Topics course.  Normally offered both fall and spring semesters.: Theater as a form of resistance started in Argentina with “Teatro Abierto” in 1981. Since 2000, “Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo” and “Teatro x la identidad” have brought the search for grandchildren, kidnapped by the military government, to the stage.

Topics course.  Normally offered each spring.: This transdisciplinary course examines the intimate, complex and longstanding relationship between Islam and the West in the context of the Iberian Peninsula from the Middle Ages until the present. Discussions focus on religious, historical, philosophical and political narratives about the place of Islam and Muslims in the West.

Topics course. May be repeated once with a different topic.  Normally offered both fall and spring semesters.: Contemporary Spanish TV and films reinvent the Spanish past according to the needs of the present. Cuéntame cómo pasó (2001–) is an extremely successful TV series which narrates the last years of Franco’s dictatorship and the transition to democracy.

A study of the Spain of today through a look at its past in art, history, film and popular culture. The course analyzes Spain’s plurality of cultures, from the past relations among Jews, Christians and Muslims to its present ethnic and linguistic diversity. Highly recommended for students considering Study Abroad in Spain. Prerequisite: SPN 220 or equivalent, or permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 19.

Topics course.: Advanced level capstone reflection on aspects of Brazilian culture, society, and language through the framework of Translation Studies. The course examines how Brazil has been translated in film, literature, and other cultural realms (music, advertising, tourism, food). Through the lenses of power dynamics, migration, and the notion of a post-translational world, it poses questions related to the purposes, reach, and importance of translation, and how these issues have changed over time.

A study of the development of genres and periods in Latin American literature. Special attention is given to the relationship between the evolution of literary forms and social context. Some topics to be explored include literary periods and movements as ideological constructs, the conflictive Latin American appropriation of European ideas and styles, and the cultural debates that have surrounded hemispheric relations in the region. Prerequisite: SPN 220 or equivalent. Enrollment limited to 19.

Through paintings, poems, songs, fiction, films and a TV series, this course provides cultural and socio-historical clues necessary to understand contemporary Spain, such as the dictatorship, the transition and post-transition to democracy, center-periphery tensions, historical prejudices and systems of exclusion, and the powerful contemporary movements for social transformation. Highly recommended for students considering study abroad in Spain. Prerequisite: SPN 220 or above. Enrollment limited to 19.

Topics course. May be repeated once with a different topic. Normally offered both fall and spring semesters.: This course explores the social and cultural expression of Zapatismo from its initial revolutionary uprising in the Mexican indigenous borderlands of Chiapas on New Year’s Eve, 1994 through its present-day global vision of an alternative world model.

Topics course.  May be repeated once with a different topic. Normally offered each spring.: The phenomenon of theater as a form of resistance and the use of performance made by artists and activists as a way of political protest is something already seen during the era of military dictatorship in Argentina (1981) through Teatro Abierto. Through the study of dramatic texts, news articles and web blogs, plus the application of actor-training methodologies, we bring stories from page to stage for a final presentation in Spanish.

Topics course. May be repeated once with a different topic.  Normally offered both fall and spring semesters.: This course explores the representation of women’s domestic labor from the thematic perspectives of “precariousness” (a condition and expression of subjectivity under globalization) and “intimacy” (both an experience of affect and a condition of labor) using short fiction, documentary and film from the Spanish-speaking world.