This course is conducted in English and will introduce students to the cultures of the Portuguese-speaking world through selected films, music and readings. In this interdisciplinary course, we will explore how filmmakers, musicians and writers respond to social and political changes in Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Mozambique and Portugal. Topics covered include colonialism; postcolonialism; wars of independence in Africa; Brazil’s military dictatorship; Portugal´s New State dictatorship; evolving national identities; and representations of trauma and memory. Readings are in English and films have subtitles.

No textbook purchase needed.

From the dawn of the 20th century, Brazil has promoted itself to the world as a particularly musical country. In addition to samba, the country is the birthplace of many well-loved genres including choro, bossa nova, and funk carioca. Brazilian popular song is considered by many to be a literary genre where songwriters such as Vinicius de Morais and Arnaldo Antunes describe themselves as poets and their lyrics are major topics of study by scholars of Portuguese literature. In this course, we will uncover the historical and cultural origins of many of the major musical developments in Brazil and explore how they express polemics around citizenship, social activism, and cosmopolitanism. Students familiar with Portuguese will have the option of additional, focused study of Portuguese lyrics and will be encouraged to compose their writing assignments in Portuguese.

Introduction to listening, speaking, reading, and writing in Portuguese. Authentic cultural readings, art, music, and films from Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and East Timor will be included. The course covers the full-year elementary language curriculum in one semester.

Review and expansion of all language skills and continued study of Lusophone art, music, film, and literature. Emphasis on oral and written expression and critical analysis. The course covers the full-year intermediate language curriculum in one semester.

Practice in oral and written Portuguese at the advanced level. Serves as a transition between language study and cultural studies through the examination of Lusophone cultural and artistic production. Designed to enhance communicative competence, this course will include a review of advanced grammatical structures within cultural contexts of the Lusophone world. Class discussions focus on the readings and films, as well as current events from around the Portuguese-speaking world. Oral interactions and critical writing will be stressed. All instructional materials provided by the instructor.

Topics will vary.

Research or Individual Study.
Topics, assessment, and reading will vary.

How did authors find ways to think about the self in the Iberian Peninsula? How do their lives and works relate to the transformation of Spanish and Portuguese into global languages? This course constitutes an introduction to the literary and cultural production of Spain and Portugal from 1492 to 1681. We will discuss why the works of this period are considered "classics" and have an enduring impact in the Hispanic world. Analysis of key texts will be accompanied by samples of painting and music. Topics include: the importance of concepts such as love and honor in the private and public spheres, the role of ethnic identities and political processes in the representation of the Iberian modern subject, women writers, and self-representation through writing.

This course explores how early modern Spanish and Portuguese literatures depict peoples and places perceived as foreign or other in relation to Spain and Portugal’s role as world powers in sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe. Places like Italy and England or social groups such as Spain's moriscos appear in Golden Age literature in complex, often surprising ways. We will analyze the historical and cultural processes that inform such representations and discuss how major works create meaning out of ethnic and cultural differences. Novels by Cervantes and María Zayas, plays by Calderón de la Barca, and poetry by Garcilaso and Camões will be discussed.