Spanish and Portuguese
82-90 Wall Street, 432.1150, 432.5439
M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.
Chair
Roberto González Echevarría
Director of Graduate Studies
Rolena Adorno [F] (432.1154, rolena.adorno@yale.edu)
Guillermo Irizarry (Acting [Sp]) (432.8065, guillermo.irizarry@yale.edu)
Director of the Language Program
María Martino Crocetti
Professors
Rolena Adorno, Roberto González Echevarría, K. David Jackson,
Josefina Ludmer, María Rosa Menocal, Noël Valis
Assistant Professors
Guillermo Irizarry, Oscar Martín, Cristina Moreiras Menor, Simone Pinet,
Lidia Santos
Senior Lector
María Martino Crocetti
Fields of Study
Fields include Spanish Peninsular literature, Latin American literature, Portuguese and Brazilian literatures.
The doctoral program offers: (1) a Spanish major concentrating in a single field of study (medieval, Renaissance/Golden Age, modern Spanish Peninsular, colonial Spanish American, contemporary Spanish American); (2) a combined major in Spanish and Portuguese offering the student the opportunity to work in both the Luso Brazilian and Spanish/Spanish American fields. In addition, the department participates in: (1) a combined Ph.D. program in Spanish and Portuguese and African American Studies offered in conjunction with the African American Studies program and (2) a combined Ph.D. program in Spanish and Portuguese and Renaissance Studies offered in conjunction with the Renaissance Studies program.
Special Admissions Requirements
Thorough command of the language in which the student plans to specialize and a background in its literature, as well as command of at least one of the three additional languages in which the student will need to fulfill requirements.
Application must include GRE scores, a personal statement, and an academic writing sample in the language of the proposed specialization not to exceed twenty-five pages in length. Students whose native language is not English must submit scores of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL).
Special Requirements for the Ph.D. Degree
The department requires two years of course work, sixteen term courses
with a grade of Honors in at least two courses. Course work includes two required
courses, SPAN 500, History of the Spanish Language, and SPAN 790, Methodologies
of Modern Foreign Language Teaching; two courses taken outside the department;
and two courses in the literature of the language-literature minor. Also required
are a reading knowledge of Latin and a second language, as well as a third language-literature
minor. In the third year, the student is expected to pass the qualifying examination
(oral and written components) and submit and receive approval of the dissertation
prospectus. Upon completion of all predissertation requirements, including the
prospectus, students are admitted to candidacy for the Ph.D. The entire program,
including the dissertation, can be completed in five years.
Participation in the department's teaching and pedagogy program is a degree
requirement. It consists of taking the required course SPAN 790 in the second
year and teaching one section per term of a course in the beginning language
sequence during the third and fourth years of study. Viewed as an integral part
of the course of study for the doctorate, this program includes mentoring by
the faculty as well as supervision by the director of the language program and
course directors.
Combined Ph.D. Programs
Spanish and Portuguese and African American Studies
The Department of Spanish and Portuguese also offers, in conjunction
with the African American Studies program, a combined Ph.D.
in Spanish and Portuguese and African American Studies. For
further details, see African American
Studies.
Spanish and Portuguese and Renaissance Studies
The Department of Spanish and Portuguese also offers, in conjunction
with the Renaissance Studies program, a combined Ph.D. in
Spanish and Portuguese and Renaissance Studies. For further
details, see Renaissance Studies.
Master's Degrees
M.Phil. See Graduate
School requirements. Alternatively, the Department of
Spanish and Portuguese offers, in conjunction with the Medieval
Studies program, a joint M.Phil. degree. For further details,
see Medieval Studies.
M.A. (en route to the Ph.D.). The M.A. en route is awarded
upon the satisfactory completion of eight term courses and
two of the three language requirements (Latin and one other
language).
Courses
PORT 922au, Modernism in Brazilian Literature and Arts. K. David Jackson. Mon/Wed 1-2.15
Investigates the intellectual, aesthetic, and social projects of avant-garde movements and writers in Brazil in the twentieth century, and their changing perspectives from Modernism of the 1920s to Concretism of the 1950s-1980s. Documentation drawn from the plastic arts, music, literature, and the socio-cultural environments within which authors attempted to revolutionize art and life.
PORT 964b, Brazilian Fiction in the Twentieth Century. Lidia Santos. Wednesday 4-6
The course focuses on fiction and literary criticism of the second half of the twentieth century in Brazil. Criticism by Schwarz, Cândido, Santiago, and Haroldo do Campos. Fiction by Lispector, Noll, Gabeira, and Lins, among others. Taught in Spanish. Most of the texts in Portuguese. Some must be read in Spanish or English translations.
PORT 991a, Tutorial.
By arrangement with faculty.
PORT 999b, Tutorial.
By arrangement with faculty.
SPAN 500a, History of the Spanish Language. Oscar Martín. Monday 4-6
This course explores the origin and development of philology as the foundational discipline of literary studies, the history of the Spanish language in the context of intellectual developments in the twentieth cenutry, the rise of linguistics as a positivist field, the separation of
linguistic from literary studies, and the fracturing of Romance studies into separate language and culture fields. Taught in Spanish.
A seminar on the theoretical and practical challenges of writing literary histories
on any scale. We examine the complex of relationships between "history"
and "literature" as they affect a wide range of literary-critical
projects: the premises underlying the organization of a survey-course syllabus
or the background materials of a monographic study of a single author, and of
course the conceptualization of literary histories proper. The practical materials
we work with are the literatures of the culturally and linguistically complex
medieval period in the Iberian peninsula, and students with little or no background
in that are asked to attend the lectures of the related undergraduate course
"The Cultures of Medieval Spain" (Tues/Thurs 11.30-12.45). Taught
in English.
SPAN 665bu, Love and the Law in Cervantes. Roberto González Echevarría. Thursday 4-5.15
This course (the DeVane Lectures, 2002) explores how the regulation of love by the early modern Spanish state during the sixteenth century is reflected in Cervantes's works. Love and the law are adversaries from La Galatea to the posthumously published The Trials of Persiles and Sigismunda, but most dramatically in Don Quijote and the Exemplary Stories, Cervantes's masterworks. The lectures deal with the evolution of the novel form in relation to criminal and civil legislation pertaining to sexuality.
SPAN 735b, Literature and Crisis. Cristina Moreiras Menor. Wednesday 1.30-3.20
This class focuses on the way literature addresses the relation between modernity and its crises. We analyze historical, social, and cultural crises, and how twentieth-century writers deal with, for example, war and its aftermath, AIDS, immigration, and women's issues. The course centers on the work (essays, fiction, and poetry) of some of the most significant Spanish authors (Unamuno, Ortega y Gasset, Zambrano, Umbral, Goytisolo, Trías, Pérez Reverte, Marsé, Savater, Marías, among others) as well as on influential theoretical readings on modernity and postmodernism. Taught in Spanish.
SPAN 747a, Generation of '27: Poetry. Noël Valis. Tuesday 1.30-3.20
This course examines the theory and art of vanguard writing. Selected poetry of Guillén,
Salinas, Lorca, Cernuda, Alberti, and others, along with Ortega y Gasset's influential Deshumanización del arte, are read. Taught in Spanish.
SPAN 790b, Methodologies of Modern Foreign Language Teaching.
María Martino Crocetti. Monday 4-6
Preparation for a teaching career through readings, lectures, classroom discussions, and presentations on current issues in foreign/second language acquisition theory and teaching methodology. Classroom techniques at all levels. An additional one-hour practicum meets weekly. Taught in Spanish.
This course aims to create a dialogue between colonial writings and postcolonial formulations. Works of El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Bartolomé de las Casas, Guaman Poma de Ayala, and others are examined as texts of their own times and interrogated for their role as emblems of postcolonial discursivity. Each anchors clusters of
pertinent theoretical readings, which include Memmi, Appiah, and others. Taught in English. Primary texts in Spanish (some available in English translation); theoretical works in English or Spanish. Also CPLT 726a.
SPAN 925a, Travel and Translation in U.S. Latina/o Literature. Guillermo Irizarry. Wednesday 4-6
An exploration of the problematics of constructing national and cultural identities by focusing mostly, though not exclusively, upon the sites of travel and the translation of diasporic communities in texts written by Hispanics in the United States. Authors include Hinojosa-Smith, Rivera, Cisneros, Anzaldúa, Valdez, Montoya, Laviera, Santiago, Pietri, López, Álvarez, Thomas, and Fernández. Taught in Spanish, but some texts are read in English.
SPAN 965a, Violence in Latin American Literature. Josefina Ludmer. Thursday 10.30-12.20
Analysis of the representation and writing of violence in modern fiction (nineteenth and twentieth centuries), theories of violence, and different correlations. Texts by A. Roa Bastos,
E. Echeverría, M. Puig, G. García Márquez, and others. Taught in Spanish.
SPAN 969b, New Writings in Latin American Literature: New Imaginaries?
Josefina Ludmer. Thursday 10.30-12.20
Analysis of the latest literary tendencies: trends, forms, and imagination in Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, and other countries. Texts by C. Aira, M. Sánchez, M. Bellatin, and others. Taught in Spanish.
SPAN 991a, Tutorial.
By arrangement with faculty.
SPAN 999b, Tutorial.
By arrangement with faculty.
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