Course Descriptions

Overview of literary periods and introduction to the major literary figures of Portugal, Brazil and the Luso-African countries (Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and Porto Principe) from the beginning of their literature to 1900. Graduate-level requirements include a 20-page paper and an oral presentation.

Through an interdisciplinary approach, the students will be in contact with the contemporary literature produced in Brazil, Portugal and Lusophone Africa. Graduate-level requirements include a final paper.

Broad survey of Brazilian culture. Thematic examination of some of the major cultural developments. Topics include: Brazilian music, Afro-Brazilian culture, the role of women in Brazilian society, Brazilian popular culture. Graduate students required to write four research papers and give one lecture on a topic of his/her choice.

Introduction to Portuguese articulatory phonetics and phonology for the purpose of exploring the theory and the practice of pronunciation. Comparison with Spanish and English patterns. Discussion of geographic, social and diachronic variation. Practice of pronunciation and transcription of sounds. Graduate-level requirements include 15-20 page research paper, presentation of the results to class, and demonstration of greater depth and sophistication in their tests and homework.

Presentation of the masterpieces of Brazilian literature and the great films based upon them. Graduate-level requirements include an in-depth research paper.

Graduate-level requirements include active and well informed participation in class, completion of extra readings, weekly reaction papers and a final research paper.

Representative topics include: major works, authors and tendencies in the literature of the Portuguese speaking countries (Brazil, Portugal, Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Guin-Bissau, Porto Principe). Graduate-level requirements include additional research and reports.

Portuguese language and culture in an immersion context. Offered only in Fortaleza, Brazil. Recommended one year of Portuguese or the equivalent skills, and principles.

Qualified students working on an individual basis with professors who have agreed to supervise such work. Graduate students doing independent work which cannot be classified as actual research will register for credit under course number 599, 699, or 799.

The course examines sexuality as the site where multiple concerns about international migration (including social, cultural, political, economic and national) are expressed and contested, in the context of globalization and transnationalism.

Qualified students working on an individual basis with professors who have agreed to supervise such work. Graduate students doing independent work which cannot be classified as actual research will register for credit under course number 599, 699, or 799.

Broad view of fields of research, faculty and courses to familiarize students with some practical aspects of graduate studies, issues that pertain to specific fields of research and questions currently being debated across the profession.

Spanish medieval, renaissance, and golden age literature (short fiction, poetry, novel and drama) from the twelfth through the seventeenth century.

Representative topics include the development of lyric verse; Mester de Clerecia, art of the Juggler; the Romancero; the development of prose; renaissance and baroque prose or verse; Cervantes; Golden Age drama; picaresque novel.

Spanish eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth-century literature (short fiction, poetry, novel and drama).

Representative topics include Spanish romanticism; 19th century realist and naturalist Spanish prose; the generation of '98; modern Spanish prose fiction; modern Spanish Poetry; the contemporary novel of the post-franco era; modern and contemporary Spanish theater.

Spanish-American literature from the Pre-Columbian period to independence (prose, poetry and drama).

Representative topics include pre-Columbian Aztec, Mayan, and Maya-Quiche literature; the chronicle; Renaissance and baroque poetry.

Spanish American nineteenth and twentieth-century literature (short fiction, poetry, novel and drama). May be repeated up to three times, when the topic varies.

Representative topics include: nineteenth-century Hispanic-American prose fiction; modernismo; modern Hispanic-American prose fiction; modern Hispanic-American poetry; contemporary Hispanic-American prose fiction; contemporary Hispanic-American poetry; modern and contemporary Hispanic-American theater; trends in the Hispanic-American short story.

Mexican and Mexican-American literature (short fiction, poetry, novel and drama).

Representative topics include: novel of the Mexican revolution; trends in Mexican and Mexican-American films; trends in contemporary Mexican literature; Mexican American prose fiction since 1965; trends in Mexican-American theater; major movements and authors of Mexican-American literature.

Representative topics include Hispanic women writers; U. S. Hispanic literature; trends in modern and contemporary Spanish film; trends in modern and contemporary Hispanic American film.

This course surveys the growth and development of the Spanish Empire, with particular attention to Latin America, under the guidance of the new Spanish dynastic house, the Bourbons. It will focus on reorganization of Spain's political affairs in the old world and the new world. In addition, Spain's socio-economic and cultural development will be discussed. Graduate-level requirements include additional readings and meetings with instructor to develop topics for a historiographical or bibliographic essay.

The central theme of this course is the conversion of Spain from a far-flung world empire to a modern European nation-state. It will explore the many political, socio-economic, and cultural changes that have transformed Spain from a nation in decline to one of the leading nations in the European Community. Graduate-level requirements include additional readings and meetings with instructor to develop topics for a historiographical or bibliographic essay.

Topics include historical overview of major developments in literary theory and criticism with theoretical and critical analysis of Hispanic texts.

This course focuses on the pivotal role of language in the development of the Mexican American experience in the Southwest.

This introductory course focuses on the role of language in the development of Mexican-American experiences in the Southwest. In particular, it focuses on the Mexican American language experience in the borderlands of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Some of the topics included in this course are: bilingualism, language attitudes, prestige, pride, and identity as well as other linguistic issues related to Spanish in the Southwest.

This course provides graduate students with an opportunity to explore main issues and theories in the field of heritage languages from different perspectives and prepare them to conduct research in this field. Some of the topics included in the course include: heritage language populations and communities, language policies and ideologies, heritage language competence and development, and heritage language pedagogues. Emphasis will be placed on Spanish as a heritage language in the United States but other heritage languages will also be covered.

This class is intended to prepare students to teach a second/foreign language. It will provide students with the essential foundations in language teaching methodology and theory, pedagogical grammar, curriculum and materials development, classroom management, and formal and informal assessment techniques. In addition, students will gain practical knowledge through video practicum components, which allow them to watch and reflect on actual classroom teaching. Students will complete this program with the pedagogical knowledge and practical understanding necessary to be confident and effective language teachers.

This course is an overview of the phonological system of Spanish and some of the analyses proposed by generative phonology. It covers alternative accounts of the same phenomenon with the goal of introducing the student to phonological analysis and to advances made by various theories in trying to account for the facts in various dialects of Spanish. Given the need for a strong foundation and mastery of concepts and tools of phonological theory, a significant part of the course will be devoted to introducing students to them. The second part of the course focuses on the application of those tools and concepts to the phonological system of Spanish on the basis of extant analyses. A sound knowledge of the descriptive facts about the phonology of Spanish is assumed.

This course continues the study of the generative analysis of the phonological system of Spanish started in Spanish phonology I. SPAN 580 (Spanish Phonology II) reviews recent analyses of important phonological processes of Spanish, highlighting advances, difficulties and unresolved theoretical and empirical issues. The course aims to provide students with: (a) the knowledge and resources necessary to read and critique/analyze generative analyses of the phonological system of Spanish; (b) a general understanding of major theoretical models of phonology through their application to Spanish; (c) a general understanding of the challenges presented by Spanish to modern linguistic analysis, as well as the ability to formulate research questions. Students who wish to enroll in the course are required to have a sound knowledge of the descriptive facts of the phonology of Spanish and of major concepts/tools of generative phonology.

Advanced study of Spanish phonology from a generative perspective.

The goal of this course is to systematically examine methods, approaches, techniques and activities for the teaching of foreign languages and its use in the classroom. It will include an overview of learner strategies and cooperative learning, the use and adaptation of textbooks, and some of the journals available in the field. Participants will be introduced to second language acquisition theories, course design, lesson planning and testing, and have experience creating a cohesive instructional unit.

This course serves as an introduction to the main theories and practices in the field of Spanish as a Heritage Language (SHL) education. The course will begin by defining the field and SHL learners and will address issues related to the goals of SHL instruction and methods available for its teaching, sociolinguistics processes common in SHL students' Spanish and the sociopolitical position of Spanish in the US. This course incorporates a practical component of classroom observation and lesson and activity planning to prepare future teachers for effective SHL teaching practices.

Online Course Design for Advanced Language Courses is a course that provides language instructors with a foundation in Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) theory and best practices for online language course design. Through this course, students will become familiar with publications on digital pedagogy theory, be introduced to Quality Matters (QM) online design standards, and create online shells for advanced language courses, including the fields of linguistics and literature. The course will provide students with the opportunity to experience the digital classroom and, based on that experience, evaluate crucial content/design components of online FL courses. The capstone project requires each student to create and present their own online Spanish language course that complies with the QM rubric.

This course involves an examination of the methods and argumentation used in syntactic analysis, both from a general point of view and from the perspective of generative grammar. Emphasis is placed on analyzing language data, on constructing and evaluating syntactic argumentation, and on understanding the Principles & Parameters approach to the study of sentence structure. Secondarily, this course is also an introduction to scientific theorizing: what it means to construct a scientific theory, how to test a scientific theory, how to choose among competing theories. Linguistic data will be drawn from Spanish.

This course introduces students to innovations in syntactic theory that have been proposed within the last decade. Students will move beyond the introductory-text level and extend their knowledge of Principles & Parameters approaches to syntax through discussion of the goals of Minimalist Syntax and its hypotheses about design aspects of the human faculty of language. The course explores in detail how postulated minimalist primitives and operations interact to generate the (complex) structures that are characteristic of natural language sentences.

The purpose of this course is to offer a overview of the research related to the interaction between syntax, informational content, and prosodic phonology that accounts for the differences in Spanish word order.

This course serves as an introduction to the instrumental and experimental study of the sounds of Spanish, and it focuses on articulatory, acoustic, and perceptual phonetics. At the end of this course, students will be able to read and understand the primary literature on Spanish experimental phonetics as well as to conduct basic, descriptive research in this field.

This course introduces the fundamental tools to conduct research in Spanish experimental phonetics and phonology. It introduces topics such as hypothesis testing and experimental design, data collection and analysis, and reproducibility and statistics. Students will be working on an original research project in Spanish phonetics while developing their command of quantitative research methods as used in this field. At the end of this course, students will be able to carry out quantitative research in phonetics independently.

This course presents an overview of sociolinguistic issues pertaining to the contact between languages in general and the contact between Spanish with other languages in particular. We will discuss basic concepts that emerge in this field of inquiry, such as diglossia, language maintenance, attrition, shift, convergence, code-switching, and borrowing, and apply these concepts to our discussion of contexts that involve Spanish. We will read about speech communities where Spanish is the majority language (in the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America) and the minority language (in the United States). We will compare these situations and discuss how linguistic and extra-linguistic factors influence the output of contact, from both qualitative and quantitative viewpoints.

This course is an introduction to the study of Hispanic sociolinguistics from a variationist perspective. Main theoretical and methodological issues will be discussed based on examples drawn from studies of variation in Spanish. Our main focus will be on the role of Spanish in its social context as the basis for understanding issues central to observation, description, and explanation of linguistic variation and change across time. This approach allows for a close examination of the straight correlations between linguistic variation (phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical) and external constraints (pragmatic, social, and stylistic). Readings, exercises, and discussions will center on methods of data collection (e.g. sociolinguistic interview), variable rule analysis, and interpretation of quantitative and qualitative data.

This course provides practical instruction in the methods used in sociolinguistic research and the theoretical background associated with specific approaches. Some of the topics include methods of sampling populations, participant-observation techniques, questionnaire design, sociolinguistics interviews, data transcription, quantification, and record-keeping strategies.

The main goal of Introduction to Translation Studies is to introduce students to the interdisciplinary field of translation studies, the scholarly discipline that focuses on translation and interpreting research. A secondary goal is to guide participants in the design of their own research projects in an area of translation studies. The course consists of a survey component that reviews the main areas of translation studies and various issues in translation and applied linguistics, and of a more practical section that applies the concepts reviewed to the design of research projects and/or curriculum. Although there is a clear focus on those areas of translation studies relevant to applied linguistics and language acquisition, topics in literary and cultural studies will be reviewed (e.g. cultural studies, polysystems theories, etc.). Introduction to Translation Studies is aimed at students of linguistics, SLAT, literature, cultural studies, and related fields.

World Languages for Professional Purposes is a course designed to help language instructors understand and meet the demands of 21st century professionals. This course introduces students to Language for Specific Purposes (LSP), a growing branch of applied linguistics. LSP is the primary approach used by language/cultural experts who educate individuals in community and professional venues. Students enrolled in this course will learn how to perform a need analysis of linguistic and cultural skills required in specific professional fields (e.g. health care, social work, and education) as well as create course curricula based on needs analysis. The course is languages agnostic and open to graduate students from various areas of specialization. However, this course was specifically designed to meet the needs of students enrolled in the Masters in the Teaching of Spanish Education program.

The primary objective of this course is the development of language teachers' assessment literacy, which includes knowledge of key assessment principles and skill in creating or adopting assessment tools and procedures for the language classroom. Participants in this course will develop their knowledge and skills related to assessing all skill areas in the language classroom, including productive skills (writing, speaking), receptive skills (reading, listening), and assessing grammar and vocabulary. Grading and student evaluation will also be important topics of consideration and exploration in this course. Designed specifically for in-service (and pre-service) language teachers, the course combines theory with practice by covering essential principles of effective classroom assessment and the development of effective assessment tools for classroom use. Participants completing this course will become more assessment literate and better able to evaluate student performance in their classrooms fairly and effectively.

The development of European literary-political cabaret from its origins in France to its most recent developments in Western and Eastern Europe.

Graduate students will develop practical skills to design and teach upper-level undergraduate courses in an area of specialization.

The development and exchange of scholarly information, usually in a small group setting. The scope of work shall consist of research by course registrants, with the exchange of the results of such research through discussion, reports, and/or papers.

This interdisciplinary seminar follows hemispheric Indigenous reclamation and re-Indianization movements. Course content will examine different processes and paradigms that impact the ways that Indigeneity is asserted across the hemisphere and the implications for understanding Indigenous consciousness within the United States, particularly as it is expressed in Chicana/o Indigeneity. We will examine various socio-cultural movements of self determination, including activism related to the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In particular, we will examine the Indigenous presence within Chicana/o and Mexican communities and within academic discourses. The course focuses, in part, upon the Chicano Movement and subsequent re-tribalization movements embedded in relations of gender, class, race, bio-region, culture, economics, and sexuality. We will also explore varied print, cultural, and performative expressions of Indigenous consciousness, resilience and decolonization.

Qualified students working on an individual basis with professors who have agreed to supervise such work. Graduate students doing independent work which cannot be classified as actual research will register for credit under course number 599, 699, or 799.

This course is designed to explore theoretical/critical readings in order to discuss key issues involving Spanish Peninsular literatures and cultures. throughout the course we will examine an array of perspectives as modes of understanding the creative texts. In the light of the readings students will develop original research projects.

This course is designed to explore theoretical/critical readings in order to discuss key issues involving Spanish American literatures and cultures contemplated. Throughout the course we will examine an array of perspectives as modes of understanding the creative texts. In the light of the readings students will develop original research projects.

This course is designed to explore theoretical/critical readings in order to discuss key issues involving Mexican and/or Mexican American literatures and cultures. Throughout the course we will examine an array of perspectives as modes of understanding the creative texts. In the light of the readings students will develop original research projects.

This course is designed to explore theoretical and applied issues involving language and linguistics. Throughout the course we will examine an array of perspectives. In the light of the readings students will develop original research projects.

The course examines sexuality as the site where multiple concerns about international migration (including social, cultural, political, economic and national) are expressed and contested, in the context of globalization and transnationalism.

Qualified students working on an individual basis with professors who have agreed to supervise such work. Graduate students doing independent work which cannot be classified as actual research will register for credit under course number 599, 699, or 799.

Individual research, not related to thesis or dissertation preparation, by graduate students.

Research for the master's thesis (whether library research, laboratory or field observation or research, artistic creation, or thesis writing). Maximum total credit varies.

Research for the doctoral dissertation (whether library research, laboratory or field observation or research, artistic creation, or dissertation writing).