University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

This semester 371 is an introduction to canonical works of Early Modern Spanish literature. We take a novel approach to the reading and interpretation of masterpieces of Spanish literature to revisit the notion of canon, and to challenge standard disciplinary approaches that constrain Spanish and Portuguese within the boundaries of national literary and cultural traditions. We do this by following the way to stardom of iconic literary characters like Don Quixote, or Don Juan, from their birth to today, through the theoretical framework of comparative cultural studies. As we read our...

Spanish and Spanish American literary works will help us understand how the Spanish language changes overtime, and challenge us to find answers for the above questions and many others in relation to linguistic attitudes and the historical construction of linguistic identity. Have you ever thought about the language you speak? If the answer is yes, surely you might have wondered: Where does my language come from? How does it change? What are its relationships with other languages? How do its literary and cultural production reflect such evolution and connections? In this course we will...

We tend to imagine writing as mysterious and opaque – a gift of the Muses, that descends upon us in manic bursts of creative energy. As a result, we spend much of the time that we may have to write not writing but rather waiting to write: waiting for just the right mood, just the right place, just the right lighting, noise, or level of caffeination, in the hopes that inspiration may strike. (We’re all guilty of it!) It is the goal of this course to rid us of these beliefs and habits. Writing is, as any productive writer will tell you, not a lightning bolt of clarity but a slow and...

This course has two complementary goals. The first is to introduce the history of technologies used to produce and circulate literature, from the parchment upon which Beowulf is written to the social media platforms exploited by netprov artists. This history provides a broad overview of the material conditions of possibility for the emergence of literary form and genre in the Anglophone tradition. The second goal is to examine how digital media are transforming scholarly publishing and communication by reflecting upon our own writing practices and their attendant technologies. By...