Description
SPAN 3349 provides an overview of the cultural history of the Hispanic world, from eight-century Islamic and Christian Spain and the pre-Hispanic Americas through the late Middle Ages and Early Modern period until about 1700. Covering texts and cultural artifacts from both Spain and the areas that would eventually become the various countries of Latin America, the course engages with the bases of pre-modern Iberian perceptions, as well as the transmission of history and genealogies of knowledge as both a pedagogical tool and a dispositive of power. The larger purpose of the course is to prepare students to do advanced work in later courses on the cultures of Spain and Latin America. All primary materials, class discussions, and assignments are in Spanish. This course is required for the major and the concentration in Hispanic Studies.
Objectives
- To provide students with a panoramic historical and cultural background for the study of Hispanic Cultures.
- To read, analyze, and research a selection of primary sources that both constitute traditional canons or illuminate their shadows and strategic limitations.
- To introduce the students to a selection of historiographical, critical, and theoretical readings in dialogue with the specific conceptual framework.
- To introduce the students to essential critical and analytical vocabulary to be used in the analysis of primary and secondary sources.
- To critically consider the different ways in which periods and fields have been traditionally mapped, classified, or described (chronologies, historical narratives, geographical compartmentalization).
- To introduce students to comparative work, establishing relations and connecting "disparate" elements from distant periods or geographical origins.