College Bulletin 2022-2023 
    
    May 10, 2024  
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College Bulletin 2022-2023 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

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Sociology
  

  • SOCI 026B. Class Matters: Privilege, Poverty and Power

    This class examines the ways our social origins (or class backgrounds) impact our lives, and the ways in which class positions are passed down (or not) across generations. We will discuss what we mean by “class”; economic inequality and poverty; intersections of class with racial, gender, and other forms of inequality; cultural and social capital; tastes and lifestyles; the role of education in both promoting social mobility and reproducing class inequalities; and the role of the state in shaping inequalities and mobility chances. 
    Social sciences.
    1 credit.
    Fall 2024. Laurison.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SOCI 026D. Sociology of Gender

    What is gender and how do we make sense of it? This course will offer students an overview of the various ways social scientists describe how societies think about and are built on gender and gender differences. This course has two aims. First, the course will introduce students to some of the main frameworks used to define and explain gender in sociology and social science research. Second, it will focus more specifically on how these frameworks and gender-based issues manifest in the world around us. This is an overview course meant to give students a broad introduction into different areas of theory and research in gender studies from a sociological view-point. It focuses primarily on gender in the West with a specific emphasis on the United States although we will touch on theories and research beyond the U.S. context. 
    Social sciences.
    1 credit.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SOCI 026E. Introduction to Social Statistics (M)

    We frequently encounter statements or claims based on statistics, such as: women earn less than men, the American population is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse, or married people are healthier than unmarried people. On what information are these statements based? What kinds of evidence support or refute such claims? How can we assess their accuracy? This course will show students how to answer these sorts of questions by interpreting and critically evaluating statistics commonly used in the analysis of social science data. Hands-on data analysis and interpretation are an important component of the course. 
    Methods Course
    Social sciences.
    1 credit.
    Spring 2024. Ya Su.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SOCI 028. Black Liberation 2020

    (Cross-listed as BLST 028 )
    2020 has been a tumultuous year. Economic, social, environmental and political events around the world have put global racial hierarchy in stark relief. In the United States, the Coronavirus pandemic is revealing and exacerbating existing racial inequalities. The continued state sponsored killing of Black people has sparked the latest iterations of the Black Liberation Movement within and across multiple boundaries. In this interdisciplinary course, we will investigate and uncover the seeds of these movements in previous eras, the conditions of white supremacy that continue to call forth resistance, and the manifestations of that constant resistance globally, nationally, and local to our city of Philadelphia. In partnership with the Pulitzer Center, students will work with preeminent journalists, local organizers and community members to create a podcast that will serve as a digital archive to tell multifaceted stories of Black Liberation 2020.    
    Social sciences.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for BLST, GLBL-core
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SOCI 030C. The Black Atlantic: Diasporic Perspectives and Resistance

    (Cross-listed as BLST 030C )
    Triumph, failure, defeat, and resistance vis a vis slavery, colonization, and emancipation, are central in shaping the vastness of Black experiences. In this course we bridge individual and historical processes. Our engagement with Black authors’ historical fiction and empirical works invites us to consider the day-to-day negotiations of Black: struggles, joys, sorrows, and freedoms as both intimately personal and ideological endeavors. Our focus spans slavery in the US and Caribbean and colonization of sub-Saharan Africa, highlighting important connections and distinctions unique to locales and their relationality to white supremacy. 
    Social sciences.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for BLST
    Spring 2024. Veras.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SOCI 031C. Native Nations and American Indians

    This course traces the 500 years of conquest, colonialism, genocide, resistance, survivance and revitalization of Native Nations in the Americas, with a special focus on North America. It also covers contemporary issues and social realities (of Indigenous peoples) within the United States, Canada, Mexico and Turtle Island generally. We discuss origins and struggles over sovereignty, social movements, federal recognition, enrollment, tribal citizenship, mascotry, Indian gaming, socio-cultural identity and Native worldviews, including alternatives to ongoing environmental degradation. The class provides students with opportunities to develop their specific knowledge of individual tribal nations, including Pueblos Indígenas in Central America and the First Nations of Canada and the Arctic.
    Social sciences.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for PEAC, ESCH, GLBL-core
    Spring 2023. Fenelon
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SOCI 035B. Anti-Capitalism, Revolution and Resistance in the “Third World”

    This class will introduce students to the long history of struggle in the so-called third world. We will read and analyze the various movements that have sought to resist and challenge the imposition of the oppressive systems of capitalism, colonialism and racialization. The aim of the class is to question the naturalization of these systems of oppression and to appreciate the many ways in which people have sought to resist and challenge their imposition. The class is framed from the perspective of the oppressed and presents as history from below. We will cover such themes as the resistance against the privatization of the commons; slave revolts; the Third World Movement; Socialism in Latin America and the Cuban Revolution. 
    Social sciences.
    1 credit.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  
  

  • SOCI 035D. Capitalism and Migration

    The issue of transnational migration has been much debated by politicians, the media and laypeople alike. This is especially the case in the last few years. Images of migrants making their way to the nearest border, families being separated through deportation and children being detained in cages fill our screens. But, do we understand what causes people to migrate in the first place? To understand this, we need to analyze the root causes of transnational migration as well as the politics involved in it. This will require engagement with issues of power, the legal system and the production of migrant illegality, race, the nation-state, etc. Rather than only a survey of theories related to the topic, this class is designed to provide you with a holistic approach to the study of migration from a critical sociological perspective.
    Social sciences.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for ESCH, LALS, GLBL-core
    Spring 2025. Rangel.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SOCI 035E. Immigration, Race, and the Law

    “Race is a social construction” is an often-repeated mantra among scholars and activists alike. However, less explored is: how and to what end race was constructed and by whom? SOCI 035E takes as its central task to provide answers to these questions by paying particular attention to the role of the law in the creation and maintenance of race and racism and of racialized citizenship. Relatedly, this class also explores the role that race has played in shaping the differential reception and inclusion of various migrant groups over time. We will study, for instance, how certain European migrant groups were eventually allowed to “become white” while others, such as Latinos, became closely associated with illegality. The goal of this class is to shed light into the functioning of race and the law within capitalism.


    Social sciences.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS
    Spring 2023. Rangel.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  
  

  • SOCI 036E. Gender, Family, and Work in East Asia

    This course examines issues regarding gender, family, and work in contemporary East Asian societies from a sociological perspective. The major goals of this course include: understanding how family life and work interconnect and interfere with each other and the implications that this has for women and men; and gaining empirical knowledge about gender, work, and family in East Asia. By taking a sociological approach to learning about the family and work and by gaining knowledge about empirical trends and patterns in East Asia today, this course will give students the theoretical and empirical tools to understand how family life is linked to social structure; to economic, cultural, and historical events and transitions in non-western contexts. 
    Social sciences.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for ASIA, GSST
    Fall 2022. Ya Su.
    Fall 2023. Ya Su.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SOCI 041C. Indigenous Peoples and Globalization

    (Cross-listed as ENVS 033 )
    This course provides a sociological look at Indigenous Peoples from the local to the global, including Native Nations (and Tribes) of the U.S., Latin America, the Maori (New Zealand), Adevasi (India), and the many Peoples from East Asia, Africa and Europe. We discuss models for understanding Indigenous struggles in the 21st century, especially in line with the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UN DRIP), and levels of Sovereignty, Autonomy, and Minority status (world-systems analysis). We pay special attention to Indigenous peoples (tribes) who continue to survive and thrive in a modern world of global climate change, neoliberal capitalist hegemony and extreme cultural domination. The class provides students opportunities to view interdisciplinary global issues - environmental world threats, social change and refugees, hegemonic decline, regional warfare of nation-states, spirituality, food sovereignty - from Indigenous perspectives.
    Social sciences.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for ENVS, PEAC, GLBL-core
    Fall 2022. Fenelon.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SOCI 045C. Sociology of Capitalism

    This class will provide students with an in-depth examination of capitalism and its logics and the impact that it has on their everyday lives. The first part of the class will provide an overview of the main ways in which sociologist approach the study of capitalism, focusing particularly on Max Weber and Karl Marx’s views of the origins of the capitalist system. After this, we will explore the inner logics of the capitalist system, learning not only how it works, but also tracing some of its main contradictions and why it regularly leads to economic and social crisis. The last part of the course will focus on the impact of capitalism on various aspects of our daily life, presently and in the future.
    Social sciences.
    1 credit.
    Fall 2024. Rangel.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SOCI 046B. Data Visualization (M)

    Data visualization provides one of the most powerful ways to understand and communicate patterns in the social world. They say a picture tells a thousand words; when done well, images can help us understand and remember complex patterns at a glance. In this class you will learns about the properties of effective data visualization and apply them to survey data. Surveys can tell us about who supports the president, how levels of religiosity vary across the world or across time, the income rewards of a college education, and more. You will use survey data to examine (some of) *your* questions about the social world and design visuals to effectively communicate your answers. 
    Methods Course.
    Prerequisite: Basic familiarity with one or more of the following: survey data (datasets, variables), Stata, R, or probability/inference.
    If you have taken SOCI 016B, Econ 031, and/or Stat 11, you are prepared enough to take this class.
    Social sciences.
    One laboratory per week.
    1 credit.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SOCI 048G. Between the “Is” and the “Ought” Black Social and Political Thought

    (Cross-listed as BLST 040G )
    Our study of global Black social and political thought will include not only the pivotal scholarly texts, but also the social and political practice and cultural production of abolitionists, maroons, Pan-Africanists, club women, poets, and the vast array of “race” people across the spectrum of crusades. We will explore the range of intellectual and cultural production and protest ideology/action of Black people through the politics and social observation of the pre-emancipation period, post-emancipation liberation struggles, post-colonial and post-civil rights periods, Black feminist and Black queer theory, and more contemporary freedom fighters.
    Social sciences.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for BLST
    Fall 2023. Johnson.
    Spring 2025. Johnson.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SOCI 048I. Race and Place: A Philadelphia Story

    Using Philadelphia neighborhoods as our site of study, this course will analyze the relationship between race/ethnicity and spatial inequality, emphasizing the institutions, processes, and mechanisms that shape the lives of urban dwellers. We will survey major theoretical approaches and empirical investigations of racial and ethnic stratification in cities, their concomitant policy considerations, and the impact at the local level in Philadelphia. As part of The Tri-Co Philly Program, this course will engage scholars, practitioners, community members, and leaders as teachers, learners, and researchers alongside students in the course.
    Requires permission of the Instructor.
    Social sciences.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for BLST, ESCH
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SOCI 048K. Political Sociology: The Mafia and the State

    This course will introduce students to the comparative study of organizations designated as criminal across the globe. In it, we will explore the social, political and economic conditions in which what we designate organized crime develops. Analyses will be focused on the organization of networks, rules and codes, activities both in legitimate business and underground economies, and their relationship to politics. This comparative approach will enable students to identify those factors facilitating the emergence, migration and persistence of “organized crime” across nation states and global polities - emphasizing the mechanisms, processes and institutions that structure and are structured by these organizations. We will survey the major theoretical approaches and empirical investigations of Mafias and similarly designated structures in Italy, Russia, China, Japan, Central Asia, Central and South America, Nigeria, the United States, and locally in Philadelphia.
     
    Social sciences.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for GLBL-core
    Fall 2023. Johnson.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SOCI 048L. Urban Crime and Punishment

    This course takes a sociologically based yet interdisciplinary approach to the study of the politics of crime and the criminal justice system in U.S. cities. We investigate the origins of the politics of law and order from the mid-twentieth century to today, against a broader backdrop of macrostructural changes in the social, economic, and political landscape including but not limited to urban de-industrialization and suburbanization. Using Philadelphia neighborhoods as our site of study, this course will analyze the relationship between urbanity, criminality and spatial inequality, emphasizing the institutions, processes, and mechanisms that shape the lives of urban dwellers. We will survey major theoretical approaches and empirical investigations of politics, crime and stratification in cities, their concomitant policy considerations, and the impact at the local level in Philadelphia. Readings and in-class discussions will be supplemented by experiences in the field and guest speakers drawn from organizations involved in the crime/criminal justice system.
    Requires permission of the Instructor.
    Social sciences.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for BLST, ESCH
    Fall 2024. Johnson.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SOCI 056D. Race, Class and Political Power: The Sociology of Elections

    In this course, we will use the unfolding 2024 elections as a case study for understanding some of the most pressing issues in American democracy: the rise of Trumpism, the stark inequality in political participation, the sense many people have that electoral politics doesn’t represent them, and the ways in which the rules & structure of our electoral system skew representation towards those with more resources. We will work together to better understand how people understand politics, and how political campaigns, PACs, and non-profit organizations work to persuade and mobilize potential voters.
    Social sciences.
    1 credit.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SOCI 058B. Black Feminisms

    In this course, we will examine the contours of Black women’s (womyn’s/womxn’s) ways of naming, being and knowing, their resistance to gender and race hierarchies, violence, domination, and oppression, and their insistent love, joy, art, and creative practices. We will center black queer feminisms, explore the intersections of race, gender and sexuality with class, region, religious and spiritual practices, generation, space and place; explore black feminist thought and its relationship to womanism and other feminisms; explore the multitude of positionalities of black women (womyn/womxn); examine mediated representations of black women; the commodification of black women’s aesthetics, bodies and sexualities, and the resistance to the same; and highlight black women (womyn/womxn) and femme centered spaces and collectives.
    Social sciences.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for BLST, GSST
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SOCI 058C. Manufacturing Scarcity: The Housing Crisis in American Cities and the People’s Fight for A Home

    In this course, we will investigate the social, political, and economic conditions that led to the current housing crisis in American cities. We will cover the history of private property and its role in the developing and maintaining multiple social hierarchies, including and especially those of race, class, gender and gender expression, sexuality, ability, immigration status, nation of origin, carceral status and others. We will also analyze the ways in which these social categories, and the ways they intersect, determine access to housing and all the other social goods tied to it. Finally, we will look at how policies at the state, federal, and local level and importantly, resistance and resistance movements have shaped how people live in cities now.  
    Social sciences.
    1 credit
    Eligible for ESCH
    Spring 2025. Johnson.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  
  

  • SOCI 068B. Class Warfare: Politics, Culture and Economic Inequality

    In this course we will study class inequality in modern American society-not only how the rich, the poor, and the middle strata live, but also whether and how they come to think of themselves as part of a class or status group, develop a consciousness and politics around that status, and navigate within and between groups. We will consider the perennial questions of justice and fairness that citizens face. On the one hand, Americans strongly endorse an egalitarian rhetoric based on meritocracy. On the other, inequalities of class, race, gender, sexuality, religion, nation of origin, ability et al are significant dimensions of our society. Readings will emphasize the dynamics of class inequality at its intersections and the diverse ways it is experienced and resisted. This course builds from the notion that inequality is not given, but is a result of the way social processes function, policies are developed and implemented, and society is structured.
    Social Sciences.
    1 credit.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SOCI 071B. Research Seminar: Global Nonviolent Action Database (M)

    (Cross-listed as PEAC 071B )
    This research seminar involves working with The Global Nonviolent Action Database built at Swarthmore College. This website is accessed by activists and scholars worldwide. The database contains crucial information on campaigns for human rights, democracy, environmental sustainability, economic justice, national/ethnic identity, and peace. Students will investigate a series of research cases and write them up in two ways: within a template of fields (the database proper) and also as a narrative describing the unfolding struggle. Strategic implications will be drawn from theory and from what the group is learning from the documented cases of wins and losses experienced by people’s struggles. 
    Methods Course.
    Social sciences.
    Writing course.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for PEAC, GLBL-core
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SOCI 095. Independent Study/Directed Reading

    Two options exist for students wishing to get credit for independent work. All students wishing to do independent work must have the advance consent of the department and of an instructor who agrees to supervise the proposed project.
    Option 1 - consists of individual or group directed reading and study in fields of special interest to the students not dealt with in the regular course offerings.
    ​Option 2 - credit may be received for practical work in which direct experience lends itself to intellectual analysis and is likely to contribute to a student’s progress in regular course work. Students must demonstrate to the instructor and the department a basis for the work in previous academic study. Students will normally be required to examine pertinent literature and produce a written report to receive credit.
    0.5 or 1 credit.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.

Sociology - Seminars
  

  • SOCI 109. Distinction: On Class and the Judgment of Tastes

    This honors seminar is centered on reading Bourdieu’s Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. This book lays out and applies a set of principles for understanding social inequality, with a particular focus on how people’s cultural tastes or practices are often used to justify their dominated social position. We will read the entire book carefully, in conversation with a number of strains of sociology that engage with it, foreshadow it, or complicate it. Readings include work by WEB Du Bois (Black Reconstruction, Souls of Black Folk) and Thorstein Veblen (The Theory of the Leisure Class), and contemporary American scholars Prudence Carter (Keepin’ It Real: School Success Beyond Black and White), Betsy Leondar-Wright (Missing Class: Strengthening Social Movement Groups by Seeing Class Cultures), Lauren Rivera (Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs) and  Anthony Jack. 2019 (The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students).  We will tackle topics such as: how people make judgments about one another; the role of judgments of taste, style, and embodiment in reproducing class and race advantages & disadvantages; the role of class, class cultures, race and racism in American (and European) politics.
    Social sciences.
    2 credits.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  
  

  • SOCI 138. DuBois and the 21st Century Color Line

    (Cross-listed as BLST 138 )
    This course will generate an understanding of the sociology of W. E. B. DuBois and the role of insurgent theory. In it, we will uncover DuBois’ role as a founder of American sociology and analyze the social and political factors that relegated DuBois to the margins of the sociological enterprise for over a century. Further, we will explore the significance of W.E.B. DuBois’ contributions to projects of collective racial advancement and the intellectual climate of twentieth-century America; identify critical junctures in the scholar’s life related to his evolving and some would argue increasingly radical worldview; highlight the importance of DuBois’ sociological, philosophical, artistic, and educational contributions to the transformation of 20th century American society; and ruminate on what lessons the life and work of DuBois offer us in this contemporary moment.
    Social sciences.
    2 credits.
    Eligible for BLST
    Spring 2024. Johnson.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SOCI 145. Marxism and Radical Political Economy

    The seminar is divided conceptually into three main components organized historically and chronologically. The first part of the class will deal with the emergence of the capitalist system and the social implications of this development. In the second part of the class, we will engage in an analysis of the logics governing the capitalist system, as illustrated in the work of various radical and revolutionary scholars working within the Marxist tradition. The last part of the course will be dedicated to studying the impacts of the capitalist system on societal and individual wellbeing through the concept of alienation.
    Social sciences.
    2 credit.
    Eligible for GLBL-core
    Fall 2022. Rangel.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SOCI 148. Topics in Political Sociology: Power, Governance and the State

    Using the US case, this course will examine the influence of social forces on formal politics as well as politics in non-formal settings, emphasizing the institutions, processes, and mechanisms that shape the lives of citizens. We will survey major theoretical approaches and empirical investigations of key issues and debates in political sociology, their concomitant policy implications, and the impact on the populace-including definitions of power, elites and decision making, social cleavages in participation, and the role of economic interests in governance.
    Social Sciences.
    2 credits.
    Eligible for ESCH
    Fall 2024. Johnson.
    Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.

Spanish
  

  • LITR 015S. First Year Seminar: Introduction to Latinx Literature and Culture

    (Cross-listed as SPAN 015 , ENGL 009F , LALS 015  )
    This course is an introduction to the writings of Latino/as in the U.S. with emphasis on the distinctions and similarities that have shaped the experiences and the cultural imagination among different Latino/a communities. We will focus particularly in works produced by the three major groups of U.S. Latino/as (Mexican Americans or Chicanos, Puerto Ricans or Nuyoricans, and Cuban Americans). By analyzing works from a range of genres including poetry, fiction, film, and performance, along with literary and cultural theory, the course will explore some of the major themes in the cultural production of these groups. Topics to be discussed include identity formation in terms of language, race, gender, sexuality, and class; diaspora and emigration; the marketing of the Latino/a identity; and activism through art. 

    Note: Spanish courses taught in English (LITR.S courses) do not count towards the Spanish minor. One Spanish course taken in English may count towards the Spanish major.
    Humanities.
    Writing course. Taught in English.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS, CPLT
    Fall 2022. Díaz.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish/courses


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • LITR 042S. Borges: Aesthetics & Theory

    (Cross-listed as SPAN 042 )
    Given his profound impact on modern literature and science, Jorge Luis Borges is, perhaps, the most influential writer of the 20th century. His fiction anticipated the major topics of contemporary literary theory, and for many, Borges even prefigured the World Wide Web.

    His short-stories showcase a deep engagement with his readings on mathematics, physics and astronomy, political science, linguistics and philosophy as well as deep connections with psychology and neuroscience. As a world author, Borges worked inside all cultural traditions: Asia and the Middle East, Judaism, Buddhism and Islam, and he offered a creative and irreverent response to Western literary tradition.  

    We will explore how Borges fictionalized theoretical problems without ever allowing the development of the tale to lose its aesthetic brilliance. This is an ideal Humanities course for students in all majors, including STEM students. No prior preparation in literature or Spanish is necessary.

    Note: Spanish courses taught in English (LITR.S courses) do not count towards the Spanish minor. One Spanish course taken in English may count towards the Spanish major.

     
    Taught in English.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for INTP, LALS, CPLT
    Spring 2023. Martínez.
    Spring 2024. Martínez.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  
  

  • LITR 054S. Contemporary Cuba: Utopia, Revolution and Reform

    (Cross-listed as SPAN 054 )
    This course will focus on Cuban literature and culture produced during the historical period of the Cuban Revolution. By reading varied-and often opposed-literary accounts and artistic representations of those years, the course seeks to analyze the complex socio-economical, political, and ideological processes that have informed Cuban society and culture since 1959 until the present day. Although it will use a panoramic and chronological approach, emphasis will be given to works produced in the last three decades. Issues to be discussed include the relation between national identity, ideology and political discourse, the politics of representation in terms of race, gender and sexuality, exile and diaspora, the role of the intellectual, the balance between ethics and aesthetics, and the current period of political and economic transition.

    Note: Spanish courses taught in English (LITR.S courses) do not count towards the Spanish minor. One Spanish course taken in English may count towards the Spanish major.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • LITR 057S. Performing Latinidad: Latinx Theater, Film, and Performance Art

    (Cross-listed as SPAN 057 , THEA 007  and LALS 057 )
    Richard Schechner sums up the notions of performance and performativity as “embodied behaviors”. Embodied behaviors are at the center of the expression and representation of all sort of identities (gender, racial, ethnic, political) and other concepts and practices like ideology, memory, political resistance, citizenship, belonging, and everyday aesthetics. This course will study the notion of Latinidad through the analysis of politically engaged performances, that is, through “embodied behaviors” that represent, reinforce, and resist the expression of Latino/a/x identities and politics. To do so we will study films, stage plays, the work of performance artists and everyday performances (such as political events) while asking questions such as: How is latinidad represented and performed in different contexts across our society? What are the uses, misuses, and politics surrounding the performance of latinidad? What does it mean to be/behave like a Latino/a/x? What is the role of performances in other forms of identity expression such as memory construction, community building, and citizenship participation? In addition to the in-class discussions of theory texts, films, and plays, the course will offer opportunities to interact directly with performance artists and scholars.

    Note: Spanish courses taught in English (LITR.S courses) do not count towards the Spanish minor. One Spanish course taken in English may count towards the Spanish major.
    This course is taught in English.
    Prerequisite: No prerequisites required.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish/courses


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • LITR 062S. The Politics of Latinx Art and Activism

    (Cross-listed as SPAN 062  and LALS 062 )
    (Art)ivism, or the practice of social and political activism through art and artistic devices, has been fundamental for the development and strengthening of Latinx communities in the US since the beginning of the Chicano movement until today when Latinx writers and artists are actively involved in politically contentious issues such as racial discrimination, gender equality, immigration rights, environmental justice, among others. In this course, we will explore and discuss the work of established and emergent Latinx writers and artists that engage in practices of artivism trying to expose, better understand and fight the many forms of injustice and oppression faced by Latinx communities while promoting practices of radical democracy. Artivists such as Gloria Anzaldúa, Guillermo Gómez Peña, Tania Bruguera, Favianna Rodriguez, Daniel Alarcón, among others, use their art not only to raise awareness about social injustices and oppression; their works function also as springboards for community building, solidarity, and political action that can have lasting impacts. The work of many artivists will also open the door to discuss how non-traditional forms of literary and artistic expression such as street art, spoken word, performance art, and artistic pedagogical projects are powerful forms of political intervention and citizenship participation. Furthermore, we will discuss issues such as the relevance of art in the contemporary world, the reception and distribution of politically engaged art, the ethics of artivism, and the importance of pedagogical practices based on a radical democracy model.

    Note: Spanish courses taught in English (LITR.S courses) do not count towards the Spanish minor. One Spanish course taken in English may count towards the Spanish major.
    This course is taught in English.
    Prerequisite: No prerequisites required.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS
    Catalog chapter: Spanish  
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish/courses


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  
  

  • LITR 071S. The Short Story En Las Américas

    (Cross-listed as SPAN 071  and ENGL 071A )
    This team-taught course will offer a wide-ranging overview of the short story in the Americas from a comparative perspective, emphasizing continuities and also identifying areas of innovation and transformation.
    The course will begin in the early 19 th  century with masters whose daring work in this ”minor” form gave the short story new prominence in literary history: Poe, Hawthorne, and Chesnutt. Later, the class will focus on Quiroga and Borges whose innovations redefined the genre, and moved Latin American fiction into the forefront of world literature.

    By focusing on close reading and class discussions, we will seek to discover the distinctive characteristics of the short story, and outline its development and transformation across the continents. Does the short-story bind together the diverse
    literatures of the United States and Latin America?  How should we identify and understand parallels between the works in English and those in Spanish?  How should we explain contrasts? Of particular interest will be dialogues and influences crossing languages and literary traditions: Poe and Horacio Quiroga; Hemingway and Borges; Borges/Cortázar inspiring Barth; Rulfo’s and García Márquez’s (and others’) influences on US-based Latinx writers.

    Readings, assignments, and class discussions will be in English. No prior knowledge of Spanish or Portuguese is necessary.  This class is open to all students, without prerequisites.

    Note: Spanish courses taught in English (LITR.S courses) do not count towards the Spanish minor. One Spanish course taken in English may count towards the Spanish major.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS
    Catalog chapter: Spanish  
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish/courses


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • LITR 074S. Queer Issues in Latin American Literature & Cinema

    (Cross-listed as SPAN 074 )
    This course will map new forms of representation and interpretation at play in a set of queer issues emerging on recent Latin American literature and cinema. Emphasis will be on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender subjectivities. The aim is not merely assembling a corpus of readings around the notion of minority sexualities but to analyze how sexuality is culturally constructed in specific spatial and temporal geographies. We will also investigate the ways in which literary genres are disturbed and redeployed by queer interventions, and how cinema becomes a privileged medium for empowerment and visibility. Taught in English.

    Note: Spanish courses taught in English (LITR.S courses) do not count towards the Spanish minor. One Spanish course taken in English may count towards the Spanish major.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for GSST, LALS
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • LITR 075S. Debates in Latinx Culture: Today and Tomorrow

    Crosslisted with SPAN 075 .
    This advanced course on Latinx culture focuses on contemporary debates and polemical issues involving Latinx cultural production and representation. In a colloquium and seminar style, students will discuss a wide range of thought-provoking topics such as social movements and the political participation of Latinos; new trends in film and media; the politics of the literary market; social media presence; new linguistic and bilingual developments; fashion, music, and the commodification of identity politics in popular culture; among other controversial topics that are fundamentally shaping the presence and impact of Latinx in the US and the world, today and tomorrow. This course is taught in English.


     
    Note: Spanish courses taught in English (LITR.S courses) do not count towards the Spanish minor. One Spanish course taken in English may count towards the Spanish major.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS, GLBL-Paired, INTP
    Catalog chapter: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish
    Department website: Spanish  


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  
  

  • SPAN 001. Elementary Spanish 001

    Students who start in the SPAN 001-002 sequence must complete 002 to receive credit for 001.
    This course is intended for students who begin Spanish in college. The first year of Spanish is designed to encourage the development of communicative proficiency through an integrated approach to the teaching of all four language skills: listening, reading, writing, and speaking. The course also helps students develop as global citizens. This is achieved through a range of activities, which asks students to explore and interpret authentic materials as well as engage in interpersonal and presentational communication.
    Note: SPAN 001 is offered in the fall semester only. The class is taught by one instructor, and meets 4 days per week (M/T/W/Th).
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Fall 2022. Martín Macho.
    Fall 2023. Martín Macho.
    Fall 2024. Martín Macho.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 002. Elementary Spanish 002

    This course is intended for students who begin Spanish in college. The first year of Spanish is designed to encourage the development of communicative proficiency through an integrated approach to the teaching of all four language skills: listening, reading, writing, and speaking. The course also helps students develop as global citizens. This is achieved through a range of activities, which asks students to explore and interpret authentic materials as well as engage in interpersonal and presentational communication.

    Students who start in the SPAN 001-002 sequence must complete 002 to receive credit for 001.
    Note: SPAN 002 is offered in the spring semester only. The class is taught by one instructor, and meets 4 days per week (M/T/W/Th).
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Spring 2023. Ramírez Canosa.
    Spring 2024. Ramírez Canosa.
    Spring 2025. Ramírez Canosa.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 002B. Spanish for Advanced Beginners

    SPAN 002B is intended for those students who have had at least a year of Spanish but have not yet attained the level of SPAN 003 . This accelerated course covers the materials of SPAN 001  / SPAN 002  in one semester, allowing for the review of basic concepts learned in the past. It encourages development of communicative proficiency through an interactive task-based approach, and provides students with an active and rewarding learning experience as they strengthen their language skills and develop their cultural competency. After completing this course, students will be prepared to take SPAN 003 .
    Note: SPAN 002B is offered in the fall semester only. The class is taught by one instructor, and meets 4 days per week (M/T/W/Th).
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Fall 2022. Martín Macho.
    Fall 2023. Martín Macho.
    Fall 2024. Martín Macho.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 003. Intermediate Spanish

    This intermediate-level Spanish course continues to develop students’ functional, communicative language skills through reinforcement, expansion, and synthesis of the concepts learned during the first year. It seeks to develop students’ fluency and accuracy in order to express, interpret, and negotiate meaning in context. The course offers contextualized activities that review language and foster skill development, while at the same time, preparing students to continue their Spanish coursework and for real-life communicative tasks.
    Note: This class is taught by one instructor, and meets 3 days per week (T/W/Th).
    Prerequisite: SPAN 002 or SPAN 002B or the equivalent 
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Fall 2022. Ramírez Canosa.
    Spring 2023. Martín Macho.
    Fall 2023. Ramírez Canosa.
    Spring 2024. Martín Macho.
    Fall 2024. Ramírez Canosa.
    Spring 2025. Martín Macho.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 004. Advanced Spanish

    This course features a thematic approach that exposes students to current topics, and offers a comprehensive look at Spanish grammar through communication-oriented activities. It encourages students to build on their current Spanish language skills and learn more advanced grammar points. Students will improve their linguistic accuracy and develop their cultural knowledge and critical thinking skills in Spanish. SPAN 004 prepares students to take introductory writing courses in literature and culture.
    Note: The class is taught by one instructor, and meets 3 days per week (T/W/Th). Students who receive a final grade of “B” or below in SPAN 004 need to take SPAN 008  or SPAN 012  as their next course. Students who receive a final grade of “B+” or higher in SPAN 004 may continue to any of the introductory literature/culture courses (SPAN 012 , SPAN 022  or SPAN 023 ). Students should consult with their instructor to determine which one of these courses might be more beneficial to them.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 003 or the equivalent.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Fall 2022. Ramírez Canosa.
    Spring 2023. Martín Macho
    Fall 2023. Ramírez Canosa.
    Spring 2024. Martín Macho.
    Fall 2024. Ramírez Canosa.
    Spring 2025. Martín Macho.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 008. Spanish Conversation and Composition

    Recommended for students who have finished SPAN 004 , have received a 5 in the AP/IB exam or want to improve Spanish oral and written expression. This is a practical course for writing and rewriting in a variety of contexts, and it will prepare the student to write at an academic level of Spanish. It includes a review of grammar and spelling, methods for vocabulary expansion, and attention to common errors of students of Spanish living in an English-speaking society. Films and literary texts will serve as a stimulus for advanced conversation with the goal of improving fluency and comprehension in Spanish.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 004  or the equivalent or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    Writing course.
    1 credit.
    Spring 2023. Díaz.
    Fall 2023. Hernández.
    Spring 2024. Díaz.
    Fall 2024. Staff.
    Spring 2025. Staff.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 012. Imágenes y contextos hispánicos

    This course provides an introduction to the Hispanic world with an emphasis on its visual culture. The goal is to understand the key cultural processes that have shaped Latin America and Spain. We will begin by examining early contact between Europeans and Amerindian civilizations. We will analyze how the history of the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions in Spain had a great impact on how the Spanish colonial empire developed in the New World. We will then study the nation-building processes of the nineteenth century in Latin America, and continue on to more recent topics, such as the periods of war and postwar in Spain and some Latin American countries.
    Students will develop advanced skills in written Spanish by completing several written assignments over the course of the semester.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 004  or the equivalent or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    Writing course.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS, GLBL-Paired
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish/courses


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 015. First Year Seminar: Introduction to Latinx Literature and Culture

    (Cross-listed as LITR 015S , ENGL 009F , LALS 015 )
    This course is an introduction to the writings of Latino/as in the U.S. with emphasis on the distinctions and similarities that have shaped the experiences and the cultural imagination among different Latino/a communities. We will focus particularly in works produced by the three major groups of U.S. Latino/as (Mexican Americans or Chicanos, Puerto Ricans or Nuyoricans, and Cuban Americans). By analyzing works from a range of genres including poetry, fiction, film, and performance, along with literary and cultural theory, the course will explore some of the major themes in the cultural production of these groups. Topics to be discussed include identity formation in terms of language, race, gender, sexuality, and class; diaspora and emigration; the marketing of the Latino/a identity; and activism through art. 
    Offered each fall. Taught in English.
    Humanities.
    Writing course.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS, CPLT
    Fall 2022. Díaz.
    Fall 2023. Díaz.
    Fall 2024. Díaz.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 020. The Latin American Short Story

    (Cross-listed as LITR 020S )
    Uruguayan-born writer Horacio Quiroga stated that “as long as the human language is our preferred vehicle of expression, man will always make stories, because the short story is the one natural, normal and irreplaceable form of storytelling”. Latin American writers moved the short story genre into new and exciting directions. Fantastic tales, magical realism, metafiction, neogothic, and postmodernism are some of the distinctive features of the Latin American short story. We will read a wide variety of short stories from the 20th and 21st century. We will learn about story structure and key elements of storytelling. First, we will study works by Horacio Quiroga and Jorge Luis Borges, whose innovations redefined the genre and moved Latin American fiction into the forefront of world literature. Afterwards, we will read short stories by Gabriel García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes, Clarice Lispector, and Mariana Enríquez, among others. This course affords students the possibility of reading for pleasure while refining critical reading skills. No prior preparation in literature or Spanish is necessary.
    Taught in English. 
    Note: Spanish courses taught in English (LITR.S courses) do not count towards the Spanish minor. One Spanish course taken in English may count towards the Spanish major.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS.
    Spring 2025. Martínez.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 022. Introducción a la literatura española

    This course covers representative Spanish works from medieval times to the present. Works in all literary genres will be read to observe times of political and civic upheaval, of soaring ideologies and crushing defeats that depict the changing social, economic, and political conditions in Spain throughout the centuries. Each reading represents a particular literary period: middle ages, renaissance, baroque, neo-classicism, romanticism, realism, naturalism, surrealism, postmodernism, etc. Emphasis on literary analysis to introduce students to further work in Spanish literature.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 004  or the equivalent or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    Writing course.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for CPLT
    Fall 2023. Hernández.
    Fall 2024. Staff.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 023. Introducción a la literatura latinoamericana

    This course introduces students to the richness of Latin American literature through the critical analysis of texts that represent many different moments in the complex history of an extraordinary region. Special emphasis will be placed on the shifting relationships between aesthetics, politics, and social change. Students will be able to compare and contrast how major writers (Quiroga, Borges, Rulfo, García Márquez, Fuentes, Neruda) as well as emerging ones confront one key question: “Who are we?” Students will analyze individual texts using appropriate literary terminology; and engage critically in questions about Latin America’s colonial legacy, nation-building; revolutionary processes; race and ethnicity; gender and sexuality. This is an ideal course for those students who want to strengthen their oral and writing proficiency in Spanish. Especially recommended for those planning to study abroad.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 004  or the equivalent or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    Writing course.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS, GLBL-Paired, ESCH, CPLT
    Spring 2023. Martínez.
    Spring 2024. Martínez.
    Spring 2025. Martínez.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 042. Borges: Aesthetics & Theory

    (Cross-listed as LITR 042S )
    Given his profound impact on modern literature and science, Jorge Luis Borges is, perhaps, the most influential writer of the 20th century. His fiction anticipated the major topics of contemporary literary theory, and for many, Borges even prefigured the World Wide Web.

    His short-stories showcase a deep engagement with his readings on mathematics, physics and astronomy, political science, linguistics and philosophy as well as deep connections with psychology and neuroscience. As a world author, Borges worked inside all cultural traditions: Asia and the Middle East, Judaism, Buddhism and Islam, and he offered a creative and irreverent response to Western literary tradition.  

    We will explore how Borges fictionalized theoretical problems without ever allowing the development of the tale to lose its aesthetic brilliance. This is an ideal Humanities course for students in all majors, including STEM students. No prior preparation in literature or Spanish is necessary.

    Note: Spanish courses taught in English (LITR.S courses) do not count towards the Spanish minor. One Spanish course taken in English may count towards the Spanish major.

     
    Taught in English.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS, INTP, CPLT
    Spring 2023. Martínez.
    Spring 2024. Martínez.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 043. Horror y maravilla en el mundo hispano

         This course is an introduction to political and ideological uses of the fantastic genre and horror fiction in Spain, Mexico, Peru, and Colombia during the Early Modern period. We will study texts such as short stories, novels, poetry, theater, painting, inquisition records, and films. The course examines how texts that blur the lines between the real and the unreal, the natural world and the supernatural can be used as mechanisms of social control that seek to propagate concerns, fears, and stigmas on racial minorities and marginalized groups. Students will learn about the key sociopolitical, religious, and historical contexts of the era that will help us understand how the fantastic and horror fiction engage with their society. We will explore themes such as the world of the witches, monsters and prodigies, religious miracles, and diabolical metamorphoses, or the boundaries between life and death. Students will become familiar with the following terms: horror, fantastic, miracle, magic, diabolical, metamorphosis, and sensationalism. At the end of the semester, students are expected to know how the popular imagination and the fiction of the Early Modern period can help us understand the complex sociohistorical vision of that era.
    Taught in Spanish.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 022, SPAN 023, the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS
    Spring 2023. Hernández.
    Spring 2025. Hernández.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish  
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish/courses


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 044. Marginalidad y justicia en la época de Cervantes

    This course will examine marginality, criminality, and justice as circumstances that define a significant part of the social and literary history of early modernity in Spain. We will focus on some of Miguel de Cervantes’ main works to discover and understand the reality of minority racial groups, and other marginalized such as orphans, sex workers, captives, necromancers, queer people, outcasts and wanderers, as well as people with physical or mental disabilities. The objective of having Cervantes as a central figure in this course is due to the fact that he lived in conditions of poorness and captivity in Argel (Africa) that led him to deeply understand the world of the marginalized; none of his contemporaries portrayed the underprivileged in the realistic and laudable way he did. While we will read some of the Cervantine works, we will also analyze laws, inquisition records, moral treatises, paintings, maps, present-day news, films, and documentaries. Exploring these materials from a modern sensibility will help us understand the contemporaneity of Cervantes’ thought and learn about the strategies that minority and marginal groups have used to survive over time. Reading materials will be available in contemporary Spanish. Taught in Spanish.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 022 , SPAN 023  , the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Spring 2024. Hernández.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 049. Cervantes’ Don Quixote: The Narrative Quest

    (Cross-listed as LITR 049S )
    What is it about Don Quixote’s tilting at windmills and acting as if life followed the rules of fiction that has captivated the imagination of so many writers and thinkers ever since it was written in Spain four hundred years ago? This course explores Cervantes’s Don Quixote (1605-1615) through theoretical texts, from Bakhtin to Foucault, from Lukacs to Borges, in order to think about Cervantes’s innovations in narrative technique, the possibility of interpretation, and the nature of fiction and reality. Students will acquire tools of literary analysis and theory. In English.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Catalog chapter: Modern Languages and Literatures: Spanish  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 050. Afrocaribe: literatura y cultura visual

    The African heritage has been an essential part in the constitution and evolvement of the Caribbean. This course will survey the Afro-Caribbean imagination mainly through the study of literary works and visual culture artifacts from the Hispanic Caribbean. We will analyze the political and economical forces that have affected the experience of Africans and African descents in the region and will study the relevance of Afro-Caribbean philosophy, religion, music, and other symbolic expressions in contemporary Caribbean culture and artistic experimentations. We will pay special attention to ideas of colonialism and subalternity; race, mestizaje, and nation; myth and performativity; and transculturation, syncretism and transvestism.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 022 , SPAN 023 , the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for BLST, LALS, FMST, GLBL-Paired
    Fall 2024. Díaz.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 051. Cuba contemporánea: utopía, revolución y reforma

    This course will focus on Cuban literature and culture produced during the historical period of the Cuban Revolution. By reading varied-and often opposed-literary accounts and artistic representations of those years, the course seeks to analyze the complex socio-economical, political, and ideological processes that have informed Cuban society and culture since 1959 until the present day. Although it will use a panoramic and chronological approach, emphasis will be given to works produced in the last three decades. Issues to be discussed include the relation between national identity, ideology and political discourse; the politics of representation in terms of race, gender and sexuality; exile and diaspora, the social role of the intellectual, ethics and aesthetics, and the current period of political and economic transition.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 022 , SPAN 023 , the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS, PEAC, GLBL-Paired
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 052. Afro-Caribbean Literature and Visual Culture

    (Cross-listed as LITR 052S  and LALS 052 )
    The African heritage has been an essential part in the constitution and evolvement of the Caribbean. This course will survey the Afro-Caribbean imagination through the study of literary works and visual culture artifacts. We will analyze the political and economical forces that have affected the experience of Africans and African descents in the region and will study the relevance of Afro-Caribbean philosophy, religion, music, and other symbolic expressions in contemporary Caribbean culture and artistic experimentations. We will pay special attention to ideas of colonialism and subalternity; race, mestizaje, and nation formation; transculturation and syncretism; and myth and performativity.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS, BLST
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 053. Memorias a la deriva. El Caribe y sus diásporas

    This course will focus on the study of the central role that notions of diaspora and insularity have played in the formation of Caribbean cultures with emphasis in the symbolic representation of these issues during the 20th and 21st centuries. Particularly, we will pay attention to icons, images, and metaphors that have become an essential part of Caribbean aesthetics and subjectivity like the island, the sea, the boat, the hurricane, the bird, the cannibal, and the runaway. By tracing the representation of those emblems in a wide variety of texts and visual culture works we will reflect on the intersections between history, politics, diaspora, ecology, and affects. 
    Prerequisite: SPAN 022 , SPAN 023 , the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS, BLST
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 054. Contemporary Cuba: Utopia, Revolution and Reform

    (Cross-listed as LITR 054S)
    This course will focus on Cuban literature and culture produced during the historical period of the Cuban Revolution. By reading varied-and often opposed-literary accounts and artistic representations of those years, the course seeks to analyze the complex socio-economic, political, and ideological processes that have informed Cuban society and culture since 1959 until the present day. Issues to be discussed include the relation between national identity, ideology and political discourse, the political conflict between US-Cuba; exile and diaspora; the politics of representation in terms of race, gender and sexuality; the role of the intellectual in times of political and ideological conflicts; the ethic of aesthetic discourses; and the current period of political and economic transition. Authors included are Fidel Castro, Ernesto Guevara, Reinaldo Arenas, Leonardo Padura, and Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, among others.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS, PEAC
    Catalog chapter: Spanish  

     
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish

     


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 055. Puerto Rico y su discurso literario

    Puerto Rico is one of the last standing colonies in the world. Puerto Rican and Nuyorican artists and writers have faced their anachronistic status with intelligence, inventiveness and humor. This class will study the Puerto Rican imagination through the analysis of a range of works, including narrative, theater, creative essays, as well as film and the visual arts. We will focus particularly on 20th- and 21st- century works produced by both mainland and diaspora creators. We will pay special attention to the relationship between aesthetics, nationalism and colonialism, diaspora, race and gender.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 022 , SPAN 023 , the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS, ESCH.
    Fall 2023. Díaz.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish  
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish/courses 


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 056. Don Quijote

    Ciencia y tecnología en Don Quijote

    Don Quijote states, “Chivalry is a science that comprehends in itself all or most of the sciences in the world.” Elaborating on this idea, this course studies Cervantes’ masterpiece through the lenses of science and technology. This approach explores the roles of multiple disciplines of knowledge in the creation of this novel as well as their influence on early modern thought. Our readings and writings will include disciplines such as medicine, physiology, botany, zoology, mathematics, astronomy, geography, printing, and robotics, among others. Through these areas of expertise, students will see the contemporaneity of the book and will take a look inside Cervantes’ thinking when he wrote Don Quijote.

     
    Taught in Spanish.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 022 , SPAN 023 , the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    Writing course.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for CPLT
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 057. Performing Latinidad: Latinx Theater, Film, and Performance Art

    (Cross-listed as THEA 007 , LITR 057S  and LALS 057 )
    This course will introduce students to Latinx performance in the U.S., from the mid- 20th century to today. Students will study different modes of performances such as theater, film, the work of performance artists and everyday performances (such as political events) through various Latinx lenses. Following a critical performative pedagogy, the class will combine seminar-style discussions with performance workshops. Topics covered will include the representation and embodiment of gender and race, acts of decolonization, memory construction and diasporic experiences, citizenship and community building, and the politics of latinidad. By analyzing these and other relevant issues through discussions and performance exercises, we will be able to survey the state of contemporary Latinx performance in the U.S. while gaining a better understanding of the connection between performance theory and practice, and the relevance of performance in everyday aesthetics and life.
    This course is taught in English. 
    Prerequisite: No prerequisites required.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 060. Memoria e identidad

    This course will focus on memory making as an identity building agent. We will study literary texts, films and other cultural artifacts to commemorate the silenced voices of the past. The work of several Spanish authors, film directors and intellectuals of the last decades, who try to recover the silenced voices of the past in an effort to contest the “rhetoric of amnesia”, so persistent in the early transition to democracy in Spain, will be studied through close readings and a theoretical component. Special emphasis will be placed on the role of memory in literary, film and cultural narratives to build national identity. 
    Prerequisite: SPAN 022 , SPAN 023 , the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for PEAC
    Spring 2025. Guardiola.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 061. El “otro”: voces y miradas múltiples

    This course is an overview of literary and artistic expressions as a response of the presence of the “other”, contributing to build a collective cultural imaginary of a diverse society where immigration is a compelling influence. Migrant movements within and outside Spain, and their impact on transforming Spanish society, will be studied in theatre, film and literature. The imaginary vision of the “other” will be unveiled as an integral part of the imagined self-identity. Through different readings and visual art forms we will observe the challenge to identity definition caused by an array of people from different races, cultures and religions. 
    Prerequisite: SPAN 022 , SPAN 023 , the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS, GLBL-Paired
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 062. The Politics of Latinx Art and Activism

    (Cross-listed as LITR 062S  and LALS 062 )
    (Art)ivism, or the practice of social and political activism through art and artistic devices, has been fundamental for the development and strengthening of Latinx communities in the US since the beginning of the Chicano movement until today when Latinx writers and artists are actively involved in politically contentious issues such as racial discrimination, gender equality, immigration rights, environmental justice, among others. In this course, we will explore and discuss the work of established and emergent Latinx writers and artists that engage in practices of artivism trying to expose, better understand and fight the many forms of injustice and oppression faced by Latinx communities while promoting practices of radical democracy. Artivists such as Gloria Anzaldúa, Guillermo Gómez Peña, Tania Bruguera, Favianna Rodriguez, Daniel Alarcón, among others, use their art not only to raise awareness about social injustices and oppression; their works function also as springboards for community building, solidarity, and political action that can have lasting impacts. The work of many artivists will also open the door to discuss how non-traditional forms of literary and artistic expression such as street art, spoken word, performance art, and artistic pedagogical projects are powerful forms of political intervention and citizenship participation. Furthermore, we will discuss issues such as the relevance of art in the contemporary world, the reception and distribution of politically engaged art, the ethics of artivism, and the importance of pedagogical practices based on a radical democracy model.
    This course is taught in English. 
    Prerequisite: No pre-requisites required.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish/courses


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 063. Latinx Images: Film and Visual Culture

    (Crosslisted as LALS 063 , LITR 063S )
    This course focuses on the audiovisual representation of Latinx in the United States and the politics behind those representations. From Carmen Miranda to Selena and Jennifer Lopez, from the films of Robert Rodríguez to the productions of Lin Manuel Miranda, including works by contemporary visual and performance artists, the course discusses the representation of Latinx identities and sociopolitical issues by both Hollywood and independent Latinx filmmakers and visual artists. Through the analysis of visual narratives in films, documentaries, TV episodes, music videos, performances, and visual artworks, we will examine issues such as the representation of women, sexuality, and gender stereotypes; race, ethnicity and Afro-Latinos; migration, discrimination, and citizenship; and violence, gentrification, and urban life, among other themes relevant to Latinx communities.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS
    Fall 2022. Díaz.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 064. Literatura femenina en el Caribe.

    Women’s labor, bodies, voices, and souls have been essential in the construction of Caribbean identity, from the pre-Columbian times to the present day. Still, the literature and art created by women are on many occasions considered “minor”, marginal, and have been historically relegated, like women themselves, to a second place. This course will consider contemporary novels, short fiction, essays, poetry, and art created by Caribbean women while arguing that women’s discourses and artistic practices are fundamental to understanding Caribbean culture. While focused mostly on women writers from the Hispanic Caribbean and its diasporas, the syllabus will also incorporate authors from the Greater Caribbean region and other Latin American countries. Issues to be discussed include the role of women in nation formation and historical discourse, the representation of the body, gender stereotypes, racial imaginaries, violence against women, motherhood, religion, and the production of gendered and queer spaces, language, and experiences.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS
    Spring 2024. Díaz.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish  
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 066. La voz de la mujer

    In this course we will explore the work of representative Spanish women writers of the last three centuries in order to study the development of female self-awareness. We will read texts by Carolina Coronado, Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Mercé Rodoreda, Esther Tusquets, Carme Riera, Almudena Grandes, etc. The main objective of the course is to analyze female discourse within the historical, psychoanalytical, metafictional and allegorical realm of the texts to find multiple female voices.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 022 , SPAN 023 , the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for GSST
    Catalog chapter: Spanish  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 067. Legado artístico y cultural de la Guerra Civil

    A literary and filmic study of different works generated by the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). We will contemplate the antagonistic interpretations of the conflict itself, its roots, and its impact for a better understanding of modern Spain. We will study the themes and questions of the war echoed in Spanish poetry, short fiction, novels, and films from the time of the war up through the present day. Readings will include works by Machado, Cernuda, Hernández, Sender, Matute, Orwell, Laforet, Llamazares, Mendez, etc. Films will include documentaries as well as classic and contemporary features.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 022 , SPAN 023 , the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for FMST, PEAC
    Fall 2022. Guardiola.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 069. Cartografías urbanas

    The city as a cultural artifact offers writers myriad narrative possibilities; mere location, cultural symbolism or the link for values and concepts that determine the human being’s place in its own society and historical moment. We will explore cultural representations of the city as an icon of industrialization in the nineteenth century and the declining of the modern city and its narratives in post-industrial and post-colonial times. Cultural cartographies of the city will help us to better understand new urban configurations and subjectivities. The discussion will focus on Madrid, Barcelona and other Spanish cities of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. We will see urban representations in novels by Galdós, Pardo Bazán, Baroja, Laforet, Cela, Rodoreda, Roig, Mendoza and representative films.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 022 , SPAN 023 , the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Fall 2024. Guardiola.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 070. Género, diversidad y minorías en Latinoamérica

    In recent years, sexual minorities achieved major political victories in several Latin American countries, which opened a new social and legal horizon not only for them but also for the society as a whole by strengthening democratic values. This course seeks to analyze the complex socio-political and cultural process that enabled these changes, and to challenge preconceived notions about gender and sexuality in Latin American shaped in the “progressive” center. A selected body of literature, essays and films will allow us to study the cultural politics of gender and sexuality in Latin America. We will explore these issues through theoretical concepts provided by Latin Americanists active in such fields as cultural studies, history, literary criticism, queer studies, and other relevant disciplines. 
    Prerequisite: SPAN 022 , SPAN 023 , the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS, GSST
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 071. The Short Story En Las Américas

    (Cross-listed as LITR 071S  and ENGL 071A )
    This team-taught course will offer a wide-ranging overview of the short story in the Americas from a comparative perspective, emphasizing continuities and also identifying areas of innovation and transformation. The course will begin in the early 19 th  century with masters whose daring work in this ”minor” form gave the short story new prominence in literary history: Poe, Hawthorne, and Chesnutt. Later, the class will focus on Quiroga and Borges whose innovations redefined the genre, and moved Latin American fiction into the forefront of world literature.

    By focusing on close reading and class discussions, we will seek to discover the distinctive characteristics of the short story, and outline its development and transformation across the continents. Does the short-story bind together the diverse
    literatures of the United States and Latin America?  How should we identify and understand parallels between the works in English and those in Spanish?  How should we explain contrasts? Of particular interest will be dialogues and influences crossing languages and literary traditions: Poe and Horacio Quiroga; Hemingway and Borges; Borges/Cortázar inspiring Barth; Rulfo’s and García Márquez’s (and others’) influences on US-based Latinx writers.

    Readings, assignments, and class discussions will be in English. No prior knowledge of Spanish or Portuguese is necessary.  This class is open to all students, without prerequisites.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish/courses


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 074. Queer Issues in Latin American Literature & Cinema

    (Cross-listed as LITR 074S )
    This course will map new forms of representation and interpretation at play in a set of queer issues emerging on recent Latin American literature and cinema. Emphasis will be on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender subjectivities. The aim is not merely assembling a corpus of readings around the notion of minority sexualities but to analyze how sexuality is culturally constructed in specific spatial and temporal geographies. We will also investigate the ways in which literary genres are disturbed and redeployed by queer interventions, and how cinema becomes a privileged medium for empowerment and visibility. Taught in English.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for GSST, LALS
    Catalog chapter: Modern Languages and Literatures: Spanish  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 075. Debates in Latinx Culture: Today and Tomorrow

    (Cross-listed as LITR 075S )
    This advanced course on Latinx culture focuses on contemporary debates and polemical issues involving Latinx cultural production and representation. In a colloquium and seminar style, students will discuss a wide range of thought-provoking topics such as social movements and the political participation of Latinos; new trends in film and media; the politics of the literary market; social media presence; new linguistic and bilingual developments; fashion, music, and the commodification of identity politics in popular culture; among other controversial topics that are fundamentally shaping the presence and impact of Latinx in the US and the world, today and tomorrow.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS, GLBL-Paired
    Catalog chapter: Spanish  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 076. Identidades en el siglo XXI

    This class will focus on 21st century Latin American literature from a humanist perspective with the goal of analyzing the most fundamental question we can ask ourselves: Who am I?

    We will read truly exciting and enjoyable short stories, novels, and essays that reflect on identity not only as a social construct but rather as a quest for self-creation, a desire to define oneself, bridging conformity and individuality. We will discuss how authors construct and challenge their conceptions of themselves through literature, and how they represent the emergence of new social identities.

    We will analyze texts that explore the intersections of identity with adolescence, love and literature, feminisms and masculinities, science and literature, language and immigration, Afro-identities, and maternity, among others.

    Authors from Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador will reveal the changing literary landscape of the continent, and we will include works from Pilar Quintana, Benjamín Labatut, Federico Jeanmaire, Mónica Ojeda, Mariana Enríquez, Lina Meruane and Alejandro Zambra. From a linguistic standpoint, the course will focus primarily on oral rhetoric to help students improve their Spanish speaking skills in order to speak publicly with confidence, and to develop and deliver compelling presentations.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 022 , SPAN 023 , the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS, GLBL-Paired, GSST
    Fall 2023. Martínez.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 077. Cine y literatura: la adaptación fílmica

    The aim of this course is to study a particular set of Latin American texts and their film adaptations. Incorporating relevant critical terminology, the immediate focus will be on the medium-specific language of the visual text and on the close reading of literary texts. We will identify and analyze the strategies used to adapt novels and short stories to the film medium. The approach of this class will set aside the issue of fidelity to understand how the film presents its own interpretation of literary texts. The works chosen pose special challenges for adaptation. Novels/stories and film adaptations may include, but are not limited to, Plata quemada, “Patrón”, Oriana, Tan de repente, Pantaleón y las visitadoras, Ilona llega con la lluvia, among others.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 022 , SPAN 023 , the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 078. Laberintos borgeanos

    Jorge Luis Borges is one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. He devoted his entire life to literature, as a writer but also as an irreverent and subversive reader. None of his lines, none of his declarations happened inadvertently. Hated or held dear, Borges is incessantly quoted. As literary critic Beatriz Sarlo explains, reading Borges as a writer without nationality is an act of aesthetic justice because Borges won, for Latin Americans, the prerogative of working inside all the cultural traditions. However, this universalistic reading ignores the ties that unite him to Argentine and Latin American cultural traditions. We will read Borges from this double perspective: as a universal writer, and also as a writer who seeks to reinvent the history and the traditions of his own country.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 022 , SPAN 023 , the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS, INTP
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 079. García Márquez y su huella

    This course examines the work of Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014), and his literary influence on a younger generation of Colombian writers.
    García Márquez has been involved in many of the crucial literary, political and cultural issues of this era, in Colombia, Latin America and globally. His work exemplifies these conflicts and ranges from so-called realismo mágico (Cien años de soledad) to historical fiction (El general en su laberinto) and documentary writing (Relato de un náufrago).
    We will also read works by Laura Restrepo, William Ospina, and Juan Gabriel Vázquez. The goal is not to trace the inheritance of the Macondian imaginary world, but rather to reflect on a particular understanding of literary genres, and the power of fiction to represent social, economic and political challenges.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 022 , SPAN 023 , the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS
    Fall 2022. Martínez.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 080. Los hijos de la Malinche: Representaciones culturales de la Revolución Mexicana

    This course will examine the representations of the Mexican Revolution in novels, short stories, essays, theatre, films, and corridos by Mexican authors and artists. We will pay attention to the complexity of perspectives generated by this sociopolitical upheaval, whose legacy has been riddled with ambivalence. The objective is to gain a critical understanding of how and why the Revolution became such a fundamental part of Mexican identity and culture. Topics include: political disenchantment, solitude, class division, gender roles, national myths, and identity construction.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 022 , SPAN 023 , the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS
    Spring 2023. Buiza.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 084. México 1968: La violencia del Estado de ayer y hoy

    This course will examine the cultural representations of violence in contemporary Mexico, from the 1968 student massacre in Tlatelolco to the female homicides in Ciudad Juárez to the social unrest brought about by the war on drugs. The objective will be to understand not only the dynamics of political and social violence in Mexico, but also the bearing that it has had on literature and film. We will analyze the ways in which literary works, poetry, chronicles, and films contend with the issues of state terror, institutionalized oblivion, trauma, violence, and cultural identity formation. In addition to film and literature, the course will incorporate the scholarly and theoretical interventions that will help make sense of this crisis of violence plaguing Mexico.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 022 , SPAN 023 , the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS, PEAC
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 087. Cruzando fronteras: migración y neoliberalismo en el cine mexicano

    This course studies the rich history of Mexican cinema. It begins by analyzing how the Golden Age of Mexican cinema fomented a national identity that still prevails in culture today. We then move to contemporary transnational Mexican cinema to study the influences of globalization and neoliberalism in internationally acclaimed Mexican directors such as Natalia Almada, Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Guillermo del Toro, among others. This part of the course studies Mexican cinema as a transnational product of cosmopolitan filmmakers who go beyond traditional ideas of national cinema in their quest for creativity, freedom of expression, and broader audiences. In addition to studying films, the course will take into account the recent scholarship pertaining to Mexican cinema. Throughout the course, we’ll examine issues of displacement, nonbelonging, migration, class, race, gender identity, and social inequality.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 022 , SPAN 023 , the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for FMST, LALS, GLBL-Paired
    Fall 2023. Buiza.
    Catalog chapter: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish
    Department website: Spanish  


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 088. Pasados desgarradores: revolución y trauma en la literatura centroamericana

    This course focuses on contemporary Central American literature. It begins with the revolutionary poetry, narrative of resistance, and testimonio that emerged out of the sociopolitical turmoil of the isthmus during the decades of war, revolutions, and genocide. We will then study the atmosphere of disenchantment during the postwar period and the aesthetic shift in representations of trauma, violence, and disaffection. We will study novels, short stories, poems, films, music, and read scholarly articles to understand the sociohistorical and literary context of the war and the postwar periods in Central America.
    Prerequisite: SPAN 022 , SPAN 023 , the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Eligible for LALS, PEAC, GLBL-Paired, CPLT
    Fall 2022. Buiza.
    Fall 2024. Buiza.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 095. Spanish Culminating Exercise

    Spanish majors will register in this course in the spring semester of their senior year to prepare their Spanish final paper. Students are urged to have their paper proposals approved as early as possible during the fall semester of their senior year. Permission of the Department Chair and a supervising Spanish professor is needed. Offered every spring. 
    0.5 credit.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 104. La voz de la mujer a través de los siglos

    The seminar will look into the work of a few outstanding women writers from Spain throughout the centuries to study the development of a feminine conciousness. The text selection will include works by Santa Teresa, María de Zayas, Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, Carolina Coronado, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Carmen de Burgos, Rosa Chacel, Carmen Martín Gaite, Carmen Laforet, Mercé Rodoreda, Esther Tusquets, Carme Riera, Almudena Grandes and others. The essential aim of the seminar will be to analyze feminine discourse in the realm of the historical, psychoanalytical, metafictional, and allegorical fiction in order to search for a diversity of feminine voices.
    Humanities.
    2 credits.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 105. Federico García Lorca

    We will examine the masterful literary production of this internationally known Spanish writer who speaks to the “outcasts.” Lorca’s work synthesizes traditional Spanish themes and values with contemporary European trends. The readings will cover different periods and genres of Lorca’s literary production in works of poetry such as Romancero Gitano and Poeta en Nueva York, and dramatic works, including Doña Rosita la soltera, Yerma, La casa de Bernarda Alba, Bodas de sangre, and others.
    Humanities.
    2 credits.
    Eligible for CPLT
    Spring 2023. Guardiola.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 106. Tomás Gutiérrez Alea y el nuevo cine latinoamericano.

    This seminar focuses on the work of Cuban filmmaker Tomás Guitérrez Alea (Titón). Considered one of the most important Latin American directors of all time, Alea was a main figure in the New Latin American Cinema movement that revolutionized filmmaking in the region during the second half of the 20th century with its goals of using films as a decolonization tool and for achieving social and political change. Alea cultivated all cinematographic genres and forms, from short films and documentaries to dramas, comedies, and historical fiction, always incorporating his peculiar and indispensable witty sense of humor. His filmography, which includes masterpieces such as Memories of Underdevelopment, The Last Supper, and Strawberry and Chocolate, offers a sharp and critical insight into post-revolutionary Cuba and is the testament of a truly revolutionary, non-conformist creator. The course will look at Alea’s cinema as a springboard to study not only his films, visual aesthetics, and artistic experimentations, but also to learn about the New Latin American Cinema movement and discuss the role of cinema in society, films as a decolonization tool, the relationships between film theory and practice, cinema and literature, and the legacy of Titón’s work in a new generation of Latin American filmmakers.
    Humanities.
    2 credits.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish  
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 109. Gabriel García Márquez

    This seminar examines the work of Latin America’s best-known novelist of the 20 th century: Colombian Nobel Prize winning writer Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014). As a public intellectual, García Márquez was involved in many of the crucial cultural and political issues of his time, and his work represents these conflicts, ranging from so-called realismo mágico to historical fiction and non-fiction writing (Relato de un náufrago, Noticia de un secuestro). This seminar will cover his major novels: La hojarasca, Cien años de soledad, El amor en los tiempos del cólera, and Del amor y otros demonios. It will also include his novellas El coronel no tiene quien le escriba and Crónica de una muerte anunciada, and some of his short stories. This is a student-centered course where assigned readings are discussed, questions can be raised and debates can be conducted.
    Humanities.
    2 credits.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish    
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.

Spanish - Seminars
  

  • SPAN 097. Senior Course Majors Colloquium

    This colloquium is required for all seniors majoring in Spanish. Focusing on the senior essay required to complete the major, students will participate in workshop-style activities designed to polish students’ writing in Spanish, refine their arguments and enhance their writing style, in addition to providing research guidance as needed. Students will work in peer-centered environments as well as individually with the instructor. The class will also offer resources aimed at helping students prepare for their oral examination. Students will complete their senior essays by the end of the spring semester.

    Students are urged to have their essay proposals approved as early as possible during the fall semester of their senior year.
    0.5 credit.
    Spring 2023. Hernández.
    Spring 2024. Hernández.
    Spring 2025. Hernández.
    Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 101. Alejo Carpentier

    In this seminar, we will study the work of Cuban master writer Alejo Carpentier, who famously coined and developed the concept of “lo real maravilloso.” Carpentier wrote in a myriad of genres using journalism, creative essays, short stories and novels to explore and expose what he considered to be a wondrous and unique sense of history, space, and time in Latin American and the Caribbean. While reading some of his most relevant works such as El reino de este mundo, La música en Cuba, Los pasos perdidos, El siglo de las luces, and El arpa y la sombra, we will explore his exquisite craft of the novelistic discourse and his studies on Afro-Caribbean history and culture, the baroque and neo-baroque styles seen as a historical and post-colonial ethos, and his meditations and experimentations in literary representations of space and time.
    Humanities.
    2 credits.
    Eligible for LALS
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • SPAN 103. Trauma y derechos humanos en la literatura centroamericana

    This seminar studies contemporary Central American literature and culture with a focus on theories of trauma to discuss cultural representations of human suffering, empathy, and pain.

    The seminar explores the social disintegration and legacy of violence left by decades of civil wars, genocide, and revolution in the region, as well as theories of trauma, memory, affect, aesthetics, philosophical cynicism, and human rights. These theoretical approaches will help us reflect on the relation between literature and human rights; the sociopolitical upheavals and their cultural representations; and how cultural production engages with issues of peace and conflict in the neoliberal era. We will pay special attention to representations of social disaffection, political disillusionment, and survival in a postwar context shaped by socio-economic precarity. In addition to reading literary works by some of the main authors in the region-such as Horacio Castellanos Moya, Rodrigo Rey Rosa, and Claudia Hernández-we will analyze scholarly debates surrounding Central American literature, as well as watch films and performances that probe into the issues of ethics, historical truth, social justice, reconciliation, and the human predicament in a postwar society.
    Humanities.
    2 credits.
    Eligible for LALS, PEAC, GLBL-Paired, CPLT
    Spring 2024. Buiza.
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


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  • SPAN 108. Borges y sus laberintos

    Jorge Luis Borges imagined the world as a labyrinth that could take many forms (a library, a map, a novel, an encyclopedia), and he used this symbol to allude to human destiny, and the quest for meaning in life.  Given his profound impact on modern literature, philosophy and science, Borges is, perhaps, the most influential writer of the 20th century. His fiction has shaped all modern and contemporary fiction, but also influenced fields as diverse as critical theory, philosophy, film, and computer science. We will study how Borges’s short stories blend Latin American localism and universalism, often through philosophical parables, metafictional commentaries, and detective fiction, without ever allowing the development of the tale to lose its aesthetic brilliance. To help enrich our class discussions, each class will be organized around one of Borges’s major themes: mazes/labyrinths, identity and duplicity, memory, circular time, and historical truth, among others. Note: this seminar can also be taken as a 1 credit course.
    Humanities.
    2 credits.
    Eligible for INTP, LALS, CPLT
    Fall 2024. Martínez.
    Catalog chapter: Spanish   
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/spanish


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.

Theater - Introductory Courses
  

  • THEA 001. Theater and Performance

    An introduction to the principles and practices of theater and performance, this course combines play analysis, theater history, and artistic exploration. We will explore a variety of approaches, theories, genres, and critiques of theater and embodied performance. Through class discussions, presentations, writing assignments, performance exercises, and theater viewings, students in this course will enhance their understanding of dramatic literature and theater history, deepen their knowledge of the various elements that contribute to the process of theater-making (playwriting, dramaturgy, directing, performance, and design, etc.), strengthen their abilities to analyze both the content and form of a performance, and develop a greater appreciation for the significance of theater societally. Students will also cultivate the necessary skills for writing effectively within the disciplines of theater and performance studies, thereby honing  their critical voices and vocabularies.
    Fulfills a general requirement for all theater majors and minors.
    Humanities.
    Writing course.
    1 credit.
    Fall 2022. Wooden.
    Fall 2023. Wooden.
    Fall 2024. Staff.
    Catalog chapter: Theater  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/department-theater


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • THEA 002A. Acting I

    This course is designed as a practical introduction to some of the principles, techniques, and tools of acting. We will use theater games and improvisational exercises (from Stanislavsky, Viola Spolin, Uta Hagen and other sources) to unleash the actor’s imagination, expand the boundaries of accepted logic, encourage risk taking, and free the body and voice for the creative process. We will also focus on beginning to analyze text, understanding scene-work and monologues in relation to an entire play, listening and responding to self, others and space, and developing the ability to play actions. Finally, each student will have the opportunity to test our principles of work through one scene with a partner, no longer than ten minutes, to be assigned by the instructor. This scene will be performed in front of the class.
    Fulfills a general requirement for all theater majors and minors.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Fall 2022. Stevens. Walters.
    Spring 2023. Torra.
    Fall 2023. Sandy.
    Spring 2024. Staff.
    Fall 2024. Staff.
    Spring 2025. Staff.
    Catalog chapter: Theater  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/department-theater


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • THEA 002B. Voice Workshop for Performance

    This course provides foundations for opening possibilities in the full range of the human voice-from speaking to singing to raw sound expression-to help students cultivate an integrative personal practice, unlock creative potential, and connect with what their unique voices have to say. Themes to explore: vocal mechanics and self-care; the voice as a bridge between body, emotion, and imagination; working with song and text; tools for improvisation and composition.  The class is strongly recommended to all acting students and may be taken without prerequisite. 
    1 credit.
    Spring 2023. Pernell.
    Catalog chapter: Theater  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/department-theater


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  
  

  • THEA 003. Elements of Stagecraft

    This course offers an introduction to creative aspects of designing scenery, costumes, lighting, and sound for theater and performance with emphasis on the correlation of text, imagination, and space. In a collaborative classroom setting, the students will have the opportunity to explore individual ideas and transform these into a design that is cohesive and relevant to a production. The lab component of the course will provide a broad introduction to the technical aspects of theater production. The course is designed to serve all students regardless of prior experience in theater production.
    Fulfills a general requirement for all theater majors and minors.

     
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Spring 2024. Wiseley.
    Catalog chapter: Theater  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/department-theater


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
  

  • THEA 004A. Set Design

    This course will focus on set design and introduce methods that apply to designing for stage. In class, we will take a look at the set designer’s responsibilities as an artist and collaborator and explore the relationship between text, concept, and production in addition to learning the basic skills of drafting and model making. In addition, we will discuss the relationship between scenery, costumes, and light in performance. A lab component of this class will include an introduction to computer drafting and model making. The course is designed to serve all students regardless of prior experience in theater production.
    Fulfills a general requirement for all theater majors and minors.
    Humanities.
    1 credit.
    Spring 2023. Saunders.
    Spring 2024. STAFF.
    Catalog chapter: Theater  
    Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/department-theater


    Access the class schedule to search for sections.
 

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