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Course Offerings for Fall 2005 Core Courses Elective Courses Of Related Interest to LAIS Core Courses ARTH 160 Survey of Latin American Art A broad overview of art and cultural production in Latin America, including South and Central America, Mexico, and the hispanophone Caribbean. A survey of major pre-Columbian monuments is followed by an examination of the contact between Europe and the Americas during the colonial period, 19th-century Eurocentrism, and the reaffirmation of national identity in the modern era. PS 153 Latin American Politics & Society This course examines political life in Latin America in the postcolonial period. The course covers the entire region but emphasizes the most representative countries: Argentina, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, and Mexico. The overarching purpose of the course is to understand change and continuity in this region. We will endeavor to accomplish this by emphasizing both the historical development of institutions and political actors in Latin America (e.g. the state, capital, labor, the church, the military) as well as the variety of theoretical frameworks that scholars have constructed to understand the dynamics of political development throughout the region (e.g. modernization, dependencia, and political culture). Among the major themes covered in the course are the legacies of European colonialism, state building, revolution, corporatism and populism, military rule, and redemocratization. Open to all students. SPAN 301 Interpretation of Hispanic Texts This course will explore Spanish literature through a variety of lenses that will range from the essays of Benito Jerónimo Feijoo to the 19th century realist narrative of Leopoldo Alas Clarín and Benito Pérez Galdós, to the twentieth century chronicles, in verse and prose, of the series of political and social spasms that culminate in the Spanish Civil War. The course will begin at the end of the 18th century, when Spain's intellectuals are preaching gradual reforms (a recipe that will soon be destroyed by Napoleon's invasion and the popular resistance it spawns) and continue through the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath. Special attention will be paid to the "generations" of 1898 and 1927 and the links between poetic and novelistic expression and the philosophical debates raging behind the scenes. The basic question of self-identity—what does it mean to be Spanish? (vis à vis Europe, the Americas, and the rest of Western Culture)—will serve as a point of departure. Texts will be read in the original Spanish with a particular emphasis on developing close textual readings. Class discussion and written assignments will also be in Spanish. Elective Courses Aileen PassloffDAN 284 AP Flamenco DAN 316 AP Spanish Dance Repertory DAN 343 Flamenco DAN 343 M Flamenco DAN 443 Flamenco PS 258 Strategies of Political and Social Change How can we change the political condition of our society? A century ago, Lenin concisely asked "What is to be Done?". Can we achieve political change through force of will and political strategies, as "Che" Guevara or Sorel on the left, Hitler on the right, and most of the democratic transition literature in the "center" argue? Or is long-lasting political change a product of slower, more "passive" transformations of the social fabric, such as industrialization, increased literacy and education, or the rise of so-called "post-materialist values"? Somewhere between will and structure, sociologists have highlighted the importance of historical repertoires of collective action for achieving radical transformation, while Gramscians have stressed the need to think about hegemony, the "role of the party" and cultural traditions. This course pays special attention to the armed struggle and guerrilla strategy used historically in Latin America in the case of the Cuban revolution and, later, the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. Such violent strategies are then compared to non-violent strategies, from Gandhi to contemporary civil disobedience. PS 345 The Politics of Economic Development This seminar explores the intersection between politics and economics, centering on the vital problem of economic development. We will explore some of the fundamental questions of political economy: What is development? Are some political systems "better" at economic development than others? Is there a trade-off between political freedom and economic growth? How does economic development affect politics? The first third of the course provides a broad overview of the dominant theoretical approaches to political economy. After this orientation, the rest of the course will be devoted to examining contemporary issues and problems of development. Topics covered include inequality, labor, democratic transitions, post-communist transitions, structural adjustment, globalization, and the reversal of development. Empirical cases will be drawn from almost every region in the world, especially Europe, East Asia and Latin America. SPAN 106 Basic Intensive Spanish 8 credits. This course is designed to enable students with little or no previous knowledge of Spanish to complete three semesters of college Spanish in five months (eight credits at Bard and four credits in Mexico in January). Students will attend eight hours of class per week plus two hours with the Spanish tutor. Oral communication, reading and writing skills will be developed through a variety of approaches. Prospective students must interview with the instructor prior to registration. Carmen Pascual Medrano A course designed for the student who has had some prior exposure to Spanish or who has excellent command of another Romance language. All the major topics in grammar will be covered, and the course will provide intensive practice in the four skills (speaking, comprehension, reading and writing). We will be using a new textbook specially designed to provide a streamlined review of basic topics in grammar and provide more detail and exercises for advanced topics. The textbook will be supplemented with authentic video material from Spain and 'Latin America. One additional hour per week of practice with the Spanish tutor and a substantial amount of work in the language resource center will also be required. The course will prepare the student for summer language programs abroad or Spanish 201 the following semester. SPAN 201 Intermediate Spanish I For students who have completed Spanish 106 or 110, or permission of the instructor. This course is designed to perfect the student's command of all four language skills (speaking, aural comprehension, reading, and writing). This will be achieved through an intensive grammar review, conversational practice, reading of modern Spanish texts, writing simple compositions, and language lab work. Prerequisite: Spanish 106, 110, or permission of instructor SPAN 202 Intermediate Spanish II This course continues refining and perfecting the student's mastery of speaking, reading, comprehending and writing Spanish. Advanced study of grammar is supplemented by a video series and authentic readings on a wide variety of topics related to Spanish and Latin American history, literature, music, and art. Current topics in culture such as the Latin American military dictatorships or the issues surrounding the Hispanic presence in the United States will be discussed. In addition to shorter readings, such as excerpts from Don Quixote and indigenous Mexican poetry, students will read one or more full-length modern novels. Prerequisites: Spanish 201 or consent of instructor. SPAN 306 Five Latin American Poets This course will examine the work of five twentieth-century Latin American poets: Pablo Neruda (Chile), César Vallejo (Peru), Octavio Paz (Mexico), Nicolás Guillén (Cuba) and Alejandra Pizarnik (Argentina). Although students will be asked to read extensively within the obra of each of these writers, class time will be mainly spent in close analysis of selected texts. Outside readings will help orient students to the historical, social, and political contexts in which these writers produced their work. In this regard, we will attempt to answer these and other questions: What occasioned the shift, in Neruda and Vallejo, from a vanguardist, hermetic poetry to a more accessible and socially-oriented poetry? How are Eastern religious and philosophical orientations, particularly those of Buddhism, manifested in the work of Paz? In what ways does the poetry of Guillén respond to racial and socio-political issues crucial to an understanding of Cuba's history? How can we apply contemporary discourses concerning gender and the representation of the body to the poetry of Pizarnik? In addition to writing critical essays, students will be asked to memorize and recite short poems. Optional assignments may include original poems written in Spanish and translations of poems into English. SPAN 356 Spanish Literary Translation This course is designed for students who have completed at least two years of college Spanish. A thorough knowledge of Spanish grammar and a broad vocabulary in Spanish are considered to be Prerequisites. Theoretical texts concerning translation will be discussed as a basis for every class meeting, and students will be required to write short reaction papers in Spanish. The first half of the semester will be dedicated to translation of brief texts from various genres, pre-selected by the professor. During the second half of the semester, students will choose their own longer texts to translate. The main intent of this course is to encourage a thoughtful examination of literary language as it manifests itself across linguistic and cultural boundaries. Conducted primarily in Spanish. Of Related Interest to LAIS LIT 3207 Responsibility and Cultural Memory A seminar that explores how personal narrative, monuments and memorials, and photography document and produce the memory of trauma, at once vividly present and inevitably dependent on our ethical response for its very existence. War, torture, suffering, violence: the memory of trauma is cultural memory, so that struggles over testimony, memorials and sites of suffering articulate the haunting of the present by what is not visible, not yet expressed about the past. We will talk through some issues of human rights, drawing on the discourses of politics, the media, aesthetics and psychoanalysis. We will read theoretical texts by Benjamin, Agamben, Blanchot, Caruth, Felman, Alcava, Baer, and LaCapra. Case studies will include narratives by Holocaust survivors such as Szpilman (author of the novel on which The Pianist was based) and Levi; and from survivors of the "desaparecidos" of Latin America. We will explore the complexities of response and representation to a variety of visually powerful material, from photographs of Civil War battlegrounds and Holocaust sites, to public monuments and films. Upper College standing is assumed. Interested students should email Professor Leonard before registration. Susan Aberth Survey of Islamic art in Iran, Syria, Egypt, Turkey, North Africa, Spain, China, India, Indonesia and other regions, from the death of Muhammad in AD 632 up until the present. The course will include architectural monuments, their structural features and decoration as well as the decorative arts in all the various media — pottery, metalwork, textile and carpet weaving, glass, jewelry, calligraphy, book illumination and painting. There will be visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to view their Islamic collection. This class is open to students at all levels. Back to course list Back to top |
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