It explores the development of semantics and pragmatics and contextualizes them in the development of general linguistics theory. Finally, this courses uses an organic assembly of theoretical concepts and methodologies for semantic and pragmatic analysis of the Spanish language.

Students study works by post Spanish Civil War writers. The novels chosen are written in radically different styles, ranging from social realism and naturalism to post-modernity or extreme experimentalism, and treat an array of themes, the conflict between the individual and society, the struggle against social norms and sexual morality, the deployment of fiction as a means of shaping both personal and national identity, and the alienating effects of modern society. Via these novels a variety of issues are considered, such as the changing role of the novel over the 20th century, the way novelists create an individual "voice" in dialogue with their predecessors, the function of the reader in the interpretative process, and the socio-political environment and sexual politics of reading and writing fiction.

This course provides a study of pre-Hispanic Mayan literature and culture as it interacts and changes with the beginning of colonization. Topics include: from izapa to post-classic; cosmogeny, structure of the univers, pantheon, and calendars; social structure-- nobility, commoners, and slaves; political organization-- lordships and states; economic organization-- tribute and trade. Authors and texts covered include: Fray Diego de Landa; Mercedes de la Garza; Chilam balam de Chumayel; Rabinal Achi; Popol Vuh.