Spanish Courses

SPAN 1000. Dean's Seminar. 3 Credits.

The Dean’s Seminars provide Columbian College first-year students focused scholarship on specific intellectual challenges. Topics vary by semester; see department for more details.

SPAN 1001. Elementary Spanish I. 3 Credits.

Development of basic functional and communicative proficiency in Spanish. Focus on the development of listening and speaking skills, reading and writing abilities, and intercultural competence.

SPAN 1002. Elementary Spanish II. 3 Credits.

Continuation of SPAN 1001. Development of basic functional and communicative proficiency in Spanish. Focus on the development of listening and speaking skills, reading and writing abilities, and intercultural competence. SPAN 1001 is prerequisite to SPAN 1002. Laboratory fee.

SPAN 1011. Intensive Beginning Spanish: the Spanish-speaking world. 6 Credits.

Development of functional and communicative proficiency in Spanish; listening and speaking skills, reading and writing abilities, and intercultural competence. Prior study of the language is not required. Language Center fee. Restricted to undergraduate students.

SPAN 1012. Intensive Elementary Spanish: the Spanish-speaking world. 6 Credits.

Development of functional and communicative proficiency in Spanish; listening and speaking skills, reading and writing abilities, and intercultural competence. Some study of the language and achievement of the appropriate placement test score are required prior to registration. Language Center fee. Restricted to undergraduate students.

SPAN 1013. Intermediate Spanish I: the Spanish-speaking world. 3 Credits.

Development of intermediate functional and communicative proficiency in Spanish; listening and speaking skills, reading and writing abilities, and intercultural competence. Achievement of the appropriate GW placement test score may replace the prerequisite. Language Center fee. Restricted to undergraduate students. Prerequisites: SPAN 1011 or SPAN 1012.

SPAN 1014. Intermediate Spanish II: the Spanish-speaking world. 3 Credits.

Continuation of SPAN 1013. Development of intermediate functional and communicative proficiency in Spanish; listening and speaking skills, reading and writing abilities, and intercultural competence. Achievement of the appropriate GW placement test score may substitute for the prerequisite. Language Center fee. Restricted to undergraduate students. Prerequisite: SPAN 1013.

SPAN 1034. Intensive Intermediate Spanish. 6 Credits.

Equivalent to the two-semester sequence SPAN 1013-SPAN 1014 that constitutes second-year instruction in Spanish language and cultures. Focus on developing language proficiency and cross-cultural competence and awareness through a task-based approach. Restricted to undergraduate students. Prerequisites: SPAN 1012. Credit cannot be earned for this course and SPAN 1013, SPAN 1014.

SPAN 1095. The Spanish-Speaking World: Spain, Latin America, and the United States. 3 Credits.

The cross-cultural and cross-continental encounters and exchanges that produced and continue to shape the Spanish-speaking world. Themes include encounters, empire, revolution/independence, nation-building, and Latinxs in the United States. Prerequisites: None. Recommended background: None.

SPAN 1099. Variable Topics. 1-36 Credits.

SPAN 1134. Intensive Intermediate Spanish for Heritage Learners. 6 Credits.

Development of reading and writing skills and knowledge of formal aspects of Spanish; cultural topics related to Hispanics/Latinos in the United States. An appropriate score on the Spanish for Heritage Learners Placement Test may substitute for the prerequisite courses. Restricted to undergraduate students. Prerequisites: SPAN 1011 and SPAN 1012.

SPAN 2005. Advanced Spanish I. 3 Credits.

Development of advanced Spanish proficiency; argumentative speaking, and writing. Cross-cultural competence and analysis of historical, social, and cultural practices and perspectives of Spanish-speaking societies. Restricted to undergraduate students. Prerequisites: SPAN 1034.

SPAN 2006. Advanced Spanish II. 3 Credits.

Continuation of SPAN 2005. Development of advanced Spanish proficiency; argumentative speaking, and writing. Cross-cultural competence and analysis of historical, social, and cultural practices and perspectives of Spanish-speaking societies. Restricted to undergraduate students. Prerequisites: SPAN 2005. Credit cannot be earned for this course and SPAN 2026, SPAN 2156.

SPAN 2026. Advanced Spanish for Heritage Learners. 3 Credits.

Advanced course for heritage speakers. Development of advanced Spanish writing, reading and oral abilities with a focus on argumentative speaking and writing. Focus on linguistic and cultural diversity of Spanish-speaking countries and communities. Prerequisites: SPAN 1014 or SPAN 1034 or SPAN 1134 or a score on the placement examination in the 96-110 range. Credit cannot be earned for this course and SPAN 2006, SPAN 2156.

SPAN 2056. Intensive Advanced Spanish. 6 Credits.

Development of advanced Spanish proficiency. Equivalent to the combination of SPAN 2005 and SPAN 2006. Restricted to undergraduate students. Prerequisites: SPAN 1014 or SPAN 1034. Credit cannot be earned for this course and SPAN 2005, SPAN 2006.

SPAN 2156. Intensive Advanced Spanish for Heritage Learners. 6 Credits.

Advanced course for students who grew up in a home in which Spanish was spoken regularly. Students develop reading, writing, and oral abilities and build awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity of Spanish-speaking societies. An appropriate score on the placement examination may replace the prerequisite courses. Restricted to undergraduate students. Prerequisites: SPAN 1014 or SPAN 1034 or SPAN 1134.

SPAN 3005. Experiencing Cuba: Past and Present. 2 Credits.

SPAN 3010W. Advanced Spanish Writing. 3 Credits.

Designed to develop writing skills within the fields of Spanish literature and culture. Students read and discuss literary and media texts while analyzing essential features and themes of Spanish/Hispanic cultures. Cultural and literary topics are used as basis for process-writing assignments (production, correction, revision). Students develop a writing portfolio. Includes a significant engagement in writing as a form of critical inquiry and scholarly expression to satisfy the WID requirement. Prerequisites: SPAN 2006 or SPAN 2056.

SPAN 3011. Spanish for Development Studies. 6 Credits.

SPAN 3012. Spanish for Development Studies in Chile. 3 Credits.

Critical analysis of development issues in the context of Chile's political aspiration to be seen as a developed country; integrates language and culture components in the Chilean environment through presentation of grammatical, lexical, and pragmatic tools. Restricted to students in the GW Chile program.

SPAN 3020. Spanish for Oral Communication. 3 Credits.

Development of effective strategies for oral communication and argumentation; expansion of vocabulary and register. Prerequisites: SPAN 2006 or SPAN 2056.

SPAN 3021. Advanced Spanish for Oral Communication—Latin America. 3 Credits.

For students enrolled in programs in Latin America. Prerequisite: SPAN 2006 or SPAN 2056.

SPAN 3022. Advanced Oral Proficiency: Environmental and Social Sustainability in Latin America. 3 Credits.

Development of advanced Spanish oral proficiency, critical content knowledge, terminology, and concepts through content-based coursework in the areas of environmental and social sustainability in Latin America. An appropriate placement test score may be used in place of the course prerequisite. Prerequisites: SPAN 2006 or SPAN 2506.

SPAN 3035. Spanish Language and Culture: Advanced. 3 Credits.

SPAN 3040. Advanced Spanish Service Learning. 3 Credits.

Advanced oral and written work through community engagement, with consideration of social change and reflection on civic engagement, leadership, and service. Students work on local community service projects. Laboratory fee. Prerequisites: SPAN 2006 or SPAN 2056.

SPAN 3099. Variable Topics. 1-12 Credits.

SPAN 3100. Texts and Contexts of the Spanish-Speaking World. 3 Credits.

Readings, textual analysis, writing and oral practice on a broad selection of texts and other cultural production from Spain and Latin America. Prerequisites: SPAN 2006 or SPAN 2056 or SPAN 2156. Same As: SPAN 3100W.

SPAN 3100W. Texts and Contexts of the Spanish-Speaking World. 3 Credits.

Readings, textual analysis, writing and oral practice on a broad selection of texts and other cultural production from Spain and Latin America. Prerequisites: SPAN 2006 or SPAN 2056 or SPAN 2156. Includes a significant engagement in writing as a form of critical inquiry and scholarly expression to satisfy the WID requirement. Same As: SPAN 3100.

SPAN 3150. Hispanic Outreach and Education Practicum. 1 Credit.

Students serve as tutors and mentors to Latino students in local area schools, learning to interact effectively with members of Spanish-speaking communities in educational contexts while improving their own language skills and cultural awareness. An appropriate GW Spanish placement test score may substitute for the prerequisite. Prerequisite: SPAN 1014.

SPAN 3200. Bilingualism in the Spanish-Speaking World. 3 Credits.

Bilingualism as both individual and social phenomena in Spain, Latin America, and the United States. Analysis of language attitudes and policies and their role in the promotion of bilingualism. Restricted to undergraduate students. Prerequisites: SPAN 2006 or SPAN 2056 or SPAN 2156 or a minimum score of 111 on the Spanish placement examination.

SPAN 3400. Theatre of Spain and Latin America. 3 Credits.

Theatrical representation: presence and performance, body, voice, dialogue, and the unfolding of conflict. Theatrical traditions and movements may include Golden Age drama; neo-Classical and Romantic drama of the nineteenth century; drama of political protest; existentialist drama and the theater of the avant-gardes. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100.

SPAN 3410. Latin American Short Fiction. 3 Credits.

Short prose narratives as agents of questioning textual meaning and subverting former literary traditions. Writers may include Arenas, Borges, Cortázar, Fuentes, García Márquez, Quiroga, Peri Rossi, Ana Lydia Vega, Zapata Olivella. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100 .

SPAN 3420. The Essayist Tradition in Latin America. 3 Credits.

Relations between state and nation in post-independence literary and political polemics of nineteenth-century Latin America. Topics may include the essay as a new genre for a new age; the figure of the public intellectual vis-à-vis the processes of state and nation formation; the post-colonial state and its imagined national, ethnic, racial, and economic communities. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100.

SPAN 3430. Afro-Latin America in the Diaspora. 3 Credits.

Major issues related to the diaspora of people of African descent in Latin America; racial–ethnic identity and nation, the myth of racial democracy, ties with the motherland, links with other diaspora communities, emigration, the role of the arts in these questions. Taught in Spanish. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100.

SPAN 3440. Caribbean Literature and Culture. 3 Credits.

Literary and cultural trends emanating from the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, focusing on Cuba, the Dominican republic, and Puerto Rico, with some attention to the circum-Caribbean regions of Central and South America. Taught in Spanish. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100.

SPAN 3500. Medieval Iberia in the Modern World. 3 Credits.

The presence of the Middle Ages in the modern world through study of texts and other cultural products. Topics may include multilingualism, contact and conflict between the three faiths of medieval Spain, creation of heroes, women, and sex. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100.

SPAN 3510. Heresy and the Other in Early Modern Iberia. 3 Credits.

The early modern period in Spain through the Inquisition and other related institutions as well as through artistic production. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100.

SPAN 3520. Latin American Colonial Literature. 3 Credits.

Analysis of chronicles, essays, memoirs, epistolary exchanges, and poetry contextualized vis-à-vis the medieval and Renaissance values of Imperial Spain. Authors may include Cabeza de Vaca, Bartolomé de las Casas, Colón, Cortés, Díaz del Castillo, El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Rodríguez Freile, Sepúlveda. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100 .

SPAN 3530. Enlightenment Spain. 3 Credits.

Analysis of chronicles, essays, memoirs, epistolary exchanges, and poetry contextualized vis-à-vis the medieval and Renaissance values of Imperial Spain. Authors may include Cabeza de Vaca, Bartolomé de las Casas, Colón, Cortés, Díaz del Castillo, El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Rodríguez Freile, Sepúlveda. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100 .

SPAN 3540. Major Authors of Spain and Latin America. 3 Credits.

Close readings of the work of a major author and application of related critical and theoretical material. Authors may include J.L. Borges, G. Garcia Marquez, Clarice Lispetor, M.L. Bombal, Juan Goytisolo, Juan Rulfo, Alejo Carpentier, Mañuel Puig. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100 .

SPAN 3550. Queer Latin America. 3 Credits.

Examination of queerness in Latin American as both theory and practice; how sexual and gender practices inform Latin American cultural production. Readings may include José Donoso, Manuel Puig, Pedro Lemebel, Sylvia Molloy, Gabriela Cabezón Cámera. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100.

SPAN 3570. Women Writers of Spain and Latin America. 3 Credits.

Works of well-established and more recent women writers in Spain and Latin America discussed in relation to feminist principles of criticism. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100.

SPAN 3600. Special Topics. 3 Credits.

May be repeated for credit provided the topic differs. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100 .

SPAN 3650. Literature and Dictatorship. 3 Credits.

Study of the dynamic relationship between literature and politics during periods of intense social repression and censorship in Spain and/or Latin America. Issues raised in and by literature when discourse is controlled, censored, and repressed by military dictatorships. The role of culture in understanding traumatic historical events. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100 .

SPAN 3700. Cinema of Spain and Latin America. 3 Credits.

Film as a language of cultural and historical testimony in Spanish America and Spain. Topics may include the Silent Era, Surrealism, the Mexican Golden Age of the ’40s, the New Cinema of the ’50s, Peronist cinema in Argentina, socialist film in Cuba, and postmodern production. May be repeated for credit. Laboratory fee. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100 .

SPAN 3800. Fundamentals of Spanish Teaching and Learning. 3 Credits.

Development of skills and knowledge in teaching Spanish as a foreign language; key factors in the acquisition of a second language in the classroom setting; practical and functional aspects of the second language acquisition process. Designed primarily for future Spanish majors and minors with an interest in language teaching, but open to others. Permission of the instructor is required prior to enrollment.

SPAN 4200. Spanish Applied Linguistics. 3 Credits.

Principles and aspects of the Spanish language, as well as relevant notions of second language acquisition, technology, and assessment as applied to Spanish language teaching and learning. Taught in Spanish.

SPAN 4410. Contemporary Narrative in Latin America. 3 Credits.

Experimental fiction in Latin America, with focus on literature of the mid-1960s through the present. Authors may include Alejo Carpentier, Julio Cortázar, Diamela Eltit, Carlos Fuentes, Cabrera Infante, Lezama Lima, García Márquez, Octavio Paz, Ricardo Piglia, Elena Poniatowska, Mario Vargas Llosa. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100 .

SPAN 4450. Mexican Literature and Culture. 3 Credits.

Study and analysis of Mexico’s most significant intellectual, historical, and cultural events from the Spanish Conquest of the Aztec empire to the present. Topics include the Spanish appropriation of the Aztec Empire, literature and cultural phenomena during the colonial period, the age of independence, the Mexican revolution, and contemporary Mexico. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100.

SPAN 4460. Southern Cone Literature and Culture. 3 Credits.

Study and analysis of some of the most significant writers, ideas, texts, and films of Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. Issues of tradition, identity, representation, modernity, gender and sexuality, and literature and politics as seen in historical context. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100 .

SPAN 4480. Studies in Latinx Cultural Production. 3 Credits.

The cultural production of Latina/o (“Latinx”) communities in the United States from the comparative perspective of Latin America and Spain. How a variety of linguistic, social, political, and intellectual experiences are reflected in the literary and cultural production of Latinx communities. The notion of Latinx and its application as an analytical framework. Taught in Spanish. Prerequisites: SPAN 3100 or equivalent with permission of the instructor. Recommended background: ENGL 3920 or AMST 2750W.

SPAN 4510. Cervantes Don Quixote. 3 Credits.

Issues raised in the text of Don Quijote: literature and life, words and deed, the fashioning of self, the structures of narrative, the limits and possibilities of representation, and the relation between appearance and reality, knowledge and understanding, fiction and truth. Cervantes’ “invention” of the novel. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100 .

SPAN 4520. Topics in the Avant-garde. 3 Credits.

Study of the literary and artistic avant-gardes of Spain and Latin America in relation to the dialectic of enlightenment. Consideration of the avant-gardes as successful interpretations of modernity and as movements that anticipate, and in some instances instigate, the “post-modern” end of modernity. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100 .

SPAN 4540. The Myth of the Two Spains. 3 Credits.

Literature as an expression of the institutionalization of liberalism in nineteenth-century Spain and of official and popular resistance to this modernizing credo. Topics may include the romanticism of Quintana, Espronceda, Blanco-White and Becquer; the costumbrismo of Castro and Larra; the realism of Galdós; and the naturalism of Pardo Bazán and Clarín. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100.

SPAN 4550. 1898 to 1998: Spain's First Century without Empire. 3 Credits.

Spain’s imperial crisis and its persistence throughout the twentieth century as a central theme in Spanish literary and intellectual culture. Decadence and regeneration; modern Spanish nationalism and cultural imperialism; Hispanicism and pan-nationalism; the Spanish Civil War, fascism, and liberalism; and the transition from fascism to democracy. Prerequisites: SPAN 3100.

SPAN 4560. Modern Poetry of Spain and Latin America. 3 Credits.

Poetry after modernism; forms and themes that characterize the work of authors such as Agustini, Guillén, Huidobro, Lezama, Mistral, Neruda, and Palés. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100 .

SPAN 4600. Special Topics. 3 Credits.

May be repeated for credit provided the topic differs.

SPAN 4650. Literary Translation. 3 Credits.

Combination literary translation workshop and seminar on translation theory. Study of the main issues of literary translation between Spanish and English, in both directions, as seen in different writers and genres. Translation of writings on cultural, philosophic, and political issues. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100 .

SPAN 4700. Film as Text in Latin America. 3 Credits.

Filmic analysis of Latin American cinema; film as a genre of art in its own right; the particular language of cinema; relationships between written text and film; and other interdisciplinary aspects of narrative. Taught in Spanish. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100.

SPAN 4800. Independent Study. 1-4 Credits.

Permission of the department chair and instructor required prior to enrollment. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100.

SPAN 4910W. Proseminar I. 3 Credits.

Required of all majors; preparation for the major field examination. Literature in relation to the other arts and the social sciences. Textual analysis, literary criticism, theory, and methods. Prerequisite: SPAN 3100 .

SPAN 4919. Honors Thesis Research. 1 Credit.

Students choose a topic in Spanish and Latin American literature, select a faculty advisor with specialization in the subfield, conduct research, and produce an annotated bibliography and a proposal that previews the main arguments of the thesis. Restricted to program majors with senior standing who meet the criteria for Special Honors. Prerequisites: SPAN 3100.

SPAN 4920W. Honors Thesis. 3 Credits.

Continuation of SPAN 4919. Completion of the thesis and oral presentation before Spanish program students and faculty. Approval of the Program Director is required. Restricted to Spanish majors who meet the criteria for special honors in Spanish and Latin American languages, literatures, and cultures. Prerequisites: SPAN 4919. Includes a significant engagement in writing as a form of critical inquiry and scholarly expression to satisfy the WID requirement.

SPAN 5099. Variable Topics. 1-99 Credits.