Course Schedule

PORT 563 – Topics in Luso-Brazilian Literature

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.

PORT 696M – Gender, Sexuality, and International Migration

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.

SPAN 541 – Topics in Spanish-American Nineteenth, Twentieth & Twenty-First Cent. Literature

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.

SPAN 561 – Topics in Hispanic 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.

SPAN 579 – Second/Foreign Language Teaching and Learning

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.

SPAN 581A – Foreign Language Teaching Theory and Methodology

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.

SPAN 582A – Spanish Syntax I

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.

SPAN 584A – Spanish Sociolinguistics I : Language Contact

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.

SPAN 594 – Practicum

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

SPAN 596J – Second Language Acquisition Research

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.

SPAN 696D – Hispanic Linguistics

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.

SPAN 696M – Gender, Sexuality, and International Migration

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.