Spanish Course Descriptions
Portuguese Course Descriptions
Spanish Major Requirements
Spanish and Portuguese Major Requirements
Portuguese Coordinate Major Requirements
Portuguese Minor Requirements
Spanish Minor Requirements
Spanish 1000-2000 levels Spanish 3000 level Spanish 4000 level Spanish 6000 level Spanish 7000 level Portuguese Courses taught in English
SPAN 1000-2000 levels
SPAN 1010 Introductory Spanish I (4)
Prerequisite: departmental placement only. The overall goal of this course is developing proficiency in the 4 language skills (listening, reading, speaking, and writing) essential to communicative language learning. The course uses a task-based approach which provides the learner with opportunities to use the language interactively.
SPAN 1020 Elements of Spanish II (4)
Prerequisite: for students who have completed 1010 at Tulane; other introductory students must enroll in 1120. SPAN 1020 is continuation of SPAN 1010. The overall goal of this course is developing proficiency in the four language skills (listening, reading, speaking, and writing) essential to communicative language learning. The course uses a task-based approach which provides the learner with opportunities to use the language interactively.
SPAN 1120 Intensive Introductory Spanish (4)
Prerequisite: departmental placement only. In the place of SPAN 1010 and SPAN 1020. The overall goal of this course is developing proficiency in the four language skills (listening, reading, speaking, and writing) essential to communicative language learning. The course uses a task-based approach which provides the learner with opportunities to use the language interactively.
SPAN 2030 Elements of Spanish III (4)
Prerequisite: departmental placement only. SPAN 2030 is a continuation of SPAN 1020 or SPAN 1120. The overall goal of this course is developing proficiency in the four language skills (listening, reading, speaking, and writing) essential to communicative language learning. The course uses a task-based approach which provides the learner with opportunities to use the language interactively.
SPAN 2040 Spanish Conversation and Composition (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 2030 or equivalent. This course is designed to develop oral proficiency in Spanish through the study and analysis of recorded, visual, and written texts, as well as a variety of pair and group activities. Special emphasis is placed on pronunciation, vocabulary acquisition, and a review of Spanish grammar and syntax.
SPAN 3000 level
SPAN 3040 Spanish Grammar and Writing (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 2040 or special permission. SPAN 3040 or SPAN 3050 or SPAN 3060 are prerequisites for all other 3000 level courses; it may be taken in the same semester as other 3000 level courses. Not open to native speakers. Analysis and practice in the written language.
SPAN 3050 Spanish Grammar and Writing for Business (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 2040 or special permission. SPAN 3040 or SPAN 3050 or SPAN 3060 are prerequisites for all other 3000 level courses; it may be taken in the same semester as other 3000 level courses. Not open to native speakers. This course studies the Spanish language as it is used in business and provides contexts for the practice and use of business-related lexicon in the Spanish-speaking world.
SPAN 3060 Spanish Grammar and Writing for the Medical Profession (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 2040 or special permission. SPAN 3040 or SPAN 3050 or SPAN 3060 are prerequisites for all other 3000 level courses; it may be taken in the same semester as other 3000 level course. Not open to native speakers. This course introduces students to Spanish for the health sciences. Spanish major and minors interested in the health professions are encouraged to enroll, along with pre-medical and public health majors and minors.
SPAN 3080 Legal Spanish Grammar and Writing for the Legal Profession (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 2040 or special permission. SPAN 3040 or SPAN 3050 or SPAN 3060 or SPAN 3080 are prerequisites for all other 3000 level courses; it may be taken in the same semester as other 3000 level courses. Not open to native speakers. This course introduces students to Spanish for the legal profession in areas such as immigration, consumer protection, employment and family law. It also works through assignments to be completed outside of class.
SPAN 3130 Latin American Cultures (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3040 or SPAN 3050 or SPAN 3060 or SPAN 3080 or special permission. Not open to native speakers. Introduction to the cultural diversity of Latin America through the study of contemporary literary, social, political, and popular culture trends as observed by selected literary figures, intellectuals, and artists.
SPAN 3240 Introduction to Spanish Culture (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3040, or SPAN 3050 or SPAN 3060 or SPAN 3080 or special permission. Not open to native speakers. This course offers the intermediate student a brief introduction and survey of Spanish culture beginning during the earliest moments of the Spanish nation and continuing through the present, primarily though nonliterary means. Discussions are supplemented by cultural readings and visual media to give an overview of Spanish culture.
SPAN 3270 Spanish and Latin American Literatures and Cultures (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3130 or SPAN 3240 or SPAN 3350 or special permission. Not open to native speakers. Through a series of readings from Latin America and Spain, students receive instruction in literary terminology, vocabulary building, and strategies for enhanced reading comprehension. Significant emphasis on the continued development of linguistic skills and critical analysis.
SPAN 3280 Spanish and Latin American Literatures and Film (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3130 or SPAN 3240 or SPAN 3350. Not open to native speakers. Through a series of film viewings, readings from Latin America and Spain, students receive instruction in how to discuss and analyze literature and visual culture in Spanish. Vocabulary building and strategies for enhanced viewing and reading comprehension are stressed. Significant emphasis on the continued development of linguistic skills.
SPAN 3350 Introductory Topics in Hispanic Cultures (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3040 or SPAN 3050 or SPAN 3060 or SPAN 3080 or special permission. Not open to native speakers. An introduction to Hispanic cultures from different thematic perspectives, which may include: US Latino culture, Jewish cultural production in Latin America and/or the Iberian peninsula, theatrical and performative practices in the Hispanic world, etc.
SPAN 3890 Service Learning (1)
Prerequisite: Departmental approval. Students complete a service activity in the community in conjunction with the content of a three-credit corequisite course.
SPAN 4000 level
SPAN 4060 Pre 20th Century Readings in Spanish (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. Required class for Majors only. An introduction to the literature and critical issues of early Hispanic cultures until modernismo. Students acquire fundamental skills in literary and critical analysis, as well as a basic understanding of key cultural topics, such as medieval "convivencia", the social order in early modern Spain, indigenous concerns in colonial Latin America, and the formation of national literatures in 19th century Latin America.
SPAN 4100 Constructions of Gender and Sexuality in Hispanic Culture (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. This course focuses on issues of gender and sexuality in Spain and/or Latin America with emphasis on one area or the other depending of the staffing in a given year. It includes consideration of literary and other texts, including popular music, art, and cinema.
SPAN 4110 Modern Spanish American Literature (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. Major authors of the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries, including Martí, Darío, Vallejo, Alfonso Reyes, Borges, Rulfo, Paz, and Carpentier.
SPAN 4120 Social Problems in Spanish American Literature (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. The chief problems of Latin American society as reflected in poetry, short fiction, essay, and theatre. Representative works concerning the Mexican revolution; the social status of women, Indians and blacks; the life of urban and rural working classes; tyranny and political repression. Offered in the fall.
SPAN 4130 Topics in Spanish American Literature (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for majors. Readings in Spanish American stories, essays, and poems, focusing on a topic of historical and cultural importance. Some themes: women in Spanish American literature, regionalism and indigenismo, Afro-Latin American writing, testimonio. The precise topic varies from year to year.
SPAN 4131 Creative Writing in Spanish (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. This course offers students the tools to articulate their ideas and experiences in narrative form in Spanish. The course is designed to achieve this in two ways: by learning specific techniques through readings of short stories both in Spanish and English, which will be refined through numerous exercises; and by working through the semester on the crafting of at least one short story or nonfiction piece, about which the professor will make observations and suggestions as each student presents drafts of their work. During the semester students will extensively practice writing, critical reading, and peer editing. The course introduces students to literary terminology and places significant emphasis on vocabulary building.
SPAN 4140 Introduction to Colonial Letters (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. This course satisfies the pre-twentieth-century requirement. Introduction to the literary monuments and cultural history of colonial Spanish America (1492-1815), with special focus on the relationship between first-person narration and Spanish legal traditions. Cultural icons of the colonial period to be studied include Hernán Cortés, Álvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, Catalina de Erauso, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, Fray Servando Teresa de Mier.Visual texts and films to complement Spanish readings.
SPAN 4150 Spanish Literature of the 20th Century (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. Selections from the writings in all genres from the Generation of 1898 to the present.
SPAN 4160 Afro-Latin American Literatures and Cultures (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. This course examines history, literature, and culture of Afro-Latin Americans from the colonial period up to the present. Throughout the course, students read articles concerning slavery, race relations, Afro-Atlantic religions, music, and Black political movements in Latin America. These readings provide socio-cultural context from the analysis of selected literary texts.
SPAN 4170 Spanish Film (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. The development of the cinema in Spain from its origins to the present. Contextual topics such as the effects of civil war and censorship are discussed. Emphasis on a theoretical approach to the medium, with close analysis of individual films by directors such as Buñuel, Saura, Erice, and Almodóvar, among others.
SPAN 4180 Topics in Latin American Cultural Studies (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. Introduction to multiple aspects of Latin American culture from independence to the present. Students study a variety of forms of cultural production, ranging from literature, film, music, and art, to its cooking and comics to form as complete as possible a vision of Latin American’s complex and multifaceted culture. Students examine mainstream notions of national identity, while at the same time interrogating them by considering questions of gender, race, class, sexuality, and region.
SPAN 4190 Introduction to Latin American Film (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. Class conducted in English but some films may not be subtitled. The development of the cinema in Latin America from its arrival as an imported technology to the present. Films studied in relation to the sociopolitical environment and emphasis placed on close analysis as well as a contextual understanding of the material. Topics to be discussed include the struggle to create national film industries, the “art film” and New Cinema movements, and recent trends in countries such as Mexico and Argentina. Same as COMM 419.
SPAN 4200 The Historical Novel of Latin America (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. Study of recent works by Latin America’s premier novelists that considers how these writers articulate modern cultural identities by narrative the lives of iconic figures of the colonial past. Contemporary essays and selections from colonial texts are also discussed. Authors include Arenas, Carpentier, Fuentes, García Márquez, Lobo, Posse, Vargas Llosa.
SPAN 4210 Topics in Latin American Cinema (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. A topics course on the cinemas of Latin America. Possible themes include the history of cinema in the region; the representation of history in film; violence and politics; subalten subjectivities; genres; Latin American film and cultural imperialism. The course may refer to a particular national traditional or to Latin American film in general. May be repeated for credit if the topic studied is different.
SPAN 4260 Spanish Phonetics and Phonology (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. A detailed investigation of the speech sounds of Spanish, their organization, and their proper articulation. Practice both in class and with recorded material.
SPAN 4270 Iberoamerican Dialectology (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. Survey of the varieties of Spanish spoken in Spain, Latin America, and the United States. We look at variation in pronunciation and grammatical usage, such as the tu/usted/vos, as well as variation by age, gender, and social class.
SPAN 4280 Sex, Sentiment and Marriage (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. This course satisfies the pre-twentieth-century requirement. Int he 18th century, there is a change in the expectations for marriage and gender relations in general. Instead of the assumption that marriage was to secure property and family alliances, there arose the hope that men and women would find attraction and companionship in marriage. We will look at the process of change in ideas about marriage, the education of women, the right to choose a spouse, roman love and sexual seduction, and practical problems of the division of power in a marriage.
SPAN 4350 Topics in Spanish Literature and Culture (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. A topics course on the literature and culture of Spain. Possible themes include science and literature, construction of gender and sexuality, revolution and repression, honor and violence, popular culture, satire, and metanarrative.
SPAN 4420 Introduction to Multicultural Medieval Iberia (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. This course satisfies the pre-twentieth-century requirement. Introduction to the cultural issues of medieval Iberia from the eighth century to 1500. Students read a variety of medieval stories, miracles, and historical documents in order to actively discuss Iberia’s diverse Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities, and to engage with such topics as courtly love, health and healing, pilgrimage, the “reconquest,” and medieval work.
SPAN 4430 Literature of the Golden Age (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. This course satisfies the pre-twentieth-century requirement. Readings and discussions of selected dramatic, poetic, and prose works of the Siglo de Oro by Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Calderón, Quevedo and Góngora.
SPAN 4510 Hispanic Cities (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. This class explores the history, artistic production, literature, and cultural issues related to a Hispanic city, such as Buenos Aires, Madrid, Mexico City, or Seville. In an effort to investigate the city in a broad national and international context, the course connects an urban area to important events and sites in Latin American and Spain. Taught in rotation by different faculty in the department, the focus on a particular city changes with the professor.
SPAN 4520 Spanish Cultural Studies (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. Spanish cultural studies applies interdisciplinary approaches to the study of popular and mass cultural forms. Depending on the instructors’ specialization, the course may encompass various chronological periods or special themes. In addition to the specifics of individual syllabi, all classes explore the role of culture in nation formation, the organization of leisure time through the culture industry, culture as a site of power, concepts of high and low culture, and how various cultural systems cut across boundaries of class, race, religion, and gender.
SPAN 4610 National Cinemas in Latin America (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. A detailed historical, thematic, and stylistic analysis of individual national cinemas in Latin America (Cuban cinema, Brazilian cinema, Mexican cinema, for example). Emphasis will be placed on understanding the development of national cinema industries and movements in the context of other social, economic, political, and aesthetic forces.
NOTES: COMM 4190, Intro to Latin American Cinema, is highly recommended, although not a prerequisite.
SPAN 4710 Environmental Literature (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 3000-level sequence. SPAN 4060 required for Majors only. The importance and grandeur of the diverse environment of the Hispanic and Lusophone worlds as well as the problems and challenges posed by foreign and local exploitation of nature.
SPAN 4910 Independent Studies (1-3)
Prerequisites: departmental approval.
SPAN H4990, SPAN H5000 Honors Thesis (3, 4)
Requires approval of Department and Honors Committee.
SPAN 6000 level
SPAN 6000 Independent Studies (1-3)
Prerequisites: SPAN 4000-level sequence and departmental approval.
SPAN 6010 Methods of Teaching Spanish and Portuguese (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. A general introduction to applied linguistics, teaching and testing methodology, and use of technology in the Spanish and Portuguese classroom.
SPAN 6060 Bilingualism in the Hispanic World (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. This course is to teach students about the sociology of language from specific cases of language content and bilingualism in the Spanish-speaking world. Students learn about Spanish in many varied social settings, as well as about first and second language acquisition; language maintenance, shift, and death; code switching; speech production and processing; and bilingual education and language policy.
SPAN 6080 Special Topics in Applied Linguistics (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. The purpose of this course is to assist future teachers interested in second language learning and teaching, both in terms of theoretical issues and practical implications. Subject varies every semester.
SPAN 6090 Indigenous Peoples of the Colonial New World (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. This course satisfies the pre-twentieth-century requirement. An examination of early colonial writings that memorialized and debated the status of American peoples and cultures. Ethnographic accounts of European and Creole authors are read together with indigenous testimonies, with focus on topics such as: noble savagery, the debates on the ‘just’ causes for military conquest, European perceptions of indigenous languages and religious practices, and the confrontation between oral tradition and written culture.
SPAN 6100 Literary Theory (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. An introduction to modern theories of literary analysis. Readings consist of primary texts in the schools of thought to be studied, which may include formalism, stylistics, semiotics, reader-oriented approaches, structuralism, deconstruction, feminism, poststructuralism, queer theory, and postcolonial studies.
SPAN 6110 Foundations of Colonial Spanish American Literature (1492-1830) (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence; satisfies pre-twentieth-century requirement. Examination of literary, historical, and legal texts written in Spanish America, from 1492, the year of Columbus’s arrival to the New World, to 1830, the beginning of the independence period. The origin and development of the field of colonial literary studies also considered. Visual texts and films to complement Spanish readings.
SPAN 6140 The Literature of Central America (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. Representative literary figures of the six Central American countries, including Darío, Asturias, Cardenal, Alegría, and Cuadra.
SPAN 6150 The Literature of the Spanish Caribbean (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. With emphasis on the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries, the course traces the literary development of the Spanish Antilles (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico) through the works of Heredia, Hostos, Villaverde, Martí, Avellaneda, Palés Matos, Guillén, Bosch, Marqués, Carpentier, Lezama Lima, Cabrera Infante, Sarduy, L. R. Sánchez, and Ferré, among others.
SPAN 6160 Sound Studies and Sound Art in Latin America Literature of the Spanish Caribbean (3) (in English)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. Students seeking credit for SPAN will do written work in Spanish.
This course explores the main authors, debates and critical approaches to sound studies and sound art in Latin America. It questions the notion of sound studies, as defined in the Anglo-American literature in the early 2000s and explores historical understandings of the sonic and of listening in the region. We explore notions of experimentalism in music and sound and the type of expanded art provoked by the changing boundaries between music, sound and visual arts. We explore the place of epistemic notions of sound related to the colonial and to nature as well as collective practices of diverse peoples- from urban sound walks to indigenous notions of sound to sound installations- that challenge first world definitions of sound studies and sound art. The course introduces students to different sound artists and sound collectives and assignments will include listening as well as reading.
SPAN 6170 Modernism in Spanish American Literature (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. Study of the modernist movement through the works of Martí, Gutiérrez Nájera, Casal, Silva, Darío, Rodó, Agustini and others.
SPAN 6180 Contemporary Spanish American Short Story (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. A study of the contemporary short story of Spanish America with emphasis on major authors such as Borges, Cortázar, Onetti, Rulfo, Carpentier, García Márquez, Ocampo and others.
SPAN 6190 Avant-Garde Movements in Latin America (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. This course surveys the avant-garde movements in Spanish America and Brazil, focusing on the period from 1916 to 1935. Some of the movements to be examined include Huidobro’s creacionismo, ultraísmo, Brazilian modernismo and verdeamarelismo, Mexican estridentismo and the “Contemporáneos” group. It explores the impact in Latin America of surrealism and other European avant-garde movements. Readings in both Spanish and Portuguese; the class is taught in both languages, but fluency in both languages is not expected. Same as PORT 6190.
SPAN 6200 Recent Spanish American Novel (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. A study of the major achievements and experiments in the contemporary Spanish American novel.
SPAN 6210 The Essay in Spanish America (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. A panoramic view of the essay in Spanish America. The leading authors (Bello, Sarmiento, Hostos, Martí, Rodó, Mariátegui, Borges, Castellanos, Ferré, Paz and others) are studied in historical context, with emphasis on their contributions to the genre.
SPAN 6220 Chronicles and Epics of Spanish Conquest (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence; satisfies pre-twentieth-century requirement. This course examines the ways in which the discovery and conquest of America were narrated, with special focus on the relationship between early modern historiography, legal traditions, and rhetorical standards and practices. Additional topics may include Renaissance humanism, Spanish colonial language policy, the status of the Americas and Native Americans in natural and moral history.
SPAN 6230 El Barroco de Indias (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. This course satisfies pre-twentieth-century requirement. Assessment of the Baroque in Spain’s American viceroyalties during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in its relation to contemporary European literary practices, political culture, and religious values. Also considered are modern re-interpretations of the place of the Baroque in Spanish America’s cultural tradition (Picón Salas, Lezama Lima, Paz, Sarduy).
SPAN 6250 La Ilustración: Spanish Literature of the 18th Century (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. This course satisfies the pre-twentieth-century requirement. This course examines Spanish literature of the 18th century, with special emphasis on the role of the Ilustrados in cultural production, along with popular resistance to their practices.
SPAN 6260 Spanish Novel of the 19th Century (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. This course satisfies the pre-twentieth-century requirement. The development of the novel in the nineteenth-century, its different forms and literary trends: romanticism, realism, naturalism. Special attention is paid to Fernán Caballero, Alarcón, Valera, Palacio Valdés, Pereda, Galdós, Pardo Bazán, Alas, Blasco Ibáñez.
SPAN 6270 Spanish Romanticism (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. This course satisfies the pre-twentieth-century requirement. This course examines Spanish romanticism in its European context. Special attention is given to the economic and political upheavals of the early nineteenth-century and their connection to the construction of the individual subject.
SPAN 6330 Spanish Prose of the Golden Age (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. This course satisfies the pre-twentieth-century requirement. Lectures and discussions of Lazarillo de Tormes, Cervantes’s Novelas ejemplares, selections from Guzmán de Alfarache by Mateo Alemán, El Buscón and Los Sueños of Quevedo, and the novels of María de Zayas as well as the writings of Santa Teresa and Gracián.
SPAN 6410 Don Quijote (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. This course satisfies the pre-twentieth-century requirement. Discussions of Don Quijote in its entirety in the context of the intellectual and cultural tendencies of the Siglo de Oro and modern critical approaches.
SPAN 6430 Drama of the Golden Age (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. This course satisfies the pre-twentieth-century requirement. Study of the plays of Lope de Vega, Calderón de la Barca, Tirso de Molina, Ruiz de Alarcón and other dramatists.
SPAN 6440 Poetry of the Golden Age (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. This course satisfies the pre-twentieth-century requirement. Examination of the pivotal movements represented by the poetry of Boscán, Garcilaso, Luis de León, Santa Teresa, San Juan de la Cruz, Lope de Vega, Góngora, and Quevedo.
SPAN 6450 Spanish American Theatre (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. Main tendencies of the contemporary Spanish American theatre with emphasis upon such writers as Usigli, Marqués, Solórzano, Buenaventura, Arrufat, Piñera, Garro, and Chocrón.
SPAN 6460 Contemporary Spanish American Poets (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. The poetry in Latin America after modernismo. Authors may include Vallejo, Huidobro, Agustini, Storni, Borges, Neruda, Parra, Paz, Guillén, Mistral, Cardenal and Lezama Lima.
SPAN 6510 History of the Spanish Language (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. This course satisfies the pre-twentieth-century requirement. Evolution of Castilian from Roman times through the Middle Ages with consideration of internal change and outside influences.
SPAN 6520 Mexican Literature (3)
Prerequisite:SPAN 4000-level sequence. Study of the various tendencies of Mexican literature from the colonial period to the present. Special attention is given to representative authors such as Balbuena, Sor Juana, Fernández de Lizardi, Gutiérrez Nájera, Azuela, Rulfo, Fuentes, Paz, Garro and others.
SPAN 6530 Literature of the Andean Countries (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. Representative works from Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela, with study of authors such as the Inca Garcilaso, Guaman Poma, Isaacs, Matto de Turner, González Prada, Mariátegui, Arguedas, Vallejo, Gallegos, Vargas Llosa, García Márquez, Teresa de la Parra.
SPAN 6540 Literature of the Southern Cone (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. Survey of the literature of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Chile from romanticism to the present. Study of such authors as Sarmiento, José Hernández, Blest Gana, Güiraldes, Quiroga, Huidobro, Mistral, Neruda, Borges, Bombal, Felisberto Hernández, Ocampo, Roa Bastos, Donoso, Parra, Eltit.
SPAN 6570 Spanish Poetry and Poetics, 1900-1939 (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. Examines the evolution of early twentieth-century Spanish poetry, poetic theory, and related literary criticism.
SPAN 6610 Spanish Novel, Theory, and Criticism, 1900-1939 (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. Examines the evolution of the Spanish novel in the early part of the twentieth-century, in its relation to philosophical and literary critical writing.
SPAN 6620 Spanish Poetry 20th Century (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. Explores twentieth-century Spanish poetry, poetics, and related literary criticism.
SPAN 6650 Modernism and Spain (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. Examines Spanish participation in Modernism, the international literary movement of the early twentieth-century.
SPAN 6670 The Spanish Novel from Post-War to Post-Franco (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. This course studies developments in the Spanish novel from the 1940s to the present. Special attention is given to Franco dictatorship and Spain's transition to democracy. The course also examines the Spanish novel in its global context, with theoretical selections from formalism to post-structuralism.
SPAN 6680 Spectacle and Popular Culture in Spain since 1939 (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. This course examines post-Civil War spectacle and popular culture in theatre and film, as well as the novela rosa, comic books, or the bolero. Theoretical issues such as high/low culture and modernism/postmodernism are also considered.
SPAN 6690 Spanish Poetry and Poetics Since 1939 (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. This course examines Spanish poetry published from the Civil War to the present. While working to situate Spanish poetry within a larger European and American context, the course also considers and critiques the attempts by critics and creative writers to theorize a poetical practice and construct a literary history and canon.
SPAN 6710 Contemporary Fiction in Spanish America and Brazil (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. A comparison of the contemporary fiction of Spanish America and Brazil. Topics may include: the short story; race, gender and nationalism; the regionalist novel; experimental fiction; fiction and popular culture. Among the selected authors are Cortázar, Guimarães Rosa, Fonseca, Borges, Lispector, Rulfo, Donoso, Icaza, Ramos, Rivera. Reading competence in Spanish and Portuguese to be established by previous course work or judgment of instructor. Same as PORT 6710.
SPAN 6720 19th-Century Spanish American Literature (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. This course satisfies the pre-twentieth-century requirement. A study of the literature of the emerging nations in Spanish America, with special attention to new genres such as the anti-slavery novel, gauchesque poetry, and the indigenist novel. Authors include Bolívar, Bello, Gómez de Avellaneda, Manzano, Sarmiento, Hernández, Isaacs, Galván, and Matto de Turner.
SPAN 6730 Women Writers in Spain (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. This course covers literature by women authors from the Middle Ages through the twentieth-century. Examination of the poetic, prose, dramatic, and cinematic works by women in Spain in various historical, political, social, and artistic contexts.
SPAN 6740 Women Writers of Latin America (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. A literary analysis of prose, poetry, and theatre by Latin American women tracing the development of intellectual thought in various Latin American societies. Cinematic works included. Special attention to the evolution of gender roles in conjunction with the development of a race, class, and ethnic consciousness as reflected in the literature of women. Authors include: Sor Juana, Gómez de Avellaneda, Matto de Turner, Storni, Agustini, Parra, Castellanos, Ferré, Allende, Eltit, and Poniatowska.
SPAN 6750 Borges (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. Study of the poetry, prose fiction, and essays of Jorge Luis Borges, in addition to an introduction to the vast secondary bibliography on the author.
SPAN 6760 Border Studies (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. Explores contemporary border theory from an historical perspective in the context of the Americas. Examines postmodern/postcolonial notions of racial and cultural difference and otherness as they play out in nineteenth-century literature. Studies border culture along the US-Mexican border as well as in other Latin American contexts.
SPAN 6780 Latin American Cultural Studies (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. The course is an intensive survey of Latin American cultural studies. Topics include: interactions among popular, erudite, and mass cultures; debates on modernity and postmodernity; relations between alphabetic and non-alphabetic writing systems in colonial and post colonial contexts; emergence and development of Latin American concepts such as mestizaje, hybridity, transculturation, heterogeneity; relations between culture and the state; issues of class, race, and gender in the study of Latin American culture. Theorists include García Canclini, Martín Barbero, Sarlo, Richard, Schwarz, and Santiago.
SPAN 6790 Latin American Film and Visual Culture (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence.A study of Latin American cinema and visual culture from a historical, theoretical, and cultural perspective. Possible topics
include: national cinemas, genre, main historical movements in Latin American film, Third Cinema and armed struggle in Latin America, New Latin American cinemas, cinema and other visual arts, Latin American documentary.
SPAN 6810 Reading Medieval Iberia (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. This course satisfies the pre-twentieth-century requirement. A study of the literatures and cultures of medieval Iberia through the fifteenth century, with a focus on topics that may include Andalusi poetry, love in the Libro de buen amor, or medieval manuscript culture.
SPAN 6850 Senior Seminar (4)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. This course is a capstone seminar on major authors of the Hispanic literary tradition from both Spain and Latin America. Open only to graduating seniors.
SPAN 6910 Special Topics (3)
This course covers topics not regularly covered by courses at the 6000-level.
SPAN 7000 level
SPAN 7910 Graduate Seminar: Topics in Peninsular Literature (3)
Open to Graduate Students ONLY.
This course covers topics taught by faculty on a rotating basis.
SPAN 7920 Graduate Seminar: Topics in Latin American Literature (3)
Open to Graduates Students ONLY.
This course covers topics taught by faculty on a rotating basis.
SPAN 7960 Ph.D. Preparation and Professional Development (3)
Open to Graduate Students ONLY. This seminar prepares students for the Ph.D. exam and dissertation prospectus. It is designed both as a workshop in academic research and writing and as a forum for examining the nature of our discipline and issues related to professionalization for academic careers.
PORTUGUESE
PORT 1120 Intensive Portuguese (4)
An intensive one-semester introduction to Brazilian Portuguese with an emphasis on listening and speaking skills designed to quickly prepare students for more advanced study of language, literature, and culture. Prerequisite: Placement via https://liberalarts.tulane.edu/language-learning-center
PORT 2000 Portuguese for Spanish Speakers (4)
Language course that uses students’ previous knowledge of Spanish to achieve a quick command of Portuguese.
PORT 2030 Intermediate Portuguese (4)
Prerequisite: PORT 1120 or placement via https://liberalarts.tulane.edu/language-learning-center. Review of fundamental skills taught in previous courses. Introduction to Brazilian literature and culture through plays, short stories, articles, and film. Practice in composition.
PORT 3040 Grammar and Writing in Portuguese (3)
Prerequisite: PORT 2030 or placement via https://liberalarts.tulane.edu/language-learning-center. Analysis and practice in the written language.
PORT 3130 Introduction to Brazilian Culture (3)
Prerequisite: PORT 2030 or placement via https://liberalarts.tulane.edu/language-learning-center. Introduction to Brazilian literature, with a focus on questions of cultural identities, relations between “high” and “low” culture, representations of race, gender, class, and sexuality.
PORT 3190 Brazilian Short Stories (3)
Prerequisite: PORT 2030 or placement via https://liberalarts.tulane.edu/language-learning-center.This course provides an introduction to the Brazilian short story from 1870 to the present, while providing intermediate to advanced training in Portuguese conversation and composition.
PORT 3250 Composition and Conversation (3)
Prerequisite: PORT 2030 or placement via https://liberalarts.tulane.edu/language-learning-center. Reinforcement of spoken Portuguese and review of grammatical structures. Short stories and plays serve as the basis for further development of speaking and writing. Emphasis in dealing with the texts is on their utility for skill practice rather than literary analysis.
PORT 3280 Advanced Portuguese through Brazilian Film (3)
Through a series of film viewings, readings, and access to other visual media from Brazil, students receive instruction in how to discuss and analyze visual culture in Portuguese. Vocabulary building and strategies for enhanced viewing and reading comprehension are stressed. Significant emphasis on the continued development of linguistic skills. Prerequisite: PORT 2030 or placement via https://liberalarts.tulane.edu/language-learning-center
PORT 3290 Special Topics in Portuguese (3)
This course will expand upon grammar and vocabulary learned in 1120-2030 sequence. Emphasis on written and oral production in specific registers. Possible themes include Portuguese across the Lusophone world, regional studies in the Lusophone world, professional skills, historical development of Portuguese, Portuguese pronunciation. The precise topic varies from year to year. Prerequisite: PORT 2030.
PORT 3340 Brazilian Women Writers (3)
An introductory survey of influential Brazilian women writers of prose fiction, with a focus on literary treatment of questions of gender, sexuality, race, and class.
PORT 4100 Gender & Sexuality in Brazilian Culture (3)
This course proposes a historicized and interdisciplinary consideration of gender and sexuality in modern Brazil through short fiction, films, documentaries, popular music, and critical texts. It will address a wide range of topics, including patriarchal power and the construction of masculinity, the quest for female subjectivity, gender in relation to race and class, the constitution and crisis of the bourgeois family, marital strife and infidelity, homosexuality, and transgender performance.
PORT 4120 Social Problems in Brazilian Literature and Culture (3)
Prerequisite: Any two (2) PORT 3000-level courses. The chief problems of Brazilian society as reflected in fiction, testimony, poetry, theater, music, and other forms of cultural expression. Representative works may concern persistent race, class, and gender inequalities; tyranny and political repression; violence; and/or environmental issues.
PORT 4130 Topics in Brazilian Literature and Culture (3)
Prerequisite: Any two (2) PORT 3000-level courses. Readings in Brazilian stories, essays, and poems, focusing on a topic of historical and cultural importance. Some themes: women in Brazilian literature, regionalism, Afro-Brazilian culture, soccer. The precise topic varies from year to year.
PORT 4160 Afro-Brazilians (3)
This course provides an introduction to the history of Brazilian race relations, the fiction and poetry of black writers from Brazil, and the study of recent Afro-Brazilian cultural and social movements.
PORT 4290 Brazilian Cultural Studies (3)
A survey of Brazilian cultural practices and discourses of the twentieth century that engages historic and contemporary debates in Brazil surrounding nationality, modernity, democracy, and citizenship.
PORT 4440 Brazilian Popular Music (3)
This course examines Brazilian cultural history through the prism of popular music, often regarded as Brazil's most accomplished field of artistic production. The study of music will provide the basis for the exploration of issues such as nationalism, regionalism, developmentalism, authoritarianism, and globalization.
PORT 4510 Luso-Brazilian Cities (3)
Prerequisite: Any two (2) PORT 3000-level courses. An advanced undergraduate course with a focus on the literary and cultural production of a major city of the Portuguese-speaking world including, Lisbon, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Salvador da Bahia, Luanda, and Maputo.
PORT 4610 Brazilian Cinema (3)
Prerequisite: Any two (2) PORT 3000-level courses. This survey of Brazilian cinema and film criticism will cover key phases in national film production including early experiments, the failed Vera Cruz enterprise, Cinema Novo, Cinema Marginal, Embrafilme productions, and recent film Directors will include Mário Peixoto, Humberto Mauro, Anselmo Duarte, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Ruy Guerra, Glauber Rocha, Carlos Diegues, Walter Lima Junior, Luiz Carlos Barreto, Paulo César Saraceni, Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, Rogério Sganzerla, Júlio Bressane, Suzana Amaral, and Carla Camurati.
PORT H4990, PORT H5000 Honors Thesis (3, 4)
Requires approval of the department and the Honors Committee.
PORT 6000 Independent Studies (1-3)
Requires departmental approval.
PORT 6130 Brazilian Cultural Imaginaries (3)
This course is a textual and experiential exploration of Brazil and specifically the city of São Paulo as part of the Tulane Summer in Brazil program.
PORT 6160 Afro-Brazilians
Prerequisite: Any two (2) PORT 4000-level courses. This course provides an introduction to the history of Brazilian race relations, the fiction and poetry of black writers from Brazil, and the study of recent Afro-Brazilian cultural and social movements.
PORT 6190 Avant-Garde Movements in Latin America (3)
Prerequisite: Any two (2) PORT 4000-level courses. This course will survey the avant-garde movements in Spanish America and Brazil, focusing on the period from 1916 to 1935. Some of the movements to be examined include Huidobro’s creacionismo, ultraísmo, Brazilian modernismo and verdeamarelismo, Mexican estridentismoand the “Contemporáneos” group. It also explores the impact in Latin America of surrealism and other European avant-garde movements. Readings in both Spanish and Portuguese; the class is taught in both languages, but fluency in both languages is not expected. Same as SPAN 6190.
PORT 6220 The Literature of Brazil (3)
Prerequisite: Any two (2) PORT 4000-level courses. In-depth study of Brazilian literature from its beginning to the present. Authors: Manuel António de Almeida, José de Alencar, Gonçalves Dias, Castro Alves, Machado de Assis, Aluisio Azevedo, Graciliano Ramos, José Lins do Régo, Mário de Andrade, Oswald de Andrade, Manuel Bandeira, João Cabral de Melo Neto, Jorge Amado, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Guimarães Rosa, Clarice Lispector, Antônio Callado, Lygia Fagundes Telles, Rubem Fonseca, Sérgio Sant’anna, Roberto Drummond, and others.
PORT 6230 Brazilian Literature and the City (3)
Prerequisite: Any two (2) PORT 4000-level courses. Brazilian literature and its production within an urban environment focusing of issues such as slavery and race relations, class divisions and spatial marginality, industrialization and labor movements, gender and sexuality, media and popular culture, rural to urban migration, and violence and criminality. Authors may include Manuel Antônio de Almeida, Aluísio Azevedo, Machado de Assis, Lima Barreto, Mário de Andrade, Patricia Galvão, Marques Rebelo, Nelson Rodrigues, Rubem Fonseca, Caio Fernando Abreu, Patricia Melo, Paulo Lins, and Regina Rheda.
PORT 6290 Brazilian Cultural Studies (3)
Prerequisite: Any two (2) PORT 4000-level courses. An advanced survey of Brazilian social and cultural critics of the twentieth century including Silvio Romero, Euclides da Cunha, Gilberto Freyre, Sérgio Buarque de Hollanda, Guerrero Ramos, Roland Corbisier, Florestan Fernandes, Antônio Candido, Roberto Schwarz, Ferreira Gullar, Silviano Santiago, Luiz Costa Lima, Flora Süssekind, Renato Ortiz, Muniz Sodré, and Marilena Chauí. The course will foreground historic and contemporary debates in Brazil surrounding nationality, modernity, democracy, and citizenship.
PORT 6440 Brazilian Popular Music (3)
Prerequisite: Any two (2) PORT 4000-level courses. This course will offer an in-depth inquiry into Brazilian cultural history through the prism of popular music, often regarded as Brazil's most accomplished field of artistic production. Genres and cultural phenomena to be covered include samba, choro, baião, bossa nova, protest music, Tropicália, and Mangue Beat, as well as international styles such as rock, reggae, and rap in local context. The study of music will provide the basis for the exploration of issues such as nationalism, regionalism, developmentalism, authoritarianism, and globalization. Prerequisite: Two courses at the 4000 level or special permission.
PORT 6710 Contemporary Fiction in Spanish America and Brazil (3)
Prerequisite: Any two (2) PORT 4000-level courses. A comparison of the contemporary fiction of Spanish America and Brazil. Topics may include: the short story; race, gender, and nationalism; the regionalist novel; experimental fiction; fiction and popular culture. Among the selected authors are Cortázar, Guimarães Rosa, Fonseca, Borges, Lispector, Rulfo, Donoso, Icaza, Ramos, Rivera. Reading competence in Spanish and Portuguese to be established by previous course work or judgment of instructor. Same as SPAN 6710.
PORT 6910 Special Topics (3)
This course covers topics not regularly covered by courses at the 6000 level.
Courses taught in English
Note: courses taught in English do not count toward the Spanish major unless reading and writing are done in Spanish or Portuguese. Consult with the department about which courses are appropriate.
SPAN 3070 Latin American Literature in English Translation (3)
A survey of Spanish American literary writings of special cultural and historical interest, for students not prepared to read the Spanish original. Does not count toward the Spanish major or minor.
SPAN 3450 Don Quijote in Translation (3)
Conducted in English with readings in translation. Not open to majors or native speakers. A study of Cervantes’ masterpiece Don Quijote and the two outstanding picaresque novels, the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes and Francisco de Quevedo’s Buscón. The works are studied within the context of the period, with some emphasis given to their importance in the development of the modern European novel. Does not count toward the Spanish major or minor.
SPAN 4610 National Cinemas in Latin America (3)
A detailed historical, thematic, and stylistic analysis of individual national cinemas in Latin America (Cuban cinema, Brazilian cinema, Mexican cinema, for example). Emphasis is placed on understanding the development of national cinema industries and movements in the context of other social, economic, political, and aesthetic forces. May be repeated for credit if the national cinema studied is different. COMM 4190 Intro to Latin American Cinema is highly recommended, although not a prerequisite. Same as COMM 4610.
SPAN 4830 Hispanic Literature in English Translation (3)
A study of Spanish and/or Latin American literary works in translation within a specific interdisciplinary topics format based on a central theme or problem. To receive credit toward the Spanish major or minor, all written work and selected weekly readings must be completed in Spanish.
SPAN 6160 Sound Studies and Sound Art in Latin America Literature of the Spanish Caribbean (3)
Prerequisite: SPAN 4000-level sequence. Students seeking credit for SPAN will do written work in Spanish.
This course explores the main authors, debates and critical approaches to sound studies and sound art in Latin America. It questions the notion of sound studies, as defined in the Anglo-American literature in the early 2000s and explores historical understandings of the sonic and of listening in the region. We explore notions of experimentalism in music and sound and the type of expanded art provoked by the changing boundaries between music, sound and visual arts. We explore the place of epistemic notions of sound related to the colonial and to nature as well as collective practices of diverse peoples- from urban sound walks to indigenous notions of sound to sound installations- that challenge first world definitions of sound studies and sound art. The course introduces students to different sound artists and sound collectives and assignments will include listening as well as reading.
PORT 3330 Brazilian Literature in Translation. (3)
A survey of Brazilian literature in translation, focusing primarily on the novel and short story. Students will engage a wide variety of texts, including representative works of romanticism, realism, modernism and postmodernism. This course may be taken for major or minor credit if written work is completed in Portuguese.
PORT 3340 Brazilian Women Writers in English Translation (3)
An introductory survey of influential Brazilian women writers of prose fictions, with a focus on literary treatment of questions of gender, sexuality, race and class.