Spanish Grammar Overview  

 The main purpose of this course is to provide the context and opportunities to improve your grammar through the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. This course provides an intensive review of the fundamentals of Spanish grammar (with an emphasis on verb tenses and moods). The content and pace of this course are based on the assumption that you have formally and successfully studied Spanish grammar in the recent past. The course is primarily conducted in Spanish.  

Spanish Grammar Overview    

The main purpose of this course is to provide the context and opportunities to improve your grammar through the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. This course provides an intensive review of the fundamentals of Spanish grammar (with an emphasis on verb tenses and moods). The content and pace of this course are based on the assumption that you have formally and successfully studied Spanish grammar in the recent past. The course is primarily conducted in Spanish

Spanish Grammar Overview    

 This asynchronous course will be conducted primarily in Spanish. The course content is divided by week.  It is 100% online. The main purpose of this course is to provide the context and opportunities to improve your grammar through the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. This course provides an intensive review of the fundamentals of Spanish grammar (with an emphasis on verb tenses and moods). The content and pace of this course are based on the assumption that you have formally and successfully studied Spanish grammar in the recent past. 

This course explores how fashion has been closely tied to identity since the pre-Columbian times, the colonial period, and the contemporary era in Latin America. Together, we will study this main theme through various sources, including historical and cultural scholarship, literature, visual documents, and film and music. 

  While some of the readings will be in English, class discussions will be conducted in Spanish. 

This course introduces students to the cultural history and current debates around human rights in Latin America. Since the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, Latin American intellectuals have played a critical role in shaping, contesting and redefining what it means to invoke “human rights” as a framework for political action. Long before 1948, however, Latin America also produced its own corpus of philosophical, political and artistic engagements with human rights that reveal alternative genealogies of the concept. We will begin with some of the earliest examples of what might be considered “human rights writing” from the colonial era and trace the development of Latin American human rights thinking through the twentieth century to the present day. Far from a self-evident category, we will examine how mobilizing “human rights” in social justice discourse raises fundamental questions about who or what counts as “human” and whether “rights” are sufficient to protect life from violence and precarity. From migration to military dictatorships, civil wars, “transitions to democracy,” police violence, racism and systemic inequality, we will study cultural materials from across the Hemisphere, considering topics such as: the relationship between human rights and revolutionary politics; the aesthetics of solidarity; visibility and its limitations; and contested meanings of “human rights” in Black, Indigenous, feminist, LGBTQ and environmentalist movements. 

Throughout history, human beings have been fascinated with the supernatural and monsters; being afraid reminds us that we are still alive. The main purpose of this course is to provide students with a panoramic view of some important Hispanic literary texts and films, and the way authors and filmmakers utilize horror to construct their stories using vampires, zombies, and other creatures to explore different social issues. As part of this course, students will also learn the techniques and the literary devices that will help them read and analyze in a critical manner selected works of fiction. The genres studied in this course will include narrative, poetry, drama, graphic novel, and film.

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This course focuses on race and race relations in different Latin American countries, including Brazil. Emphasis will be given to black, brown, and indigenous groups.

Prerequisites: SPAN 3305, and any 3000-level course. Spanish language, syntax, and grammar. 

Prerequisites: 6 hours of SPAN courses at the 3000-level. Oral and written Spanish with special attention to idiomatic expressions and cultural practices of business in the Hispanic World.

This course introduces students to translation and interpretation studies through theoretical and practical approaches to both mediums. Students will learn the different uses and advantages of both translation and interpretation from a theoretical perspective and will get the chance to work on their own translation skills in both Spanish and English. Students will also learn about different translation tools, such as machine translation, as well as the applicability of translation and interpretation in different sectors of the professional world.

This course is designed to enhance oral and written communication in the medical field. Provide and allow students with greater interaction among medical service providers and their clientele. It will also refer to health-related issues facing Hispanic communication. 

A survey of some of the most important literary works in the Hispanic world through the ages, although focus will be in the contemporary period. International historical,cultural and political contexts will be analyzed. Different genres will be considered: the novel, poetry, theatre, essay; and the respective film and artistic adaptations.

With over 483 million native speakers of Spanish across the world, Spanish has come into contact with a variety of different languages. These different situations of language contact have led to a number of general and regional linguistic changes in different varieties of Spanish.  Likewise, the Spanish language has also been the source of structural changes in many languages across the globe. In this class, we will talk about the linguistic and social relationship that Spanish shares with languages in Europe such as Catalán, Gallego, and Euskara, Continental African languages like Kokimbo, as well languages in the Americas such as Quechua, Portuguese, Mapudungun, Maya and English. We will examine how the Spanish language has influenced and been influenced in different ways by these languages and the social connotations of these contact situations.  Likewise, different, and many times competing, language contact theoretical frameworks will be analyzed and critiqued in order to evaluate the state of the field, identify gaps in the research, and outline what can be considered a contact-induced linguistic change.

This course explores Latin American perspectives on medicine and the body, from the social hygiene debates of the 19th century to contemporary narratives of illness, disability, addiction, suffering and environmental toxicity. We will consider how representations of the body function as vehicles for critical reflection on politics, society and the global economy, as well as how discourses of health, illness and disability intersect with ideas about race, sex, class and the nation. The course will also examine the role of literature and film in silencing, preserving or recuperating Black, Indigenous, queer and feminist health knowledges.

According to the adage, “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” In this seminar, we will examine the Mexican literary registration of this paradox to construct a viable periodization of the contemporary moment. How do novels conceive the unimaginable and cohere the unthinkable? What literary modalities and genres can give form to eco-catastrophe, climate migration, financial speculation, and extractive capitalism? Reading copiously and intensely, we will explore how contemporary Mexican literature approximates (thinks, synthesizes, quantifies, rebukes) the multilayered crises that confront humanity.

US Latinx/e literature is a field as varied as the histories, countries of origin, and personal experiences of the almost 60 million people of Latin American descent living in the United States. Ilan Stavans addresses the growing body of literature that tells their stories as “the tension between double attachments to place, to language, and to identity,” and Frederick Luis Aldama adds that the category of Latinx literature has emerged “out of a demographic presence generationally and linguistically rooted in a common Hispanic ancestral heritage and shaped by the movement of national borders and migration flows” (Stavans liii, Aldama x). In this course, we will explore these complexities through coming of age stories from Chicano/ Mexican-American, Puerto Rican, Dominican-American, and Cuban-American writers. We will study a series of narratives of growth written between 1972 and 2020, addressing themes including class inequality, sexual identity, familial and state violence, generational inheritance, parental expectations, religion, and codeswitching, and border crossing. 

Drawing on a broad range of short written texts (essays, journalism, stories and poems) and performance and visual resources (feature films, documentary and music videos), SPAN 4338 examines Spain’s cultural evolution from the late 19th century to the present. In the first half of the course, we will analyze concepts of culture, nationhood, and identity against the backdrop of Spain’s loss of the last of their colonies in Spanish America, the Spanish Second Republic, the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship. In the second half of the course, we evaluate the reinvention of Spainafter the death of Francisco Franco and more recent and demographic shifts that have made Spain one of the most multicultural, multilingual and ecologically-conscious countries in Europe. SPAN 4338 is an ideal course for students who are going to, recently back from, or simply exploring the possibility of participating in the Texas Tech Study Abroad program in Sevilla, Spain.

Thursdays, 3:30 pm - 6:20 pm, CMLL 105

In this course, we will examine a wide range of Latin American films, with a focus on films with Black, indigenous, and LGBTQ protagonists and directors. Through film, we will see the immense range of landscapes and identities represented in Latin America. The films we will study are from Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, and Mexico, and span genres including drama, revenge thriller, horror, documentary, comedy, and science fiction. We will examine themes including adolescence, racial discrimination, disability, beauty standards, sexual and gender identity, love, loss, and mourning, violence, revenge and greed, exploitation, religion, memory and trauma, migration, and community.

T/R 2:00 pm - 3:20 pm, CMLL 116

Online; Asynchronous

MWF 9:00 am - 9:50 am, CMLL 116

Face to Face:
SPAN 3305.001
MWF 10:00 am - 10:50 am, CMLL 118

Online:
SPAN 3305.D01
Asynchronous

Prerequisites: SPAN 2301 or SPAN 2302 or equivalent (with a “C” or higher)

After completing this online synchronous course, students should achieve intermediate performance ability in Spanish. In addition, students will expand and will gain knowledge and understanding of Hispanic cultures. Students will improve their written and oral communication abilities through different class activities and homework assignments and develop insight into the nature of language and culture. This course will be primarily conducted in Spanish.

MWF 2:00 pm - 2:50 pm, CMLL 116

This course provides an overview of the fundamentals of Spanish contemporary life, culture, and history. The course aims to provide students with grammatical and lexical knowledge as well as cultural and pragmatic skills to use Spanish in everyday interactions across a variety of social contexts (service encounters, debates, public spaces, etc.). Specifically, the course will cover Spanish history (from Medieval to Contemporary Spain), Andalusian cultural and socio-pragmatic/politeness norms, and local linguistic practices. Throughout the course, we will rely on methods and concepts from the fields of sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, and linguistics as we conduct participant observation of culture in Sevilla and Andalucía, which will then allow us to reflect on what is (West) Texas culture (differences and similarities). In-class discussions will be conducted in Spanish. No previous knowledge of linguistics is needed. All are welcome.    

MWF 1:00 pm - 1:50 pm, CMLL 116

Resistance and Representation: A Survey of Hispanic Literature in Colonial Contexts

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to Hispanic literature through an examination of writers and genres that have responded to the colonizing forces impacting the Spanish-speaking world throughout history. The readings will span a broad historical and geographical range, encompassing early Spanish colonization, including that of the Llano Estacado of Texas, to independence movements of the early 19th century. It further explores the colonization and imperialist efforts of the U.S. in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. The course concludes with a study of responses to neocolonial and globalizing forces from the late 20th century to today.
Throughout the semester, students will engage with themes of resistance, the tensions of cultural assimilation, and the power of both poetics and testimonial literature in responding to dominant forces of colonization and imperialism. 

Online: Synchronous
TR 11:00 am - 12:20 pm

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MW 9:00 am - 9:50 am, CMLL 114

Online; Asynchronous

MWF 11:00 am - 11:50 am, CMLL 118

Hispanic Culture and Civilization: Crime Fiction in the Hispanic World

Crime and detective fiction serves as a mass-marketed commodity, a captivating spectacle filled with scandal and suspense, and a complex puzzle that reveals social norms. This genre highlights the blurred lines between high and low art, as well as the contradictions of modern morality. In this course, students will explore the structure of detective stories and examine how historical events have shaped this popular genre, with a particular focus on crime fiction in the Hispanic world. We will also delve into the contributions of Hispanic writers to the genre, especially the emergence of neopolicial and narcoliteratura, and investigate the representation of violence and crime in Spanish-speaking countries.

The advent of the digital communication age has compelled us to consider traditional academic writing and digital genres in flexible and creative ways. (Digital) genres—as a significant multimodal and flexible form and function of communication—match our current social, professional, and personal needs and make knowledge more accessible and sharable than ever, thanks to their connection to media. In this course, you will work on several writing projects (e.g., one of them related to your major) that support interactivity, collaborative work, and multiliteracies development while developing the necessary Spanish language to communicate professionally with others.

Online; Synchronous
W 10:00 am - 10:50 am

This course is designed to enhance oral and written communication in the medical field. Provide and allow students with greater interaction among medical service providers and their clientele. It will also refer to health-related issues facing Hispanic communication. The main goal of this course is to enhance the knowledge of Spanish of those who work in the medical/healthcare fields or intend to do so. It will provide the students with skills to better communicate with the ever-growing Spanish-speaking community of the United States in situations commonly encountered by medical professionals in the different areas of healthcare.

Language in (Social) Media

TR 12:30 pm - 1:50 pm, CMLL 116

Online; Synchronous
TR 3:30 pm - 4:50 pm

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TR 9:30 am - 10:50 am, CMLL 00024

Visual Encounters: Visual and Textual Sources of the Conquest of Spanish America
 
This course will introduce you to historical characters such as Christopher Columbus, Bartolomé de Las Casas, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and others who prompted, witnessed or first-hand experienced the conquest of today’s Latin America. Through a series of historical, scholarly and visual sources, we will examine the cultural narratives of the past that have shaped our understanding of today’s Latin America. While some materials are in English, the class discussions, activities and homework will be conducted entirely in Spanish.

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TR 11:00 am - 12:20 pm, CMLL 118

Almost 60 million people of Latin American descent live in the United States. What do their stories have in common, and how are they different? How have they contributed to the development and identity of the United States? Like this diverse population, U.S. Latinx literature is a varied, vibrant field. Ilan Stavans addresses the growing body of literature that tells Latinos’ stories as “the tension between double attachments to place, to language, and to identity,” and Frederick Luis Aldama adds that the category of Latinx literature has emerged “out of a demographic presence generationally and linguistically rooted in a common Hispanic ancestral heritage and shaped by the movement of national borders and migration flows.” In this course, we will explore these complexities through stories that narrate the journey from youth to adulthood, or narratives of awakening. Together, we will delve into coming-of-age stories from Chicano/ Mexican-American, Puerto Rican, Dominican-American, and Cuban-American writers. We will address themes including class inequality, gender, sexual identity, violence, religion, codeswitching, and border crossing.

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