Winter 2023 Courses
- For day, time, room, and TA information, see our Spanish PDF Schedule, Portuguese PDF Schedule, or the course search tool https://registrar-apps.ucdavis.edu/courses/search/index.cfm.
- For all courses not described below, please refer to the General Catalog course descriptions
Jump to: Spanish Undergraduate Courses | Spanish Graduate Courses | Portuguese Courses
Spanish Language Courses
SPA 1-3: Elementary Spanish
SPA 21-22: Intermediate Spanish
SPA 23-24: Spanish Composition
SPA 31-33: Spanish for Native Speakers
Spanish Undergraduate Courses
SPA 100-001 Principles of Hispanic Literature & Criticism
SPA 110 Advanced Spanish Composition
SPA 111N The Structure of Spanish: Sounds & Words
SPA 113 Spanish Pronunciation
SPA 131N Survey of Spanish Literature: 1700 to Present
SPA 133 Golden Age Literature
Prof Daniela Gutiérrez Flores
Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, Spain experienced an intense flourishing of artistic and literary production, all while grappling with economic hardships, social unrest, and political conflicts. In this class, we will study the complexity of this cultural period by focusing on issues of religious and social identity, multiculturalism, expansion and colonization, and economic and political crisis. We will learn about the artistic innovations of poets like Quevedo and Gongora, discuss the feminist thought of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, and explore how theater became a central part of everyday life, among other topics. This class will also consider the roots of anti-Hispanic sentiments, and question the very label of "Golden Age" by considering contemporary discourses on imperialism and nationalism. Taught in Spanish.
SPA 135A Don Quijote I
SPA 148 Spanish Language Cinemea
SPA 150N Survey of Latin American Literature to 1900
SPA 154 Latin American Novel
SPA 159 Special Topics in Latin American Literature & Culture - Food, Culture, and Writing in the Early Modern Spanish Atlantic
Prof Daniela Gutiérrez Flores
This class will study the intense cultural transformations of the early modern Hispanic world through iconic foodstuffs such as maize, tomato, and chocolate. We will look at the relations between food and texts, analyzing the construction of cultural discourses about food in the transatlantic network between Spain and the Americas. How did food shape racial differences? What religious meanings were attached to certain foods and how did this influence evangelization? How did Europeans understand and represent radically different foods? Alongside studying early modern sources, we will discuss current issues related to food justice, national cuisines, and sustainability. Taught in Spanish.
SPA 168 Introduction to Latinx Culture
SPA 170 Introduction to Latin American Culture
SPA 172 Mexican Culture
SPA 176 Literature in Spanish Written in the United States
Spanish Graduate Courses
SPA 202 (Required for all Phd students in the Literature track)- Memory, Culture, and Human Rights (Literary Theory II)-Michael Lazzara
Tuesdays, 2:10-5:00 Olson 18
Although “memory” has been a topic for intellectual reflection since classical antiquity, it has sparked analysis and debate in academia since the 1980s, particularly due to the rise of Holocaust Studies and the urgent need to reflect on the causes and consequences of human rights violations around the world. Crossing the social sciences, humanities, and the arts, memory has become a category for critical inquiry as well as a political and ethical imperative that links intellectual reflection to political activism both during and after authoritarian regimes, wars, civil conflicts, genocide, slavery, and other traumatic and discriminatory histories. Over the past 30 years, memory studies have become institutionalized in the U.S. and abroad in the form of M.A. programs, certificate programs, conferences, and specialized journals promoting scholarship in this area.
What are memory studies? An autonomous field? A space of interdisciplinary inquiry? What kinds of work does a memory lens make possible? What are the limits, drawbacks, and untapped potential of such a framework?
This seminar will explore the productivity of “memory” an analytical category through which to do cultural studies work and for thinking about human rights. We will discuss how societal actors in different historical, cultural, and national settings construct meanings of past political violence, inter-group conflicts, and human rights struggles.
Readings will be mostly theoretical or conceptual in nature, although we will also discuss several primary texts and films derived largely from Latin America (specifically from Chile, Argentina, and Peru), a region of the world in which memory studies and reflections on memory have flourished in recent decades. Given the limited time we’ll have in the seminar, primary texts will touch on the literary genres of fiction, film, and testimony, though students are welcome to engage with other cultural objects—music, memorials, visual arts, etc.—in their individual projects. Students are highly encouraged to use this seminar as an opportunity to connect a memory studies approach to their own individual lines of research and to areas of the world beyond Latin America on which they may be focusing.
Class discussions and readings will be in English, though students of Spanish will also be able to read many texts in the original Spanish. Oral presentations will be in English. Final papers and written work can be submitted in English or Spanish.
SPA 212 Applied Linguistics- Claudia Sanchez-Gutierrez
Wednesdays, 4:10-7:00pm - Olson 109
This course offers an overview of central themes in applied linguistics and second language acquisition, such as the interface between explicit and implicit knowledge, the emotional dimensions of language learning/teaching, vocabulary, grammar and pragmatics, among others. For each theme, we will discuss how the theories presented in class can be applied to daily teaching practices in language classrooms, thus finding ways of using research as a means to improve pedagogical practices.
Spanish 215: Introduction to Discourse Analysis- Professor Cecilia Colombi
Thursdays, 3:10-6:00, Sproul 622
This course is an introduction to discourse analysis for the Spanish language from the perspective of a socio-semiotic theory of language: Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). SFL is a social theory of language designed for use in educational linguistics, text analysis and interpretation. This functional description of grammar looks at language (and images) in terms of how it is used in ‘real situations’, i.e, considers language as a 'meaning making resource in social contexts'. In this course we will be paying special attention to the use of Spanish/English in the media and public spaces.
Texts used for authentic communicative interactions (e.g. newspaper articles, essays, public lectures, etc.) will be described to represent examples in the oral-written continuum of language. These texts will be used to describe the lexico-grammatical features that Spanish takes in different registers from the oral to the more written ones. The description of the three systems of Spanish grammar: ideational, textual and interpersonal will be presented. An introduction to some aspects of multimodality will also be explored.
The following are some of the topics that will be discussed in the course:
- Oral and written language
- Genre and register theory
- Register: field, mode, tenor
- Metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal, textual.
- Ideational metafunction
- Interpersonal metafunction
- Textual metafunction
Bibliography consulted:
Ghio, E & Fernandez, M.D. Lingüística Sistémico Funcional: Aplicaciones a la lengua española. Ediciones de la Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Santa Fe, Argentina.
Eggins, S. Introducción a la lingüística sistémica. Traductor: Felipe Alcántara.
Martin, J. R. & Rose, D. Working with Discourse: Meaning Beyond the Clause 2nd Edition
SPA 224: Gender Violence, Victimhood, and Feminist Resistance in Contemporary Luso-Hispanic Fiction- Professor Diana Aramburu
Thursdays, 4:10-7:00pm- Sproul 522
On November 25, 2019, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, women from all parts of Chile gathered in Santiago’s Plaza de Armas, organized and choreographed by the feminist collective Lastesis, to sing what has since become a feminist global anthem, Un violador en tu camino. Blindfolded with their fists in the air, protestors signaled the State’s failure to protect women against rape and other forms of gender-based violence. The chant and choreographed dance were quickly adapted, translated, and performed in cities worldwide to emphasize the State’s complicity in the crimes of rape and feminicide. Basing their lyrics and performance on theories by Rita Segato and Silvia Federici, Un violador en tu camino sends a clear and unequivocal message—the patriarchal State does not protect woman, but rather threatens and victimizes them by actively facilitating and condoning gendered violence.
This course will use the 2019 global feminist performance piece as a springboard to study both fictional and real representations of gender violence, victimhood, and resistance alongside relevant theory on femicide, violence against women, rape culture, and feminist resistance networks. We will examine how literature, personal testimonies, documentaries, movies, art, photography, and social media have created new and alternate spaces to investigate and denounce the crises of feminicide and gender violence in Spain, Latin America, and the Caribbean. One of the main goals of the course is to understand what are the effective mediums that not only give visibility to these human rights issues, but through which key social and political issues, especially those pertaining to violence against women, are explored. Pertinent theoretical implications and the social and political factors that contributed to the development of feminist resistance movements such as Ni Una Menos, #Cuéntalo, etc will also be examined.
SPA 291-(applies as a Linguistics requirement for Literature students)-Foreign Language Learning- Carlee Arnett
Wednesdays, 4:10-7:00pm - Olson 144
This course will provide an overview of the field of second language acquisition (SLA) as well as the approaches to university-level foreign language instruction in the United States with an eye to highlighting the theoretical notions underlying current trends in classroom practices across commonly taught foreign languages. Course objectives are the following: (1) to acquaint students with issues and research in foreign language teaching; (2) to show ways of using that research to achieve more effective classroom instruction; (3) to develop students’ skills in evaluating teaching performance and instructional materials; and (4) to prepare students for continued professional development.
Texts: Brandl, Klaus. 2008. Communicative Language Teaching. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Kramsch, Claire and Lihau Zhang. 2018. The Multilingual Instructor. Oxford: Oxford UP.
Portuguese Courses
POR 002 Elementary Portuguese
Eugenia Da Silva Fernandes
Course description: POR 002 is taught in person. Class time is used to build social interactions through the Portuguese language. Outside of the class, students are required to complete homework assignments, readings, and complete parts of the projects. POR 002 is the second course of the Elementary Portuguese series, an introduction to the Portuguese language focusing on the development of all language skills in a cultural context with particular emphasis on communication. Unit topics will be presented contemplating contemporary issues of Lusophone communities with underlying topics such as official orthography and language varieties. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to communicate in oral and written Portuguese at the beginner level.
Important: This course has an organic format; thus, the syllabus can be modified according to the students’ needs.
Prerequisites: POR 001
Textbook: Plural: Português Pluricêntrico
Course hours: M-F (12:10 – 1:00 p.m.)
POR 022 Intermediate Portuguese
Eugenia Da Silva Fernandes
Course description: POR 022 is an in-person course. Class time is used to build social interactions through the Portuguese language. Outside of the class, students are required to complete homework assignments, readings, and complete parts of the projects. POR 022 is a continuation of POR 021. The course consists of the development and improvement of all language skills in Portuguese with an emphasis on interaction and problem-solving in the Lusophone world. Students will be led to the use of language by reading literary and authentic genres based on contemporary discussions to reach an intermediate-mid proficiency in the target language. Unit topics will be presented contemplating contemporary issues of Lusophone communities with underlying topics such as official orthography and language varieties. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to communicate in oral and written Portuguese at the intermediate-mid level and enroll in POR 2..
Prerequisites: POR 022, or instructor's consent.
Important: This course has an organic format; thus, the syllabus can be modified according to the students’ needs.
Textbook: Plural: Português Pluricêntrico
Course hours: M-F (1:10 – 2:00 p.m.)
POR 100 Luso Brazilian Literature and Criticism
Leopoldo Bernucci