Faculty of Arts & Science 2015-2016 Calendar

Spanish

• Spanish Specialist | Spanish Major | Spanish Minor
• Spanish Courses

Faculty

Overview:

Spanish is the most widely-spoken language of the Americas, with 130 million speakers in North America alone and more than 400 million worldwide, with growing numbers in Canada.  It is the fourth most widely-spoken language in the world, and it is the official language in 21 countries on three continents: Europe, Africa, and Latin America.

Spanish opens the door to a rich range of cultural expression in literature, film and art, from the world-changing contribution of Renaissance Spain to the literary and cultural production of Latin America, Spanish and Latin American writers, film-makers and artists continue to shape contemporary culture.

Language sequence:

1. The Department reserves the right to place students in the language course best suited to their linguistic preparation.

2. Students who, in the department's assessment, have an adequate knowledge of Spanish may be required to take a Spanish literature, culture or linguistics course instead of a language course at any level.

The progression of courses in the language sequence is designed to accommodate a wide range of previous language experience. Students are placed in the appropriate language course based on their proficiency, or as determined by the on-line placement test and departmental assessment.

Students who have studied Spanish before joining the department should take the on-line placement test by going to the following link:

 http://spanport.utoronto.ca/undergraduate/spanish

Please read the instructions carefully. The placement test can be taken only once. Should the student be able to take the test more than once, the results of the first test will be used to determine the placement.

Students who have had no previous experience in studying Spanish must enrol in an intensive course, SPA100Y1. 

Students who have had previous experience in studying Spanish may enrol in several intermediate and advanced courses, depending on their background and their level of preparation. Speakers with an intermediate level of Spanish, including those who successfully completed SPA100Y1, may enrol in SPA220Y1.

Speakers with an advanced level of Spanish, and those who successfully completed SPA220Y1, may enrol in SPA320Y1.

Those students who have had exposure to spoken Spanish in an informal context (i.e., those who have lived or live in a Spanish-speaking environment), but who have had little to no exposure to written Spanish, should enrol in SPA219Y1. Students who qualify for this course are able to understand and to speak Spanish. Their level of spoken fluency may range from basic to relatively high, but they usually do not write or read Spanish.

Following a successful completion of SPA 219Y1 or SPA320Y1, students are qualified to enrol in SPA420H1.

Students who have completed the equivalent of a highschool degree or higher level of education in a Spanish-speaking country, but who have never studied descriptive grammar, should enrol in SPA420H1.

Students who are unsure of what is the most appropriate placement for them in the language sequence should contact the department (spanport@chass.utoronto.ca) to receive personal assessment and recommendation for proper placement. 

Throughout the language sequence, stress is laid both on the cultural component of language acquisition and on the range of practical applications to which both the spoken and the written language may be put. Courses in phonetics, in business Spanish, and in the history and structure of the Spanish language provide an array of possible options for students in the upper years.

Fluent speakers of Spanish who have received highshool or a higher level of education in Spanish language, and who in the department's assessment do not need further training in language, may enrol immediately in any literature, culture or linguistics course.

Literature, culture and linguistics courses:
Following an introduction to the methodologies of critical analysis as applied to literary texts in Spanish (SPA258H1), students have a wide selection of courses on the literatures of Spain and Spanish America: medieval Spanish literature; early modern prose, verse and drama; the modern novel, short story, poetry, drama and film. Text are read and discussed not only in terms of their individual artistic value but also as illustrations of the outlook and the intellectual climate of their age.

For the Portuguese component, see under Portuguese Program in this Calendar.

For further information, please visit us in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese,

Victoria College, Room 208

or contact us at: (416) 813-4080. Email: spanport@chass.utoronto.ca

Undergraduate Coordinator: Professor Sanda Munjic (416) 813-4082.

E-mail: spanport.undergraduate@utoronto.ca

Web site: www.spanport.utoronto.ca

Spanish Programs

Enrolment in the Spanish programs requires the completion of four degree courses; no minimum GPA required.

Consult Professor Sanda Munjic, Department of Spanish and Portuguese.

(10 full courses or their equivalent, including at least one 400-series course)

First Year:
SPA100Y1/SPA220Y1; SPA219Y1 (for native/bilingual speakers of Spanish)

Second Year:
SPA220Y1/SPA320Y1; SPA420H1 (for speakers who have taken SPA219Y1 in first year)

Third and Fourth Years:
1. SPA320Y1, SPA420H1, SPA454H1
2. SPA450H1 or SPA452H1
3. One half-course in Hispanic linguistics from the 300/400 series
4. One half-course in Spanish American literature from the 300/400-series
5. Plus additional SPA courses to make the equivalent of 10 courses. Up to two full-course equivalents may be taken from cognate departmental or college offerings: GGR, HIS, LAS, LIN, POL, PRT. A complete list of eligible courses is available from the Undergraduate Coordinator. Students interested in Latin America are encouraged to take an introductory course in Portuguese (PRT100Y1/PRT110Y1).

Consult Professor Sanda Munjic, Department of Spanish and Portuguese.

(7 full courses or their equivalent)

First Year:
SPA100Y1/SPA220Y1; SPA219Y1 (for native/bilingual speakers of Spanish)

Second Year:
SPA220Y1/SPA320Y1; SPA420H1 (for speakers who have taken SPA219Y1 in first year)

Third and Fourth Years:
1. SPA320Y1, SPA420H1
2. SPA450H1 or SPA452H1
3. SPA454H1
4. One 300/400-series half-course in Hispanic linguistics, and one 300/400-series half-course in Spanish American literature.
5. Plus additional SPA courses to make seven courses. Up to one full-course equivalent may be taken from cognate departmental or college offerings: GGR, HIS, LAS, LIN, POL, PRT. A complete list of eligible courses is available from the Undergraduate Coordinator. Students interested in Latin America are encouraged to take an introductory course in Portuguese (PRT100Y1/PRT110Y1).

Consult Professor Sanda Munjic, Department of Spanish and Portuguese.

(4 full courses or their equivalent)

SPA219Y1/SPA320Y1, plus additional SPA courses to make four courses. Up to one full-course equivalent of cognate credit may be taken in Portuguese.

The Department of Spanish and Portuguese participates in the Faculty of Arts and Science’s Language Citation initiative for Spanish.

To complete the language citation in Spanish students will normally complete the two language-sequence courses that follow the introductory level

SPA220Y1
SPA320Y1

Native and bilingual speakers should complete SPA219Y1 and two additional half-courses in Spanish in the 300- or 400-series.

Students should note that, as explained on the page 20 of this Calendar, the Language Citation is not equivalent to an academic program and that enrolment in a program is not necessary in order to earn the recognition bestowed by the Citation.

To request the citation, bring your ROSI transcript to the department, where you will be asked to fill out a Language Citation Request form.

Spanish: see also European Studies, Latin American Studies

Spanish Courses

The 199Y1 and 199H1 seminars are designed to provide the opportunity to work closely with an instructor in a class of no more than twenty-four students. These interactive seminars are intended to stimulate the students’ curiosity and provide an opportunity to get to know a member of the professorial staff in a seminar environment during the first year of study. Details can be found at www.artsci.utoronto.ca/current/course/fyh-1/.

1. The Department reserves the right to place students in the language course best suited to their linguistic preparation.

2. Students who, in the department's assessment, have an adequate knowledge of Spanish may be required to take a Spanish literature, culture or linguistics course instead of a language course at any level.

3. All courses taught in Spanish unless otherwise specified.

Introduction to the Spanish language for beginning students; overview of basic grammatical structures, development of vocabulary and oral and written expression.

This course is designed to meet the needs of students who have had exposure to spoken Spanish in an informal context, but little to no exposure to written Spanish. The students' ability to speak and understand Spanish may range from basic to relatively high fluency, but they cannot write and/or read Spanish. The course reviews English/Spanish spelling differences; written and spoken registers of Spanish, and basic aspects of the grammatical system. The course aims at (1) providing students with the essential understanding of Spanish grammatical system; (2) building their vocabulary; and (3) training them to express themselves formally in both spoken and written Spanish.

Intermediate Spanish for non-native speakers. Intensive grammar review of the structures of Spanish integrated with an introduction to reading authentic Spanish material, with practice designed to build vocabulary and to improve oral and written expression.

A practical introduction to articulatory phonetics, Spanish sound patterns, phonetics, phonology; the basic concepts of phonetic description and transcription; the study of Spanish vowel and consonant systems, stress and intonation.

Critical reading of Don Quixote as a canonical text for the novel and other narrative forms, including historical metafiction, the short story, and fictional autobiography. Comparative discussion of Quixotic fictions by modern authors, such as Machado de Assis, Borges, Nabokov, García Márquez, Junot Díaz. Lectures and readings in Engllish.

A survey of Hispanic Culture, with attention to central issues in history, politics, and popular traditions. Course will be taught in English.

Introduction to university literary studies in Spanish. Representative selection of Spanish and Spanish American prose, poetry, and drama, with focus on critical terminology and methods of literary analysis. (Offered in alternate years)

Forms of cultural expression in Spain, Latin America and Spanish-speaking North America, with study of representative media, including literature, journalism, film, visual art, and the urban environment. Introduction to methods of cultural analysis. (Offered in alternate years).

Credit course for supervised participation in faculty research project. Details at http://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/current/course/rop. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

Advanced Spanish for non-natives. Selective review of grammar with emphasis on the complex sentence; intensive practice in written and oral expression to improve proficiency.

The basic concepts and analytic tools of linguistics applied to the study of Spanish, with a focus on the Spanish phonological, morphological, and syntactic systems. Theoretical discussion and practical exercises in analytic techniques. (Offered in alternate years)

Practical uses of spoken and written Spanish for business contexts. This course builds on grammar and vocabulary knowledge already acquired at the intermediate level, and is directed primarily at students pursuing a second major in Latin American Studies or European Studies. (Offered in alternate years)

Spanish bilingualism from three different perspectives: linguistic, sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic. Analysis of typical language contact phenomena with materials from Spanish. Case studies of Spanish in contact and discussion of the psychological consequences of bilingual childhood. Introduction to survey methods in sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics, and basic techniques for conducting language interviews.

This course aims at exposing students to different varieties of Latin American Spanish. Lexical, morpho-syntactic and phonological variation will be discussed and theoretical descriptions will be illustrated by using samples from contemporary cinema and television.

Study of Catalan language through an overview of grammatical structures and exercises in proficiency skills, complemented by readings in Catalan history and society to attain interdisciplinary cultural literacy.

Literary and artistic movements in Spain from 1890 to 1940, with special attention to the convergence and mutual mediation of politics and art. Materials to be studied include novels, poetry, the urban environment, graphic art, literary journals and manifestos, and some early Hispanic film. (Offered in alternate years)

Analysis of the development of Spanish Cinema within its social and political contexts. Directors studied include Buñuel, Bardem, Erice, Saura, Almodóvar and Bigas Luna. (Offered in alternate years).

Representative literary and cultural texts from the early modern period, studied in relation to the history and society of imperial Spain. Discussion will centre on such issues as the formation of the state, urbanization, court culture, social order and disorder, and cultural discourses of identity and difference. (Offered in alternate years)

This interdisciplinary approach considers broad cultural consequences resulting from the contact of Spanish with the American indigenous languages. Current cultural and linguistic theories on language contact are used to analyze sixteenth to eighteenth-century Spanish texts, and invite reflection on language, power, and the emergence of new cultural expressions.

Latin American cinema approached within the framework of cultural studies and film theory, with attention to aesthetic and social forms, and to questions of national and cultural issues. May be focused on a particular region or period, or may be more of a representative survey, depending on instructor. (Offered in alternate years). Course taught in English.

Analysis of poetry, short stories, essays, and graphic art in the context of nation-building and the question of identity during the nineteenth century. Modernismo studied as the first literary movement of Spanish American origin. (Offered in alternate years)

Study of different creative expressions by women in Spanish America from the colonial period to the present; analysis of selected works of visual art, film, essays, poetry, and fiction. (Offered in alternate years)

Study of representative works of major artistic and literary movements in 20th and 21st century Spanish America: avant-garde poetry, theatre of the absurd, surrealist art, neo-realism, postmodernism. (Offered in alternate years)

Modern literature in its critical relation to social conditions. Emphasis on socio-historical context, ideologies of the period and writers views of their social responsibility as a framework for literary analysis (Offered in alternate years)

This course examines cultural production, including short stories, novels, films and paintings surrounding the socio-poltical transformations of the revolutionary period. Readings and discussion emphasize general concepts of the landscape, as a visual and spatial mode of interpreting relationships between human subjects, and between these subjects and the territory they occupy. (Offered in alternate years)

An instructor-supervised group project in an off-campus setting. Details at http://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/current/course/399. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

An instructor-supervised group project in an off-campus setting. Details at http://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/current/course/399. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

Linguistic analysis with the objective of improving students' command of Spanish grammar. Advanced review of traditional grammatical topics, including the verbal and pronominal systems, and Spanish copulas and embedded clauses. This course assumes familiarity with the grammatical terminology introduced in SPA220Y1.

Study of Spanish morphology and syntax: syntactic categories in Spanish, the structure and interpretation of simple and complex sentences. (Offered in alternate years)

Study of linguistic variation across the Spanish-speaking world; central issues in phonological, morphological, and syntactic variation, analyzed from a geographical as well as from a social point of view. (Offered in alternate years)

Theoretical and experimental approaches to Spanish phonology. Topics include: Spanish phonemic inventory, sound patterns, suprasegmentals (stress and intonation), synchronic and diachronic variation. Methods of data collection and analysis in the discipline, with practical applications.

Study of major currents in narrative fiction during the last twenty years, a period of return to democratic government, the relaxing of censorship and the opening up of Spanish culture. Analysis of works from several generations of male and female writers. (Offered in alternate years)

A course on a specific topic in modern Spanish literature, designed for advanced students. Course content and instructor are established on a yearly basis.

A course on specific topics in Spanish studies, designed for advanced students. Course content and instructor are established on a yearly basis.

A course on specific topics in Spanish culture, designed for advanced students. Course content and instructor are established on a yearly basis.

Medieval works studied in relation to literary and cultural traditions. Issues of genre, discourse, and ideology are scrutinized in various texts, including lyric, narrative, and moral and didactic writings. (Offered in alternate years)

Study of theatre and the idea of representation, with reference to parallels in lyric poetry and visual art. Emphasis on the Spanish comedia as a genre, and on its interaction with other artistic forms in the Golden Age. (Offered in alternate years)

Detailed study of Don Quixote as a foundational text in the European literary tradition, with attention to the conventions, genres, and literary techniques that inform the text. 

A course on a specific topic in Spanish American culture, designed for advanced students. Course content and instructor are established on a yearly basis.

A course on a specific topic in Spanish American literature, designed for advanced students. Course content and instructor are established on a yearly basis.

Issues of nationalism, historical awareness, and the rewriting of the past in Spanish American fiction, with detailed study of representative texts. (Offered in alternate years)

Contemporary Argentine and Mexican authors and visual artists will be tudied through their work, online visibility, and also the institutional and discursive structures that facilitate and shape their production. In-class Skype discussions with some of the artists.

Theories of cultural identity and production, as articulated by Latin American thinkers since the Independence period. Issues for study will include civilization and barbarity, cultural imperialism, the commodification and consumption of cultural icons, museums, the mass media and national identity, processes of transculturation and cultural hybridity. (Offered in alternate years)

Detailed study of the major movements in Spanish-American narrative, including magic realism, fantastic literature, womens writing, and testimonial literature, through analysis of representative novels and short stories. (Offered in alternate years)

Literature studied as a socio-political space for the articulation of new concepts of cultural identity; examination of cultural change and aesthetic innovation in selected poetic, dramatic, and narrative texts from different national traditions (Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico). (Offered in alternate years)

Detailed study of key moments and texts in Spanish American culture from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, focussing on such topics as the creation of new nations, indigenismo, Caribbean anti-slavery literature, and the Mexican and Cuban Revolutions. (Offered in alternate years)

The end of civil and military conflicts in the last decade of the 20th century reshapes the political landscape of Central America. Through selected readings of novels and short stories from representative writers, issues of immigration, displacement, and globalization are discussed to understand these changes in the region.

The 70s and 80s represent a period of armed struggle, civil war, and revolution in most of Central America. Through the study of specific novels, short stories, and films, this course analyzes the representation of violence, and the political repression generated by military conflicts.

Individual study with a member of staff on a topic of common interest including readings, discussion and written assignments. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

Individual study with a member of staff on a topic of common interest including readings, discussion and written assignments. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.