Course Description
Selected topics in culture, civilization, language, linguistics, literature, or literary theory. Given in English.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate students will complete longer and additional
assignments, including mandatory oral reports on primary and
secondary materials. Graduate students will be required to read,
synthesize, and apply additional, more analytically demanding
works than undergraduates. These readings will entail the
development of critical perspectives on the literary,
historical, and topical material covered in the main reading
list for the class. Graduate students are also held to a higher
grading standard on tests and exams, where the content is more
detailed and extensive, and evaluative criteria are more
rigorous. Graduate students will be required to develop and
demonstrate the analytical skills of professional academic
research and scholarship.
Athena Title
TOP CULT LANG & LIT
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
To present students with integrative studies of various aspects of Romance Languages, culture, civilization, literature, literary theory, or linguistics. Students will improve their writing and analytical skills, as well as topical knowledge, through a close examination of primary and secondary texts, classroom discussions, written and oral assignments, and written exams. Class will be taught in English.
Topical Outline
Topics will vary with each instructor. The following are two examples of possible topics: 1) "Invoking the Spirit(s) in Latin American Literature" Through a selected reading of Brazilian and Spanish American works of fiction, students will: a) explore the socio-cultural and spiritual relationship fostered between the living and the spirit world; b) study the cultural and historical context of Catholic saints, Afro-Brazilian religious deities, Kardecian spirit guides and mediums, and the cult of the dead within these societies; c) analyze a variety of primary and secondary texts in which these elements appear prominently. 2) "The Jewish Diaspora in Brazil and Spanish America" Reading texts in translation, students will: a) address the intersections and interactions among Jewish writers from Europe, Brazil and Spanish America from 1933 to the present; b) read works that raise questions concerning exile, memory, language, identity, and cultural production and consider the authors’ responses to persecution, discrimination, and acculturation; c) consider how these questions are manifested in a variety of textual forms - history, memoir, travelogue, fiction, as well as film and music.
Syllabus