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)
Director of the Language Program
María Martino Crocetti
Professors
Rolena Adorno, Roberto González Echevarría, K. David Jackson, Josefina Ludmer, María Rosa Menocal, Noël Valis
Associate Professors
Cristina Moreiras Menor, Lidia Santos
Assistant Professors
Guillermo Irizarry (on leave), Oscar Martín, Simone Pinet, Fernando Rosenberg
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 963au, Machado de Assis: Critique of the Empire. K. David Jackson. MW 1–2.20
Major prose works by J. M. Machado de Assis (1839–1908), Brazil's celebrated novelist, are examined in the light of his subaltern voice and skeptical critique of Empire.
PORT 966b, Melodrama in Latin American Literature. Lidia Santos. Th 4–5.50
The course examines contemporary Latin American fiction that uses melodrama as an artifice. Value theory and cyber culture are employed for understanding the new achievements of these narratives. Works by Vargas Llosa (Peru), Garmendia (Venezuela), César Aira (Argentina), Rosario Ferré (Puerto Rico), Clarice Lispector, Filipe Miguez, Augusto Boal (the three from Brazil). Also SPAN 906b.
PORT 970bu, Fernando Pessoa, Inc.: The End of the Individual Self. K. David Jackson. MW 1–2.15
Introduction to Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935), one of the twenty-six essential authors in Harold Bloom's The Western Canon and one of the most mysterious and prolific figures in early twentieth-century European modernism. Study of his plural literary universe, with bilingual readings of prose, poetry, essay, and criticism.
PORT 991a and b, Tutorial.
By arrangement with faculty.
SPAN 501a, Medieval and Early Modern Spanish Texts. Oscar Martín. W 4–6
An introduction to the historical grammar of Medieval and Early Modern Spanish (Peninsular and Colonial) through reading and discussion of relevant texts, including literary texts, private sources, and legal documents. This class has a practical focus. In Spanish.
SPAN 520bu, The World of Alfonso, el Sabio. María Rosa Menocal. M 2.30–4.20
An integrated study of the cultural and historical universe of the medieval monarch (Alfonso el Sabio) whose vision and politics transformed Castilian from one of many regional dialects into the powerful written vernacular that would go on to become the national language. Readings from the numerous foundational texts authored or supervised by the "Learned King" from the still-used Siete Partidas to the lavishly illustrated songbooks in Galician-Portuguese. In Spanish.
SPAN 747a, Generation of '27: Poetry. Noël Valis. M 2.30–4.20
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. In Spanish.
SPAN 790b, Methodologies of Modern Foreign Language Teaching. María Martino Crocetti. M 4.30–6.20
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. In Spanish.
SPAN 806a, Writings from New Spain: The First Fifty Years. Rolena Adorno. T 1.30–3.20
Beginning with the writings produced by the conquest of Mexico, this seminar examines how "New Spain" came into being (1519–1569) in the writings of its conquistadores and encomenderos (Hernán Cortés and Bernal Díaz del Castillo), its missionaries and polemicists (Fray Toribio de Benavente, "Motolinía," and Fray Bartolomé de las Casas), and its historians and university professors (Francisco López de Gómara and Francisco Cervantes de Salazar). The contested concepts of empire, violent conquest, and evangelization that these narratives of "new" Spain embodied orient our readings, and we conclude by briefly considering the paradigmatic value of their legacy today.
SPAN 906b, Melodrama in Latin American Literature. Lidia Santos. Th 4–5.50
The course examines contemporary Latin American fiction that uses melodrama as an artifice. Value theory and cyber culture are employed for understanding the new achievements of these narratives. Works by Vargas Llosa (Peru), Garmendia (Venezuela), César Aira (Argentina), Rosario Ferré (Puerto Rico), Clarice Lispector, Filipe Miguez, Augusto Boal (the three from Brazil). Also PORT 966b.
SPAN 907a, Gauchos, indios y negros. Josefina Ludmer. Th 10.30–12.20
Analysis of the gaucho genre in "Río de la Plata," indigenist literature in Peru-Ecuador, and antislavery writings in the Caribbean. The focuses are alliances and uses of the voice of "the other." The goal is also theoretical: how to define a comparative literature in Latin America through regions, genres, cultures and "identity symbols." In Spanish.
SPAN 911b, Borges, Rulfo, García Márquez. Josefina Ludmer. W 2.30–4.20
This course has three lines. The first one is the examination of the idea of "classic and canonical writer" through the theoretical bibliography. The second line is the analysis of the texts of these Latin American writers in the historical and literary context of the twentieth century. Central texts: Borges's Fictions and some essays, Rulfo's Pedro Páramo and El llano en llamas, García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude and The Autumn of the Patriarch. Problems: the concept of fiction and literature, the problem of literary change, and some cultural, national, and Latin American identities constructed through their works. The third line is the history of their lectures and translations, and their construction as classics both in Latin American and in the world. Taught in Spanish.
SPAN 942au, Fiestas cubanas. Roberto González Echevarría. TTh 2.30–3.45
A study of the feasts marking the Cuban calendar from the nineteenth century to the present, how they respond to cultural and political transformations, and how they are inscribed in literature, particularly the narrative. The feast as the representation of time and social and political change. The work of anthropologists and theorists of literature such as Claude Lévi-Strauss, Marcel Mauss, Arnold van Gennep, and Michail Bachtine, along with that of Latin American and Cuban anthropologists and writers like Fernando Ortiz, Lidia Cabrera, José Arrom, Manuel Moreno Fraginals, Miguel Barnet, and Octavio Paz. Fiction by Cirilo Villaverde, Alejo Carpentier, José Lezama Lima, Severo Sarduy, Reinaldo Arenas, Daína Chaviano, and others. In Spanish. Also CPLT 941a.
SPAN 991a and b, Tutorial.
By arrangement with faculty.
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