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Argentine writer, Jorge Luis Borges's birthplace in Buenos Aires, Argentina

The Spanish Program is housed in the Department of Languages, Literatures, & Linguistics in 340 H.B. Crouse at Syracuse University. We offer a full range of undergraduate courses from beginning Spanish 101 through the 400 level and a Masters Degree program. Teaching assistants or part-time instructors staff all 100 and 200-level courses as well as some 300-level courses. Full-time professors normally teach most 300 and 400-level courses.

A full-time Spanish Language Coordinator (Dennis Harrod) supervises the lower-division courses. Dennis Harrod oversees and evaluates all teaching assistants and part-time instructors and creates the syllabi, curricula, and exams for all sections of Spanish 101, 102, 201, and 202. He also monitors the 200, 300, and 400-level Spanish conversation courses that are taught by part-time instructors or teaching assistants each semester. In accordance with the other language programs in our department, Spanish 101 is not offered during any Spring semester. Completion of Spanish 201 fulfills the language requirement in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Click Here for information about the M. A. Program in Spanish Language, Literature & Culture.

The BA in Spanish language, literature, and culture offers cross-disciplinary exposure to the various literary genres and linguistic analyses of Spanish, South American, Central American, Caribbean, and Latino cultures. The language and history of these regions encourage students to formulate diverse theoretical models and cultural perspectives, which may be applied to a variety of career options

The literatures of Spain and Latin America are the focus of most of the upper-division (300 and 400 level) courses in our program. At the 300 level, we offer survey-type courses in Latin American literature and in Spanish peninsular literature. In these courses, students read a selection of texts or excerpts from texts by Latin American or Spanish writers from early times to the present. Our Approaches to Reading Texts course, the only required course for Spanish majors and minors, introduces students to strategies for reading literature from Spain and Latin America. We also offer SPA 302, a course in Advanced Language Usage.

At the 400 level, students are exposed to more in-depth analyses of specific topics in Spanish or Latin American literature. In peninsular literature, topics include (Con)Texts in 18 th and 19 th Century Spanish Literature, Select Topics in Twentieth-Century Literature, El Quijote, Medieval Literature, and Golden Age Poetry or Theater. Latin American topics include Woman, Myth, and Nation in Latin America, Contemporary Latin Ame rican Theater, Nobel Prize Writers in Spanish, and Afro-Hispanic Caribbean Literature, among others (see course descriptions).

Students have other options besides Spanish and Latin American literature courses. Business Spanish, Hispanic Journalistic Practices, Translation, or Creative Writing in Spanish are a few other choices. Special Topics courses, taught periodically, also enrich the offerings. In addition, students at the 400 level have the opportunity to study Spanish linguistics.They can take Spanish Phonetics and Phonology or The Structure of Spanish or other Special Topics course in Spanish linguistics.

Many Spanish undergraduate courses are cross-listed with other programs at Syracuse University, specifically with Latino/Latin American Studies or Women’s Studies. Sometimes, a professor will collaborate with another program and offer a specific cross-disciplinary course listed under the offerings of another program. Pedro Cuperman’s FIL 500 is an example of this; the course brings the study of Hispanic films, taught from a Latin American literary criticism perspective, to students of the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

Syracuse University students have the opportunity to either major or minor in Spanish. The major in Spanish consists of 27 credits in upper division (300 & 400 level) courses taught in Spanish. Three credits from SPA 202 may be applied to the major. SPA 301, Approaches to Reading Texts, is a requirement for all majors and minors. It is recommended that students take SPA 301 immediately following SPA 202 and before entering any 400-level course. At least 6 credits of 300-level courses must be taken before entering the 400 level. At least 12 credits of 400-level courses are required for the major.

A minor in Spanish consists of a minimum of 18 credits. Three credits from SPA 202 may be applied to the minor. SPA 301, Approaches to Reading Texts, is a requirement for all majors and minors. It is recommended that stud ents take SPA 301 immediately following SPA 202 and before entering any 400-level course. At least 6 credits of 300-level courses must be taken before entering the 400 level. At least 6 credits of 400-level courses are required for the minor.

Many Spanish majors are double majors with the Newhouse School of Public Communications, with International Relations, or with other departments across the university. SU Abroad is an integral part of our program. All SU Abroad courses with an SPA prefix offered at the Madrid Center have been approved by the Spanish Program. Many Spanish students spend a semester or year in the SU Abroad Madrid program and return to campus greatly enriched by the experience. In addition, the courses students take in Madrid often help them to complete their Spanish Major or Minor.

New study abroad programs in Latin America and the Caribbean will open in spriing 2008. The Gateway to Lating America, a program designed for students who have completed at least SPA 102, offers a four-week intensive language course in Cuenco, Ecuador followed by a traveling seminar through Chile and Argentina and asemester of courses in Santiago, Chile. New programs in Cuba and the Dominican Republic will provide students withexciting opportunites in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean as well. For more informatiion on these study abroad programs, please contact SU Abroad.

The Spanish Program attempts to limit class size in undergraduate Spanish courses to twenty students. Ideally, smaller class sizes enhance language learning and foster greater communication among students and faculty. Class discussions of literary texts or linguistic concepts also improve when there are fewer than twenty students in a class.

Click Here for information on our M.A. program.

In addition to the undergraduate program, each semester three to five graduate courses are taught by faculty. As the Overview of the Spanish Program highlights, we attempt to offer a range of courses in various fields. Two to four of the graduate courses offered each year are in Spanish linguistics. Graduate Spanish linguistics courses in recent years have included Introduction to Hispanic Linguistics, History of the Spanish Language, Spanish Sociolinguistics and Second Language Acquisition in Spanish.

Other Masters Degree courses offered each year attempt to include a balance between peninsular and Latin American and Latino literatures and between literature and theory. Literary Theory and Research Methods (SPA 601) is offered every fall semester and is required of all graduate students. Other courses such as Gender and Violence in 20th Century Spanish Novel and Film, Subversive Discourse in Spanish Literature: 1940 to the Present, Sinners and Saints : Women and the Church in 19th and 20th Century Spanish Literature, El Quijote, and Medieval and Golden Age Literature examine important literary texts from Spain. Latin American literature graduate courses include Latin American Colonial Literature, Nineteenth-Century Latin American Literature, Latin American Theater, Performance and Postmodernism in Latin America, Latin American Literature and Feminist Theory,Writing the Nation, and Borges, Cortázar, Lezama Lima, among others. We also offer at least one graduate course per year in Latino literature.

For further information regarding the Spanish program, please contact Professor Gail Bulman (gabulman@syr.edu)