Graduate Courses
Spring 2013
Mester de clerecia
HISP2030G – CRN 24385 – Mercedes Vaquero
This course will focus on different works of "mester de clerecía" from the 13th and 14th centuries, and provide an overview of current thinking regarding their nature and origin, while at the same time seeking to interrogate many of the prevailing assumptions and received ideas of Spanish literary historiography. Works and topics will include: Libro de Alexandre (ideologies of power), Libro de Apolonio (the intellectual hero), Berceo's works (hagiography, clerical poetry, the rise of literacy), Poema/Libro de Fernán González (epic hero), and Libro de buen amor (seduction manual/spiritual guide).
The History of Wonder in Colonial Spanish American Lettres
HISP 2350H - CRN 23973 - Stephanie Merrim
The notion of wonder (asombro, maravilla) played a determining role in the Spanish and Creole writings of the Spanish American colonial period. The volatile aesthetic of wonder raises and implicates such important issues as otherness, exoticism, category crisis, and identity formation. A studies course examining the role of wonder in New World historiographic and literary writings of the 16th and 17th centuries.
Fall 2012
Canonical Literature of the Spanish Golden Age
HISP2160L – CRN 16555 – Laura Bass
This seminar is intended to deepen understanding of canonical literary works of 16th- and 17th-century Spain selected from the Golden Age prelimin exam list. Critical readings of texts in their social, historical, and cultural contexts will be accompanied by critical reflection on why we read these works in the first place—that is, on canon formation—and on the genealogy and validity of the "Golden Age" as period descriptor. We will study various aspects of book history including print and manuscript culture, regulation of the book trade, practices of reading, concepts of authorship, and debates about poetic language as well as the value of imaginative literature.
Poetics of the Avant-Garde in Latin America
HISP2350M – CRN 16513 – Michelle Clayton
This course traces the shocks and flows of avant-garde activities through Latin America in the first decades of the twentieth century. We will explore manifestoes, poetry, artworks, and film from Argentina, the Caribbean, Chile, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru, from creacionismo through Brazilian modernismo, ultraísmo and estridentismo, poesía afroantillana and tecnoindigenismo, with occasional detours into Iberian experiments. Authors will include Vicente Huidobro, Oliverio Girondo, César Vallejo and Pablo Neruda. Our reading will take into consideration three overlapping backdrops: regional and continental debates over culture and politics; contemporary experiments among the European avant-gardes; and local developments in technology and mass culture.
Biography, Autobiography and the Representation of the Subject in 19th Century Latin America
HISP2350N – CRN 16566 – Aldo Mazzucchelli
The 19th Century was the century of the Self. In Latin America the construction of the Nation ran parallel with the construction of a new image for the individual, and both were produced in writing. We will discuss some of these narratives of the self, biographies, autobiographies, journals, personal memories and letters. Readings from Francisco de Miranda, Simon Bolívar, Juana Manuela Gorriti, Esteban Echeverria, Eugenio María de Hostos, Domingo F. Sarmiento, Teresa Wilms Montt, Rubén Darío, José Martí and others.
Teoría y Práctica Poética en Cesar Vallejo
HISP2350G – CRN 14983 – Julio Ortega
Seminario dedicado a estudiar en profundidad la poesía hermética de Vallejo. Analizaremos su práctica poética así como su teoria del poema a través de la evolución de su obra y pensamiento.