SPAN3105V: Honors: Introduction to the Study of Hispanic Cultures

Span 3105V is a writing-intensive course centered on major issues of culture in the context of the Spanish-speaking world. It is not a history of civilization, nor is it a survey of either Latin American or Peninsular literature. Rather, our objective here is to familiarize ourselves with the different issues central to the development of the Hispanic world as a cultural entity, and to practice analyzing and questioning received notions of culture in this context. We will examine all sorts of texts--literary, visual, musical, and filmic--from all periods of both Latin American (including Brazil) and Peninsular history, reading them through the lens of a series of topics. These topics are as follows: Mapas del mundo hispánico/Maps of the Hispanic world, Política y legado del encuentro cultural/Politics and legacies of cultural encounter, Discursos de identidad social/Discourses of social identity, Coerción y subversión/Coercion and subversion, Las naciones modernas/Modern nations, and Cultura élite-cultura popular-cultura de masas/High culture-popular culture-mass culture. The course includes an individual and collaborative research aspect introducing the students to the methods of cultural studies.

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