For the Graduate School Catalog please follow this link:

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/catalogs/grad/graduate.pdf#courses

 

GRADUATE COURSE DESCRIPTIONS – FALL 2013

SPANISH

SPAN 303: The Art of Research and Grant Proposal Writing

R 3:10-5:30 Furman 319

Susan.Berk-Seligson@vanderbilt.edu

This course will be conducted in workshop format. It is designed to help graduate students write grant proposals for university-wide competitions for research funds, but will cover the area of grantspersonship more generally. The approach to the course will be to focus on each student's own research project. Students will draft and submit for collective discussion different components of their proposals, leading up to the term project, namely grant proposals that are ready for submission to external funding agencies. The course is useful for students planning to apply both for internal University funding (e.g., Vanderbilt College of Arts and Sciences Summer Research Award Program, Penn Warren Humanities Center, Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) summer travel awards [FLAS, Tinker, Simon Collier], and external fellowships and grants (e.g., Fulbright, Fulbright-Hayes, National Endowment for the Humanities). For those planning to enter the academic job market, the course will prepare them for internal faculty and external grant competitions once they are professors in the tenure-track.

In addition, the course will cover topics such as how to prepare manuscripts for submission to journals, how to write abstracts for consideration by conference organizing committees, and how to prepare for entry into the academic job market.

SPAN/PORT 310: Foreign Language Learning and Teaching (Also listed as Portuguese 310)

M 3:10-5:40 Furman 109

Virginia.M.Scott@Vanderbilt.edu

Principles and practices of teaching a second language, with concentration on recent interactive and communicative models of foreign language instruction. Goals of the course are 1) to introduce principles of Second Language Acquisition and learning, 2) to critically read relevant literature in the area(s), and 3) to develop FL instructor's awareness through reflective and critical thinking. Classroom observations, journal writing, development of materials, and a small action research project are expected. Required of all entering teaching assistants.

SPAN 343: Early Modern Spanish Drama

Topic: The Comedia and Beyond

T 3:10-5:30 Wilson 127

Edward.H.Friedman@Vanderbilt.edu

The course will begin with the frustrated but talented dramatist Miguel de Cervantes, will focus on Lope de Vega and the development of the comedia nueva, and will consider representative works of the neoclassical and Romantic periods. Emphasis will be on reading and discussion of individual plays, a consideration of their multiple contexts, and a survey of dramatic theory from classical antiquity to the present, including performance theory.

Texts will include:

Miguel de Cervantes, La Numancia, "El retablo de las maravillas"

Lope de Vega, "Arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo," El caballero de Olmedo, Fuenteovejuna, La dama boba, El castigo sin venganza

Tirso de Molina, El burlador de Sevilla

Pedro Calderón de la Barca, El médico de su honra, La vida es sueño

María de Zayas, La traición en la amistad

Ana Caro, Valor, agravio y mujer

Leandro Fernández de Moratín, El sí de las niñas

Ángel Saavedra, Duque de Rivas, Don Álvaro, o la fuerza del sino

José Zorrilla, Don Juan Tenorio

Selected criticism

There will be a reading assignment and a short written exercise for each week. Evaluation will be based on the exercises and class participation (70%) and a final paper of ten to twelve pages (30%). The class will be given in Spanish. The final paper may be in Spanish, Portuguese, or English.

SPAN 352: Issues in Hispanic Cinema

Topic: Transatlantic Voyages

R 3:10-5:30 Wilson 127

Andres.Zamora@Vanderbilt.edu

A study of the pervasiveness of transatlantic travels in contemporary Spanish and Latin American cinema and its possible connection with those primordial historical expeditions that fated the destinies and the profiles of the two sides of the Ocean.  A tentative list of movies to examine includes "Nadie hablará de nosotras cuando hayamos muerto" (Díaz Yanes), "El cuarteto de la Habana" (Fernando Colomo),  "Amores perros" (González Iñárritu), "Y tu mamá también" (Cuarón), "Flores de otro mundo" (Bollain), "Princesas" (León de Aranoa), "La puta y la ballena" (Puenzo), "Plata Quemada" (Piñeyro), "Todo sobre mi madre" (Almodóvar), "Lugares comunes" (Aristarain), "La virgen de la lujuria" (Ripstein), "El espinazo del diablo" (Del Toro) y "Aunque estés lejos" (Tabío).

SPAN 375: Studies in Trans-Atlantic Literature

Topic: Poetry in the Era of Memory

F 1:10-3:30 Furman 319

Christina.Karageorgou@Vanderbilt.edu

The purpose of this seminar is to work on a highly debatable topic: lyric trends dealing with memory, oblivion, and social responsibility in modern Hispanic poetry. Moreover, the focus of the course is a dialog of temporal and spatial resonances that coverthe twentieth century and expand over the Atlantic to bridge the distance that separates Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula. Through pairs of poets such as Xavier Villaurrutia (Mexico) and Federico García Lorca (Spain), Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina) and Luis Cernuda (Spain), Susana Thénon (Argentina) and María Ángeles Pérez López (Spain), and Cristina Peri Rossi (Uruguay/Spain) and Noni Benegas (Argentina/Spain), we will examine ways of telling history beyond narration. The word history here means both historical events and social issues that galvanize the polis and its citizens. The theoretical basis of the course will be formed by reflections on art, poetry and society on behalf of Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, and Paul Ricoeur.

Evaluation

Oral presentations on Ricoeur, Bloch, Benjamin, and AdornoA series of four interpretive essays, up to five pages each, on any four out of the eight poets and their works to be discussed throughout the course. Each essay is due the day we discuss the poet and her/his work in class (see reading schedule below).A final research/interpretation essay of up to 6000 words (without notes and bibliography), on any one of the eight poets included in the course.

All essays should be sent as attached Word documents to my email before class.

SPAN 389: Special Topics in Spanish American Literature

Topic: Narratives of Nation Building

Ruth.Hill@Vanderbilt.edu

W 3:10-5:30 Furman 319

This course examines U.S. and Latin American nationalisms and literatures (primarily prose from the long-19th century) from the perspective of Hemispheric American Studies. Our secondary readings shall encompass theoretical piece from this field as well as from Latin American Studies. Primary texts may include: A. Bello, Silvas americanas; J. J. Fernández de Lizardi, La Quijotita y su prima; S. Morton, Crania Americana (selections); W. H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Peru (selections), History of the Conquest of Mexico (selections); W. W. Brown, Clotel, or The President's Daughter; D. F. Sarmiento, "Espíritu y condiciones de la Historia en América," "North and South America," Vida de Abrán Lincoln (introd.); M. Peabody Mann, Juanita; J. E. Rodó, Ariel; George Schuyler, Black No More.

PORTUGUESE

PORT 102: Intensive Elementary Portuguese (Available to grad students for AUDIT only)

01 MTRF 10:05-10:55

02 MTRF 12:10-1:00

An accelerated introduction to reading, writing, speaking and listening. Emphasis on practical usage. Open to students with prior study of another Romance language or by permission of instructor. [4 hours]

PORT 200: Intermediate Portuguese

MWF 12:10-1:00 TBA

Marcio.Bahia@Vanderbilt.edu

Intermediate Portuguese 200 is a course offering for students who have taken Portuguese 100B, 102 or have acquired Portuguese background elsewhere and wish to continue studying the language. The course is designed to offer a review of grammar through the use of music and other cultural elements (film, television programs, web resources, etc).

PORT 294: Special Topics in Portuguese Language, Literature or Civilization

Topic: Machado, Clarice, and Pessoa

TR 1:10-2:25 Furman 330

Earl.E.Fitz@Vanderbilt.edu

This course concentrates on three of the Portuguese language's greatest writers, the Brazilians Machado de Assis and Clarice Lispector, and the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, often hailed as the last of the great European modernists. The texts we will read are the following: Machado de Assis: O Alienista, Esau e Jaco, and Memorial de Aires, plus selected works from his theater and poetry; Clarice Lispector: A Paixão Segundo G. H., A Via Crucis do Corpo, and Agua Viva (the text that, in French translation, provided Helene Cixous with the prototype for her very influential theory of "l'écriture feminine"); and, from Pessoa, poems in his own voice as well as poems in the voices of his famous heteronyms.