Jorge M Gomez-Bocanegra

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

DEPARTMENT OF SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE

SPANISH 327 W

Advanced Grammar & Composition II

Instructor: Jorge M. Gomez-Bocanegra Ph.D.

1. I.               CLASS MATERIALS:

Recommended:

A good dictionary (Larousse, Oxford, mid-size or large Collins)

Readings for this course will be made available via Blackboard.

II.              GENERAL INFORMATION:

Spanish 327W is offered as a Substantial Writing Component course and therefore allows students to earn credit as part of the UT’s Core Curriculum Requirement. This class participates in the University-wide initiative to enhance the use of writing in the undergraduate college curriculum. Within the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, this course will provide students with a unique opportunity to further develop their writing skills in the Spanish language. The combination of Spanish 327G and Spanish 327W offers an excellent underpinning for a successful upper-division experience in the fields of linguistics and literature.

• All instruction, in-class activities, readings and assignments are in Spanish.
• The prerequisite for this course is Spanish 327G or equivalent.

III.            COURSE PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES:

SPN 327 W is the second in the Advanced Spanish Grammar and Composition two-course sequence. It is designed:

• To help you discover, develop, and present your ideas through a series of communicative writing tasks analogous to the type of expository writing crafted by majors and minors, and  
• To perfect your grammar skills in order to write scholarly papers in Spanish, literature, or culture, for United States audience 

Informal and formal writings tasks to meet these goals may include summaries of texts, critical analyses, essays that develop a theme or answer a question, and a short research paper, with rewrites required. These writing tasks will help you learn how:

• To posit a thesis and develop it in essay form,
• To organize and clarify your ideas,
• To support your claims with appropriate evidence.

Throughout this course, you will also discover the ways in which:

• Writing is used to influence the reader,
• Personal and academic discourses differ,
• Writing improves with practice and helps us to think clearly and argue persuasively,
• Mastery of grammar and wide range of expressions are essential to the success of any discourse.

SPAN 322K/LAS 370S: Civilization of Spanish America

Summer (first) 2012                                                                 Instructor: L.E. Porto, Ph.D.

                                                                                                Office/Hrs: BEN 1.114;

Description:

To grab at a composite is to overlook the particulate. And yet, in order to deal with systems, histories, identities... even language as a semi-stable continuum, we must grab at composites. In our case, as we embark upon the study of a so-called Spanish American Civilization, we are certainly at risk of over-extension, as the contours and constituents of this space are—in spatial, temporal, and qualitative terms—quite vast. The designated space points to “established” cultures which are, in the strictest sense, well over 3200 years old, to more than 360 million living human beings who make their homes in 18 countries (and the “Estado Libre Asociado” of Puerto Rico) which spread across 8.6 million miles² (22.3 million km²) and range from the wettest lands on Earth (the Chocó region of Pacific Coastal Colombia) to the driest (Atacama Desert in Chile), from the largest tropical rain forest on Earth (Amazon) to the glaciers of Patagonia. The people of this vast space represent hundreds of ethnic and linguistic groups; and though the ethnicities are too many and too diverse to mention, the major indigenous and African linguistic groups are Tupi-Guarani in south-central South America, Maya (Cakchiquel, Kekchi, Mam, Quiché, or Yucatec) throughout Central America, Aymara in Bolivia, Quechua in Peru, Nahuatl in Mexico, and Yoruba in Cuba.

      Even this most cursory depiction of the vastness of Spanish America already presents the complexity of our subject. Our positioning vis-à-vis this course, therefore, will actually be where we most often reside in consciousness: between narrative and specimen; that is, between a story that “makes sense” and the details which seem to be left out of the seemingly complete jig-saw puzzle, between a sense of describable identity and a slew of idiosyncratic traits.

      Why then, or how, can we speak of a Spanish American Civilization? Leaving aside the fact that we have probably engaged in the common practice of “othering” the unknown, there is also the fact that the region has undergone four distinct periods or processes: i) a time before European domination; ii) the period of conquest and colonization; iii) the period of national independence; and iv) a “modern” and, in a more complex sense, post-modern period. Though these categories may not look all that different from the periods and processes that occurred to the north, the particular ways that they were experienced in Spanish America certainly did differ. Also, the region differs markedly from the rest of the Americas by way of its predominantly Hispanic and Portuguese cultural heritage, its predominantly Catholic religious culture, and a judicial system based in Roman Law.

The lectures and discussions will be conducted entirely in Spanish. Very rarely, a particular topic or text may warrant a brief switching into English, but only rarely. On the other hand, you will note that a few readings are in English—these were either originally written in English, in a third language (i.e., Quiché or French), or are too long to include in Spanish. Students are responsible for completing the assigned readings before each class.

Important: If you have any questions or concerns regarding these qualifications, or if any other concerns arise during the semester, please see me in my office immediately to discuss them. Remember that summer classes cover a lot of material in a brief amount of time, so the sooner we discuss your concerns, the better.

Texts/Class Materials:

Required: Course Packet, Spanish American Civilization, Porto; available at Jenn’s Copies (22^nd /Guadalupe)

Grading Criteria:

Participation: 10%

Weekly Topic Report; 5 x 3 15%

Weekly Topic Presentation: 5%

Midterm Exam: 30%

Final Exam: 40%

Main literary trends and principal writers in Spanish America from the sixteenth century through Modernism. Taught in Spanish.