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The Undergraduate Program: Course Offerings

Current Courses: Fall 2009 & Spring 2010

Fall 2009 Spanish | Fall 2009 Portuguese

Spring 2010 Spanish | Spring 2010 Portuguese



Fall 2009 Spanish Courses

Lower Division Spanish Courses

COURSE #  CCN TITLE DAY/TIME INSTRUCTOR
1.1 86103  Elementary Spanish 1st semester
MTWTF 8-9
TBD
1.2 86106
Elementary Spanish 1st semester
MTWTF 9-10
TBD
1.3  86109
Elementary Spanish 1st semester
MTWTF 10-11
TBD
1.4
86112
Elementary Spanish 1st semester
MTWTF 11-12
TBD
2.2
86121  Elementary Spanish 2nd semester
MTWTF 9-10
TBD
2.3
86124  Elementary Spanish  2nd semester MTWTF 10-11
TBD
2.4  86127  Elementary Spanish 2nd semester
MTWTF 11-12
TBD
2.5
86130
Elementary Spanish 2nd semester
MTWTF 12-1 TBD
3.1
86133  Intermediate Spanish 3rd semester  MTWTF 8-9
TBD
3.2
86136  Intermediate Spanish 3rd semester
MTWTF 9-10  TBD
3.3  86139  Intermediate Spanish 3rd semester
MTWTF 10-11
TBD
3.4  86142  Intermediate Spanish 3rd semester
MTWTF 11-12
TBD
3.6  86148  Intermediate Spanish 3rd semester
MTWTF 2-3
TBD
4.2
86154  Intermediate Spanish 4th semester
MTWTF 9-10
TBD
4.3
86157  Intermediate Spanish 4th semester
MTWTF 10-11
TBD
4.4
86160  Intermediate Spanish 4th semester
MTWTF 12-1
TBD
4.5
86163  Intermediate Spanish 4th semester
MTWTF 1-2
TBD
4.6 86165
Intermediate Spanish 4th semester
MTWTF 2-3
TBD
21 86166  Spanish for Bilingual Students, 1st course
MWF 10-11
TBD
22  86169
Spanish for Bilingual Students, 2nd course
MWF 10-11
Villalba
24.1 86172
 Freshman Seminar: Talking Funny
Tu 11-12
Azevedo
25.2  86181
Reading & Analysis of Literary Texts
MWF 9-10
TBD
25.3  86184
Reading & Analysis of Literary Texts
MWF 10-11
TBD
25.4  86187
Reading & Analysis of Literary Texts
MWF 11-12
TBD
25.5 86190
Reading & Analysis of Lterary Texts
MWF 12-1
TBD
25.6  86193
Reading & Analysis of Literary Texts
MWF 1-2
TBD

Fall 2009 Spanish Upper Division Courses

CCN Course Number   Time   Location Course Title Credits Professor
86205 P100 MWF 8-9A 255 DWINELLE Introduction to Spanish Linguistics
Note: Participants must be currently enrolled UC Berkeley students (concurrent enrollment is okay if there is space); no auditors.
3 STAFF
86208 P102A MWF 9-10A 242 DWINELLE Advanced Grammar and Composition
Note: Spanish 102A requires the completion of Spanish 25, and either Spanish 4 or Spanish 22.
3 BARILI
86211 P 102A MWF 11-12P 203 WHEELER Advanced Grammar and Composition
Note: Spanish 102A requires the completion of Spanish 25, and either Spanish 4 or Spanish 22.
3 BARILI;
Also: BRIZUELA, N
86214 P 104A MWF 12-1P 83 DWINELLE Survey of Colonial Latin American Texts 3 DEL VALLE
86217 P 107A MWF 9-10A 209 DWINELLE Survey of Spanish Literature 3 BAMFORD
Note: Also: NAVARRETE, I E
86220 P 111A MWF 1-2P 263 DWINELLE Cervantes 3 BERGMANN
86223 P 135 TuTh 2-330P 223 DWINELLE Studies in Hispanic Literature
Note: "Latin American Cinema"
3 BRIZUELA
86463 S 135
101 LAB
M 6-9P 242 DWINELLE Studies in Hispanic Literature   BRIZUELA
86226 P 135 TuTh 930-11A 234 DWINELLE Studies in Hispanic Literature
Note: "Modern Spanish Poetry"
3 DOUGHERTY
86229 P 135 TuTh 11-1230P 79 DWINELLE Studies in Hispanic Literature
Note: "Frame Tales from Calila to Zayas"
3 NAVARRETE
86232 P 135W TuTh 2-330P 254 DWINELLE Studies in Hispanic Literature - Writing Intensive
Note: "Lyric, History & Otherness"
3 IAROCCI
86235 P 135W TuTh 11-1230P 234 DWINELLE Studies in Hispanic Literature - Writing Intensive
Note: "The Avante-Garde in Spanish America"
3 TARICA
86241 P C178 MWF 1-2P 88 DWINELLE Cultural Studies: Note: "Intercultural, Hybridity and Miscegenation in the Dutch-speaking Caribbean from the 17th Century to the Present" – All readings and discussions in English. Cross-listed with African American Studies C178 section 1 and Dutch C178 section 1. 4 DEWULF
86244 P 179 TuTh 930-11A 87 DWINELLE Advanced Course in Hispanic Linguistics 3 AZEVEDO

SPANISH 104A: Survey of Colonial Latin American Texts (4 units)
Prof. Ivonne Del Valle

This review of Colonial Latin American Literature (16th to 18th centuries) moves among several organizing points of analysis. We will use texts to explore the divergent consequences the "encounter" had for the indigenous cultures and for the Western conceptual universe. In this respect, we will highlight the importance of the colonial world in the future development of Western ways of knowing. We will also look at the colonial period as an era of profound tensions which produced new subjects (neither European nor Indian) and transformed "old ones" (new ways of being Indian, for example), whose texts are in constant dialogue with each other and with their cultural and economic environment. Finally, we'll keep in mind the period's legacy for Latin American countries as seen in the social and economic inequalities institutionalized at all levels of society.

Spanish 107A (86217): Survey of Spanish Literature  (3 units)
Heather Bamford

 This survey course in Medieval and early modern literature will cover the evolution of narrative, lyric, and dramatic genres from the 13th century to Calderón de la Barca in the 17th, and put them in the context of the social transformations of their time, particularly the complex relationships between Christian Spain and its Jewish and Muslim counterparts.  Works and authors to be studied include a Medieval epic, Arabic-derived frame tales, La Celestina, Lazarillo de Tormes, poems from the oral ballad tradition and by the Marqués de Santillana, Garcilaso de la Vega, Fray Luis de Leon, San Juan de la Cruz, Góngora and Quevedo; two of Cervantes's Novelas ejemplares, and plays by Lope de Vega and Calderón. Students will write two short, 3-4 page papers and take two midterms and a final.


Spanish 135.1 (CCN 86223): Latin American Cinema (3 units)
Prof.Natalia Brizuela

Rising from the intersection of politics/ideology and aesthetics, as a way of both opening up alternatives to Hollywood and studio film practices and at the same time making film a tool for radical politics, the New Latin American cinema from the sixties and seventies articulated the notion of a Third Cinema, “enlightening”, forming and raising a “national popular” consciousness.  The first part of the course will analyze the rise of this cinema—as both an auteur cinema and as the emergence of a political cinema—through the films of Gutiérrez Alea, Rocha, Solanas, Getino, Guzman, and Sanjines. The second part of the course will study films from a second wave of New Latin American Cinema which exploded into the international film market in the nineties—with films by Martel, Trapero, Gonzalez Iñarritu, Salles, and Alonso.  Largely fueled by foreign investments, highly successful in an international festival and art-house circuit, still very much anchored—like their sixties predecessors but minus the experimentation—in questions of realism and representation, how are these films to be read, given the dissolution of the political quest of the “national popular”?  That is, what is new about this New Latin American Cinema of the nineties?  What is the relationship, now—if any—between film form, politics and economics?


Spanish 135.2 (CCN 86226) : Modern Spanish Poetry (3 units)
Professor Dru Dougherty

The course will cover Spanish lyric poetry from the late-romantic Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-1870) through the rise of Hispanic symbolism (Rubén Darío) and its development in Spain (Juan Ramón Jiménez and Antonio Machado) followed by the avant-garde poets of Ultraísmo (Guillermo de Torre, Eugenio Montes, etc.) and poets of the Generation of 1927: Ernestina de Champourcin, Concha Méndez, Federico García Lorca, Jorge Guillén, Rafael Alberti, Luis Cernuda, etc. Emphasis will be on close readings in class of selected poems, with active participation of students.

Requirements include 2 short essays, a midterm examination, a brief written report on a book dealing with poetics, and a final examination.


Spanish 135. sec. 3 (CCN 86229): Frame Tales (3 units)
Prof. Ignacio Navarrete

The nestling of stories within stories is one of the most ancient narrative techniques. In this course we will study a number of different story collections, many directly or indirectly derived from Middle Eastern origins, and study them not only in terms of narrative structure, but also how the story-within-a-story technique is used to experiment with social classifications such as  gender, nation, etc.; and how the framing technique contributes to the development of the novel. The first half of the course we will read some Medieval examples, many of them direct translations or close imitations of Arabic models: selections from the Thousand and One Nights, Calila y Dimna, Sendebar (a/k/a Libro de los engaños de las mujeres), Conde Lucanor, and Libro de buen amor. In the second part of the course we will focus on the great frame tales by early modern Spanish writers: Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and María de Zayas. There will be four quizzes, two papers and a final.


Sp. 135W.1 (CCN 86232): Lyric, History, and Otherness. — Written Intensive (3 units)
Prof. Michael Iarocci

The course will focus on a selection of some of the most celebrated poetry written in Spanish. Two basic concerns will run through the course: a) reflection on lyric subjectivity (the “I” of a poem) and its relationship to history; and b) exploration of “otherness” as a constitutive feature of poetic language. In what sense is the seemingly intimate, subjective sphere of lyric poetry suffused with history? How is the poetic “I” in some sense always also “other”? While we will review major aesthetic tendencies and discuss the way poetry has been described by literary historians, our primary focus will be on techniques of reading, methods of analysis and the particularities of the poems we read. As a writing-intensive course, the course will also invite you to reflect on how your own prose can engage the texts we consider. Extensive prior experience reading poetry is not required; willingness to pay passionate attention to the language of poetry is. Course strictly limited to 15. Limited to Spanish majors only.


Spanish 135W.2: (CCN 86235) The Avante-Garde in Spanish America (Writing-Intensive)
Prof. Estelle Tarica

In 1914 Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro famously declared ,“I will not serve!” He was not alone in his manifesto of rebellion, as numerous artists from across Spanish America, in close dialogue with their counterparts in Europe and the United States, sought to challenge  and transform their world with new ideas about the power of art. This course will look at a range of avant-garde literary arts from the first half of the 20th century, including poetry, fiction, and essays by writers such as Norah Lange, César Vallejo, Nicolás Guillén, Nellie Campobello, Pablo Neruda, and many others. We will also examine parallel movements in the visual arts (painting, film, sculpture, murals). Our focus will be on understanding the transgressive sensibility of these artists in their search for new languages of self-invention and social critique amidst war, revolution, racism, the daily violence of city life, and the uncertain promise of their times. This is a Writing-Intensive course and as such will be geared towards helping students make significant progress in Spanish composition skills and in the overall ability to write clear, coherent, and intellectually forceful expository prose. Students will write essays through a process of workshop and revision, including in-class writing, homework assignments, peer commentary, drafts, and grammar review as needed. All written work in Spanish. This course is for majors only.


Spanish 179: The Language of Narrative (CCN 86244): (3 units)
Professor Milton Azevedo

Spanish 179 analyzes a variety of literary and nonliterary narative texts from a linguistic perspective, to inquire what characterizes different narrative forms from the viewpoint of language structure, vocabulary, and style.

This course provides a follow-up to Spanish 166, Language and Style. It is recommended for students majoring or minoring in Spanish, particularly in option D. Prerequisites include Spanish 25 (completed, not taken concurrently) and Spanish 100 (may be taken concurrently). Not necessarily recommended for students without formal training in linguistics normally acquired in Spanish 100 or equivalent. There is a substantial amount of reading in Spanish and in English. Attendance and active participation are essential. Course grade will be based on quizzes, participation in class discussions, a combination of unannounced quizzes and other exercises, an oral presentation and a final paper.

Spanish majors and minors will have priority in enrolling; others may be enrolled with consent of instructor.

Required texts:

Recommended texts:



Fall 2009 Portuguese Upper Division Course Descriptions

Portuguese 112 CCN ) Reading Culture through Short Stories. (3 units)
Prof. Ana Maria MartinhoIn this course we will read and discuss new forms of storytelling in the 21st century. Literary stories, oral narratives and texts from emerging genres, such as digital narratives, are our primary focus.

THEMES AND READINGS:
A) Places
Saudades de Nova Iorque (Pedro Paixão)
B) People
Perfeitos Milagres (Jacinto Lucas Pires)
C) Animals
Quem me dera ser onda (Manuel Rui)
D) Life & Death
Intermitências da Morte  - excerpts (Saramago)
E) Peace & War
Actas da Maianga (Ruy Duarte de Carvalho)
F) Memory
O Outro Pé da Sereia (Mia Couto)
G) Mystery
1. Contos Policiais (VVAA)
2. O último cabalista de Lisboa ˆ excerpts (Richard Zimler)
H) Science Fiction
1. <Nova> Fanzine de FC e Fantástico
I) Grassroots Movements & "Sub-cultures"

The activities in class will be organized in the format of a workshop.The students are expected to choose a topic that they can pursue as an individual project throughout the course and that may include writing, audio or video productions. Resources will be available on Bspace or provided in class.

Instruction in Portuguese. Readings in Portuguese and English. Assignments in Portuguese or English.

Portuguese 135.1  (CCN) Culture, Media and Politics (3 units)
Prof. Ana Maria Martinho
This course will be centered in the study and analysis of new media, TV, radio and press documents from Portuguese speaking countries around the world.

The focus will be content and discourse analysis through a comparative approach. Internet references, videotapes, audiotapes and press selections will be used as core resources.

We will discuss and read about the following themes:

A)   General Perspective on the Media in Portuguese speaking countries.
B)   Democracies and regimes in transition. Their relationship with the
Media.
C)   Culture, vote and violence.
D)   Ethnic politics and social conflict.
E)   Environment and cyber-resistance. Cultural impact of energy policies.
F)   Development and globalization.
G)   Endangered cultures and forms of resistance.
H)  Religious expression through the Media. Churches and economic power.
I)   Life in the cities and Blogosphere. The New Media.
The activities in class will be organized in the format of a workshop. The students are expected to choose a topic that they can pursue as an individual project throughout the course and that may include writing, audio or video productions.
Resources will be available on Bspace or provided in class.

Instruction in Portuguese and English. Readings in Portuguese And English.
Assignments in Portuguese or English.

Spring 2010 Spanish Undergraduate Courses

Lower Division Courses

ANNOUNCEMENT!: NEW COURSE FOR SPRING 2010
SPANISH 12: SPANISH FOR ADVANCED BEGINNERS

Spanish 12 is specifically designed for advanced beginners, that is, students with previous exposure to Spanish (Spanish 1). It builds on such previous acquaintance with the language and aims at developing four basic skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing (Spanish 2), in order to fully prepare you for the requirements of higher level Spanish courses. Advanced beginners will communicate and comprehend, acquire formal knowledge of grammatical structures and develop active and recognition vocabulary in order to function orally and in writing at a more sophisticated and complex level, as well as ability to read both literary and non-literary prose. Students will continue to learn listening and reading strategies to further develop listening and reading skills.

I. Do you qualify to take Spanish 12?:

     1. Do you have an AP score of 1 or 2?

     2. Do you have an IB score of 2-4?

     3. Did you take Spanish 1 at a Community College?

     4. Did you take 2-3 years of Spanish in High School?

If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions above, then this is the course for you.

     5. Are you a heritage speaker (Home Background Speaker)?

     6. Are you a true beginner (no previous experience with the language)?

II. If you answered “yes” to one of the questions above, then you do not qualify for Spanish 12. Contact Mari Mordecai for placement.



COURSE #  CCN TITLE DAY/TIME INSTRUCTOR
24.1 86172 Hispanic Cultures in the Bancroft: from Sor Juana and the Mexican Inquisition to Spanish Civil War Posters and Handmade Books in Cuba (1 unit) TBA Prof. Bergmann
24.2 86175 Talking Funny: Language Variation in Spanish and English Literary Texts (1 unit) TBA Prof. Azevedo
24.3 86177) Revolution! Latin American Cinema (1 unit) TBA Prof. Brizuela

Spanish 24.1 (86172): Hispanic Cultures in the Bancroft: from Sor Juana and the Mexican Inquisition to Spanish Civil War Posters and Handmade Books in Cuba (1 unit)
Prof. Emilie Bergmann

This seminar will introduce students to the treasure trove of the Bancroft Library, rich in manuscripts and printed books on Spanish and Spanish-American colonial and contemporary literary and political history. This newly reopened collection is one of North America's richest repositories of documents on the long history of the Hispanic presence in California. Among its unique items are a chivalric romance, the kind of book that inspired Don Quixote; manuscript transcriptions of Mexican Inquisitorial trials; seventeenth-century illustrated scientific studies by Athanasius Kircher, an inspiration to Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz; letters, photographs, poetry, and posters from the Spanish Civil War (1936-39); rare copies of twentieth-century Spanish American and U.S. Latina/o poetry, novels, and short story collections; and books created as unique artworks by Editorial Vigia in Havana. This is a Beyond the Classroom Theme seminar.

Professor Emilie L. Bergmann is Professor of Spanish and co-editor of Mirrors and Echoes: Twentieth-century Spanish Women's Writing, and Approaches to Teaching Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (MLA 2007), as well as numerous articles on Sor Juana. Her teaching and research interests are focused on gender and visual culture in the historical watershed of early modern Spain and colonial Spanish America, and contemporary Spanish, Spanish American, and U.S. Latin women's writing.

Spanish 24.2 (CCN 86175): Talking Funny: Language Variation in Spanish and English Literary Texts (1 unit)
Prof. Milton Azevedo

This seminar analyzes language through the literary representation of regional and social varieties of Spanish and English (as in Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or Guillermo Cabrera Infante's Tres Tristes Tigres) and discusses social and cultural implications of language variation. It is taught in English with readings in both English and Spanish. Regular class attendance is a strict requirement, and grades will be based on required participation in class discussions and a final oral presentation on an individual project. The reader will be available at the Copy Central on 2560 Bancroft Avenue. The ability to read and understand spoken Spanish is essential to follow this course successfully. PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS NOT A CONVERSATION COURSE. Students interested in taking a course focusing on conversation or otherwise improving their ability to speak Spanish should see the Undergraduate Assistant in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. This course is taken for a letter grade.

Professor Milton Azevedo specializes in Hispanic Linguistics and his research focuses on applications of linguistics to literature. He has taught Freshman Seminars since spring 1999.

Spanish 24.3 (CCN 86177): Revolution! Latin American Cinema (1 unit)
Prof. Natalia Brizuela

This course will explore the cultural and political significance of film analysis through a close reading of representative Latin American films from the 1960's and 1970's. During this period of social and political revolt, film was deemed an instrument of change, and underwent some of the most radical, challenging and interesting changes in its still short life. We will watch and discuss a number of feature and documentary films produced during this period that deploy the experimental poetics and politics of the “national popular” (and its critique) in Cuban “nuevo cine”, Brazilian “cinema novo”, and parallel manifestations in Argentina and Bolivia. We will also learn some fundamental film language to help us not only better discuss the films but also understand the radical nature of these films' propositions. The films to be viewed all have subtitles. No knowledge of Spanish is necessary, although always welcome.

Spring 2010 Spanish Upper Division Courses

COURSE #  CCN TITLE DAY/TIME INSTRUCTOR
104B 86217 Survey of Latin American Literature TBA Prof. Brizuela
135W.3 86240 Argentine Cinema (3 units) TBA Prof. Brizuela
166 86244 Language and Style (3 units) TBA Prof. Azevedo

Spanish 104B (CCN 86217):Survey of Latin American Literature (3 units)
Prof. Natalia Brizuela

El curso cumple un recorrido de doble mano. Por un lado, y como su título lo sugiere, es un panorama de la producción literaria latinoamericana del siglo XIX en adelante. La inevitable selección que, ante todo, deja fuera del curso la vasta mayoría de la literatura, es usada, entonces, para arriesgar la aparición, desaparición y transformación de una figura que pauatrá la otra vía que recorreremos: la naturaleza. ¿Cuál será la relación entre la literatura y la naturaleza? ¿Debe la literatura rendirle cuenta y serle fiel al mundo natural en la modernidad? Pero, ¿qué sería serle fiel a lo real? Entramos, de este modo, en uno de los problemas centrales de la literatura: la representación.

Spanish 135 2: Teatro Español de la 'Edad de Plata'
Tu-Th, 11-12:30. 209 Dwinelle
Professor Dru Dougherty

The course is a survey of Spanish plays from the first three decades ofthe twentieth century. We'll be reading a play a week by the following authors: Eduardo Maquina (Las hijas del Cid), Jacinto Benavente (Losintereses creados), Jacinto Grau (El señor de Pigmalión), Ignacio Sánchez Mejías (Sinrazón), Pedro Muñoz Seca (La venganza de don Mendo), Ramón del Valle-Inclán (Luces de bohemia & Los cuernos de don Friolera), Federico García Lorca (La zapatera prodigiosa & Bodas de sangre), Alejandro Casona (Nuestra Natacha) and Miguel Mihura (Tres sombreros de copa). Topics we'll discuss include theater's role in questioning Spain's foundational myths; the uses and symbolic values of puppetry on stage; the theater's self-critique; Madrid's theatrical avant-garde; theater and modernization; the stage as a dream site; etc. Requirements: a mid-term examination, one paper and a final project.

Spanish 135W.3 (CCN 86240): Argentine Cinema (3 units)
Prof. Natalia Brizuela

Este curso ofrecerá un recorrido por el cine argentino desde los años cincuenta hasta el presente. Estudiaremos el declive de los estudios cinematográficos y el sistema industrial y el desarrollo de un cine independiente en las décadas posteriors a la Segunda Guerra Mundial y al primer período peronista. Analizaremos el trabajo de, entre otros, Torre Nilsson, Solanas, Santiago, Bemberg, Puenzo, Trapero, Martel y Alonso.

Spanish 135.4 Mujeres en México
Prof. Ivonne del Valle

In this course we will read both historical and literary texts about women or written by women in what is now México. We will start with colonial writings and end with 20th century works to analyze some of the changing functions and different discursive and social spaces women have occupied. We will also study some of the strategies of self-representation women employed to respond to different projects in which they were assigned a specific role, or to forge new roles. At the same time we will consider the advantages of, and problems with, understanding social relationships in terms of gender as opposed to other social categories.

Spanish 166 (CCN 86244): Language and Style (3 units)
Prof. Milton Azevedo

This course analyzes a variety of literary and nonliterary texts from a linguistic perspective, to address questions such as what characterizes the style of different authors and of narrative forms from the viewpoint of language structure and vocabulary. While we will analyze primarily fiction texts, on occasion we will also examine samples of journalism writing, scientific writing, legal writing, or advertising.

This course is recommended for students majoring or minoring in Spanish, particularly in Option D. Spanish 25 (completed, not taken concurrently) is a prerequisite.

There is a substantial amount of reading in Spanish and in English, and attendance and active participation are essential.

Course grade will be based on tests on set dates, participation in class discussions, a combination of unannounced quizzes and other exercises, an oral presentation and a term paper.


Spring 2010 Portuguese Upper Division Courses

Port. 104: Introduction to Brazilian Literature. A Survey Over Time.
T Th 11-12:30.
Prof. Candace Slater.

(Working knowledge of Portuguese required.)

This course provides an introduction to Brazil’s “greatest hits”—a series of authors and historical moments with which anyone interested in Brazil and Latin America should be familiar. We will look with particular care at the shifting search for national identity, concentrating above all on the 20th and 21st centuries. Authors will include Carlos Drummond de Andrade, João Guimarães Rosa, Clarice Lispector, and contemporary representatives of literatura marginal. Some works are available in both Portuguese and English, but students should have a basic command of the language. This year’s Distinguished Brazilian Writer in Residence, Maria Rita Kehl—a psychoanalyst and essayist who works with the radical landless movement, Movimento dos sem Terra—will be visiting the class in April.

Port. 135: "Literature, Culture, Politics in Today's Brazil".
TTh 12:30-2:00.
Prof. Candace Slater.

(Working knowledge of Portuguese required.)

The primary focus of the course will be contemporary Brazilian literature and culture. However, we will look at the roots of contemporary themes such as that of the favela and violence in the past. Some of the authors whose work we will be examining include Milton Hatoum, Paulo Lins, and Marcelino Freire. All of these writers are concerned with the transformations in everyday life linked to the jumble of processes generally called “globalization.” What exactly does “globalization” mean in the context of Brazil and how is it different in any way from the ways that it is discussed in the U.S.? Students should be able to read and understand Portuguese. This year’s Distinguished Brazilian Writer in Residence, Maria Rita Kehl—who has written about rap music as well as contemporary social movements—will be visiting the class in April.