Terms offered: Fall 2020, Summer 2020 8 Week Session, Spring 2020
Beginners' course. Not open to students who have completed more than two years of high school Spanish, or to native speakers.
Elementary Spanish: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2018 8 Week Session
A beginning Spanish language course for individuals studying or working in health-related areas. It is designed for students with little or no formal background in Spanish. The course is devoted to the study of medical Spanish terminology and the cultural issues related to successful interactions with Spanish-speaking patients and their families in the clinical encounter. It will introduce a wide array of vocabulary particular to the medical field, as well as help the student develop a cultural understanding of medicine and illness in the Spanish-speaking world to prepare for potential work with Spanish-speaking patients in future careers in medicine, nursing, social work, translation/interpretation, or mental health settings.
Spanish for Health Care Professionals: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
The course will offer students an introduction to the literature and culture of Spanish-speaking worlds, will help them develop their skills as readers and critical thinkers and make significant progress in their ability to write coherent, intellectually forceful expository prose. We will focus on analytical writing by developing control of argument and style. Essays will be produced through a process of workshop and revision, with in-class writing, homework, and peer commentary. Our guide will be Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace. Students meet together and also individually with the professor.
Reading and Composition Through Readings from the Spanish-Speaking World: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018
The course will offer students an introduction to the literature and culture of Spanish-speaking worlds, will help them develop their skills as readers and critical thinkers and make significant progress in their ability to write coherent, intellectually forceful expository prose. We will focus on analytical writing by developing control of argument and style. Essays will be produced through a process of workshop and revision, with in-class writing, homework, and peer commentary. Our guide will be Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace. Students meet together and also individually with the professor.
Reading and Composition Through Readings from the Spanish-Speaking World: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Summer 2020 8 Week Session, Spring 2020
Continuation of 1. Not open to students who have completed more than three years of high school Spanish, or native speakers.
Elementary Spanish: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Summer 2020 8 Week Session, Spring 2020
Continuation of 2. Course includes review and development of grammatical concepts taught in Spanish 1-2, as well as further practice in composition.
Intermediate Spanish: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2019 8 Week Session, Summer 2018 8 Week Session, Summer 2017 Second 6 Week Session
This five week course will have one week on the Berkeley campus and four weeks in Madrid, Spain, and is the first semester of the second year sequence. The students will have a complete grammar review of Spanish, focusing more on those grammatical aspects that present linguistic challenges. The course includes a writing component, using the stories in the reader as material compositions as well as visits to museums and the excursion to Toledo.
Intermediate Spanish: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Summer 2020 8 Week Session, Spring 2020
Continuation of 3. Development of grammatical concepts taught in Spanish 1-3 and further practice in composition.
Intermediate Spanish: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2019 8 Week Session, Summer 2018 8 Week Session, Summer 2017 Second 6 Week Session
Puts emphasis on more formal aspects of writing in Spanish; also a grammar review of the structures helps students reach this goal. Includes cultural components: visits to historic sites outside of Madrid and within the capital. Students will give oral presentations in class on those visits and personal presentations of their activities in the city. Follows guidelines in the department for lower division programs while enhancing the experience of language learning where it is spoken.
Intermediate Spanish: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2016 10 Week Session, Summer 2016 8 Week Session, Summer 2015 8 Week Session
A beginning intensive course that is the equivalent of Spanish 1 and 2.
Intensive Beginning Spanish Workshop: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2019 8 Week Session, Summer 2018 8 Week Session, Summer 2017 Second 6 Week Session
This course accompanies the Spanish N3 course in the international programs in the summer program. The students spend one week in Berkeley and four weeks in Madrid. Students will have assignments to explore Madrid and make oral presentations of these experiences. There will also be at least two excursions: one to a more rural area and another to the city of Toledo. Each student will be required to write a summary of what was done on these excursions.
Cultura Contemporania: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Spring 2020, Fall 2019
First course of an intermediate Spanish language course for students who speak Spanish in informal settings and/or are first or second generation of Spanish speakers in the U.S. This course aims to develop formal language through readings, writing, and discussion of academic texts and film.
Spanish for Bilingual Students, First Course: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Spring 2020, Fall 2019
Second course of an intermediate Spanish language course for students who have oral proficiency in Spanish and/or are first or second generation of Spanish speakers in the U.S. This course aims to continue the development and expansion of academic registers through readings, writing, and discussion of academic texts and film. Spanish 22 students read academic articles, more complex than those read in Spanish 21.

Spanish for Bilingual Students, Second Course: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
Offered through Berkeley Summer Abroad in Puebla, Mexico, this course is intended for students whose native language is Spanish and for those who are very advanced in the language. It emphasizes the understanding of oral and written registers through analysis and discussion of several genres including film, literary and non-literary prose, as well as Internet resources. It will facilitate academic language to students as well as it will help them to appreciate their heritage/native language and culture. Students are expected to read and write critically about topics of historical and linguistic syncretism, mestizo consciousness, identity, human rights, diversity, and Latinx in the US.
Spanish for Native / Heritage Students: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2020, Fall 2017, Spring 2017
The Berkeley Seminar Program has been designed to provide new students with the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member in a small-seminar setting. Berkeley Seminars are offered in all campus departments, and topics vary from department to department and semester to semester.
Freshman Seminars: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Summer 2020 Second 6 Week Session, Spring 2020
This is the bridge course between lower and upper division coursework in Spanish. In addition to exposing you to the principles and techniques of literary analysis, this course will continue to develop your speaking, aural comprehension, writing, and reading comprehension skills. After completing Spanish 25 you can begin taking the required upper-division courses for a Spanish major or minor.
Reading and Analysis of Literary Texts: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Not yet offered
This course is designed to introduce students to Mexican Nauatl language and culture through history, literature, codices, poetry, and painting. We will discuss the intersections between Nauatl and Spanish languages in Mexico, the Border, and in the United States. We will address correlations between alphabetical writing, pictography, and orality. Central to our course will be the learning of contemporary Mexican Nauatl to enable students to start speaking the language. The course will use selections form the methods for beginners designed by Delfina de la Cruz de la Cruz, Ofelia Morales Cruz, Gilberto Díaz Hernández, and Juan Luna Cárdenas, speakers of Nauatl as their native language.
Introduction to Nauatl Language and Culture: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2016, Fall 2015
Group study of a topic not included in the regular department curriculum. Topics may be initiated by students under the sponsorship and direction of a member of the Spanish and Portuguese department's faculty.
Directed Group Study: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Spring 2020, Fall 2019
Spanish 100 is the foundational course for Spanish department majors in Hispanic Languages, Linguistics, and Bilingualism, as well as for any student interested in the Spanish language and Linguistics. Taught in Spanish, this course serves as an introduction to the formal linguistic analysis of the Spanish language and emphasizes the goals and methodology of the language sciences. It surveys key areas of the field of Spanish Linguistics, including Phonology and Phonetics, Morphology, and Syntax. Additional topics (Historical Linguistics, Semantics, Psycholinguistics, Dialectology, Bilingualism, etc.) in the context of the Spanish language may also be covered.
Introduction to Hispanic Linguistics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020
Taught in Spanish, Span 101 serves as an introduction to the Spanish sound system through an exploration of the complexities of native-like Spanish pronunciation and perceptions of native and non-native accent. Designed for both native and non-native speakers of Spanish as well as students without formal coursework in (Hispanic) Linguistics, this course centers on the acoustic nuances that distinguish standard Spanish pronunciation from non-standard and non-native pronunciations. Emphasis will be placed on comparisons between the Spanish and English sound systems, and the acquisition of a native-like accent will be addressed from both theoretical and practical standpoints.
Spanish Pronunciation and Accents in Native and Non-Native Speakers: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Spring 2020, Fall 2019
In this course we will discuss the essential rules for a good essay. We will study strategies for academic essays, concentrating our efforts on the thesis-driven argumentative literary essay. We will apply the rules of literary analysis in such a way as to convince the reader that we are presenting an interpretation of the deep content. Towards this end we will read some short but complex works, generally shifting the balance from reading so as to create more opportunities for individual analysis and writing. We will also be growing vocabulary, improving spelling and reviewing certain complex grammatical structures.
Advanced Grammar and Composition: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Fall 2018
This course will be structured as an advanced writing workshop, with variable topics that develop a student’s skills in a particular genre. Possible topics include journalism, fiction, blogging/journal writing, sports writing, and writing in a business context. Components include: a) short writing exercises, done in and out of class; b) longer exercises done outside of class; c) revision; and d) reading and discussion of texts that serve as examples of different techniques and contribute to development of appropriate vocabulary.
Advanced Writing Workshop: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2019 8 Week Session, Summer 2018 8 Week Session, Summer 2017 Second 6 Week Session
This course is geared toward the improvement of students' reading and writing skills by reinforcing real-life application of their foreign language knowledge and abilities in Madrid. They will participate within the academic discourse on contemporary news topics by interacting with televised or written texts, as well as conducting interviews with Madrid's citizens, and traveling to locations where news is happening. These activities will culminate in production of critical essays using workshops, revisions, and presentations to the class. Oral skills will be reinforced, as well as the improvement of reading and writing skills.
Advanced Composition: Breaking News: The Present and Past as Told by the Press: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Spring 2019
This is an introductory course for students interested in the conquest and colonization of the Americas and the continuing reality of colonialism. It examines foundational texts from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century produced by diverse colonial subjects and written in Spanish as well as native languages. We will analyze these texts in order to understand the complex realities of life under colonial rule in Spanish America, including processes of cultural and linguistic translation and the many forms of domination and resistance.
Survey of Spanish American Literature: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018
This course offers an introduction to modern Spanish American literatures and cultures. It focuses on the complex ways in which cultural and intellectual production anticipates, participates in, and responds to political, social, and economic transformations from the nineteenth century onwards. Through a wide spectrum of sources (essays, fiction, poetry, film, and art), we will study and discuss some of the most relevant issues in Latin American modern history, such as modernity, democracy, identity, memory, and social and economic justice.
Survey of Spanish American Literature: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
This course will cover literary works in Spanish/romance from 10th c. jarchas to 17th century plays. Medieval and Early Modern Iberia was a place of fervent literary experimentation which has produced texts of high cultural, linguistic and literary value. The general aim of this class is for the students to develop a better understanding of the richness of Medieval and Early Modern Spanish literature and how said literary works both shaped and reflected the heterogeneous cultures that co-existed in Iberia for centuries.
Survey of Spanish Literature: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018
This course is designed to provide students with a broad overview of the literature, history, and culture of Spain in the modern era (19th-21st centuries). We will examine the major aesthetic movements that have characterized modern Spanish literature, with a focus on the complex relationships that imaginative literature and the arts maintain with history. By the end of the course, students should have a solid understanding of the literature and history of modern Spain as well as a broad set of critical frameworks for thinking about, discussing and analyzing literature and the arts in Spanish.
Survey of Spanish Literature: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2017, Spring 2014, Spring 2011
This course focuses on the social context, staging, and the baroque obsession with transgression and the monstrous. We will read a selection of plays that display seventeenth-century Spanish society on stage, exposed by the transformations of disguise and dramatic illusion.
Spanish Drama of the 16th and 17th Centuries: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2019
Conversion often refers to changing religions. This process can be personal or historical, involve a single individual or entire groups, such as at the moment of colonization of the Americas, when thousands of indigenous people were forcibly or willingly converted to Christianity. But what does it mean to convert? Is it a one-time event by which change gets effected and is final, or, does it involve multiple negotiations? Does the converter become curious about and affected by the beliefs of those he tries to gain over to his religion? What implications does this have for art, technology, thought? We will look at how this concept gets represented in different media and divergent forms of literacy: textual, pictorial, ritual.
Conversion and Negotiation: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2018, Spring 2018, Fall 2015
Analysis and discussion of selected works by Cervantes, including his dramatic output.
Cervantes: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2019, Spring 2017, Spring 2015
Analysis and discussion of selected works by Cervantes, including his dramatic output.
Cervantes: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2020, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
An overview of the culture of Spain, through emphasis on selected topics.
Studies in Spanish Culture: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2011, Fall 2007, Fall 2006
The purpose of this course is to explore the roots of Latin American cultures, the region's search for identity, and some of the main problems it faces today. We will study great social movements, like the Mexican and Cuban revolutions, and analyze their causes and consequences and, especially, their expression in art (e.g. the muralist movement in Mexico, the "corridos" and the narrative of the Mexican revolution, etc.).
Topics in Latin American Culture: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Spring 2019
The course will focus on a selection of some of the most celebrated Spanish lyric poetry from the Middle Ages through the early 20th century. This will include reflection on the idea of lyric and lyric subjectivity, the continuities and discontinuities that have characterized lyric poetry over time, and exploration of some of the more striking features of lyric poetry in comparison to other forms of discourse. Our primary focus will be on techniques of reading, methods of analysis and the particularities of the poems we read. Extensive prior experience reading poetry is not required; a passion for protracted attention to the language of poetry is.
Spanish Poetry: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2019 8 Week Session, Summer 2018 8 Week Session, Summer 2017 First 6 Week Session
Overview of events leading to 20th and 21st century political and social changes in Spanish society. Combines cultural activities inside and outside of the classroom (lectures, fieldtrips, visits to monuments and museums). Taught entirely in Spanish. Attendance and fieldtrips are mandatory. Upon completion students will have better understanding of contemporary Spain--how the past shaped the present and how the present deals with the past; cultural diversity and its contradictions; Spain and globalization.
Contemporary Spanish History and Culture: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2019 8 Week Session, Summer 2018 8 Week Session, Summer 2017 Second 6 Week Session
An overview of the history and rich cultural heritage of Spain, emphasizing particular topics and visits to important historical sites.
Spanish Culture and Civilization: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2019, Fall 2017, Fall 2004
Discover the great tradition of the short story in modern Latin American literature. A wide range of stories will be available to read, analyze and debate, drawing on modern and contemporary writers. Students will be encouraged to investigate the internal structure of the genre through critical and theoretical essays—many of them written by the authors themselves. Readings will include works by Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Augusto Monterroso, Silvina Ocampo, Elena Garro, Horacio Quiroga, Juan Rulfo and Guillermo Cabrera Infante.
The Spanish American Short Story: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Summer 2020 Second 6 Week Session, Spring 2020
This course examines a topic not covered by the Department’s regular course offerings, such as close examination of a single work, a particular theme, a type of literature, or other similar topic. Focus varies
from term to term and the course may be repeated for credit.
Studies in Hispanic Literature: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Spring 2020, Fall 2019
Special topics in Hispanic literature. Fulfills "writing intensive" course requirement for the major.
Studies in Hispanic Literature - Writing Intensive: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2020
This course will be devoted to reading and analysis of modern and contemporary fiction by Spanish-American authors. We will approach these works as windows onto the past and present of the region and discuss themes of memory, human rights, identity, globalization and political change. The course will explore the diverse practices of reading and critical analysis that these literary works demand. Secondary readings will provide historical and political context and will also help us hone in on a key question that has been central to the tradition of Spanish-American literary critique: how do fictional texts dialogue with other kinds of texts, literary and non-literary?
Spanish-American Fiction in English Translation: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
Taught in Spanish, this course serves to further familiarize students with the structure of the Spanish sound system. The course centers on the vocalic and consonantal inventories of various Spanish dialects using both phonological and acoustic phonetic analyses with the goal of preparing students to conduct phonological and phonetic analyses on Spanish varieties, as well as on their own speech. Emphasis will be placed on the skills and techniques particular to sound spectral analysis. Sociophonetic variation (i.e., constant variability in speech production) will also be addressed in the context of empirical research studies.
Spanish Phonetics and Phonology: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2020, Fall 2018, Spring 2017
Taught in Spanish, this course serves to further familiarize students with the formal linguistic analysis of the structure of words, phrases, and sentences in the Spanish language. The course centers on canonical and non-canonical patterns of Spanish word formation (e.g. morpheme composition) and sentence composition (e.g. coordination, juxtaposition, subordination) with the goal of preparing students to conduct formal morphosyntactic analyses on Spanish varieties, as well as on their own speech. Special emphasis will be placed on examining competing morphosyntactic analyses for select Spanish phenomena, and differences in morphosyntactic features across Spanish dialects will also be addressed.
Spanish Morphology and Syntax: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018
Taught in Spanish, this course serves to further familiarize students with formal approaches to bilingualism in the context of Spanish-speaking individuals and communities. Topics covered from a societal-level sociolinguistic standpoint include global language diversity, linguistic vitality, language death, pidgin and creole languages, linguistic identity and ideologies, bilingual education, and government-level language planning. Topics covered from an individual-level psycholinguistic standpoint include language processing and localization in the brain, acquisition and attrition, impairments, transfer effects between speakers’ languages, and models of phonological, morphosyntactic, and lexical processing.
Sociolinguistic and Psycholinguistic Approaches to Spanish Bilingualism: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
Taught in Spanish, this course serves to further familiarize students with the fields of Spanish Dialectology and Sociolinguistics. The course centers on the empirical study of linguistic variation that characterizes and is inherent to all human languages, as well as the dynamics of language use that give rise to distinct dialects and language change. Course readings include case studies in Sociolinguistics and Language Variation and Change, and constitute the basis for practical instruction in empirical methodologies for sociolinguistics and dialectology research. Students will be encouraged to critically examine traditional prescriptive approaches to Spanish Dialectology.
Spanish Dialectology and Sociolinguistic Variation: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2019, Fall 2006, Fall 1997
Taught in Spanish, this course serves to further familiarize students with the field of Contact Linguistics (Language Contact). The course centers on the linguistic outcomes of Spanish varieties spoken by multilingual communities with the goal of preparing students to critically examine traditional prescriptive accounts of contact varieties and U.S. Spanish in particular. Emphasis will be placed on the empirical assessment of contact influence for Spanish linguistic innovations and code-switching. Descriptive characterizations of several Spanish contact varieties will be explored alongside those available for Spanish creole languages in order to provide opportunities for comparative analysis.
Spanish in the U.S. and in Contact with Other Languages: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2014, Spring 2013
Taught in Spanish, this course serves to familiarize students with the fields of First and Second Language Acquisition, additionally covering implications for the teaching of (K-12) Spanish in the U.S. Centering on the context of Spanish acquisition by native speakers of English, the course explores parallels and differences between first and second language acquisition, the effects of individual differences on foreign language learning, and prominent models of first and second language acquisition. Students will apply language acquisition theory to critically evaluate common K-12 Spanish classroom activities, as well as design their own, informed by empirical research.
Foreign Language Acquisition and Pedagogy for Spanish Language Instruction: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015
This course will introduce students to the concepts of linguistic fieldwork, including the role of data in the formulation of linguistic theory; documentation of endangered languages; elicitation methods; the ethical responsibilities of linguistic fieldworkers; avoiding eurocentrism in data analysis; and language variation and change.
Field Methods in Hispanic Linguistics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2020, Spring 2016, Spring 2012, Fall 2009
Although the Caribbean has been recognized in recent years as being one of the most compelling areas in regard to questions of interculturality, hybridity, and miscegenation, the Dutch-speaking part of it has somehow been neglected. This course intends to give an opportunity to those who do not necessarily have a command of Dutch language, but wish to complete their knowledge of Latin-American and Carribean history, culture, and literature.
Cultural Studies: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2017, Fall 2015, Fall 2009

Advanced Course in Hispanic Linguistics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2016, Fall 2015, Spring 2015
Directed study centering on the preparation/completion of an honors thesis (see Honors Program, Option A, above).
Spanish Honors Course: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2016, Fall 2015, Spring 2015
This is a two semester course. H195A will be graded at the end of the first semester, which will indicate that students are making progress on developing the thesis. During the second semester, each student will enroll in H195B and write an honors thesis.
Spanish Honors Course: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2019, Spring 2016, Fall 2015
This is a two-semester course, graded at the end of each semester. During the second semester, each student will write an honors thesis. Completion of the thesis is required for a final grade in H195B.
Spanish Honors Course: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2019, Spring 2015, Spring 2014
Students will assist in the teaching of Spanish in local elementary and secondary schools. They will meet regularly with the instructor in charge and submit written reports.
Field Studies: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2016, Fall 2015, Spring 2015
Group study of a topic not included in the regular department curriculum. Topics may be initiated by students under the sponsorship and direction of a member of the Spanish and Portuguese department's faculty.
Supervised Group Study: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2020, Fall 2018, Spring 2016
Enrollment restrictions apply; see the Introduction to Courses and Curricula section of this catalog.
Supervised Independent Study and Research: Read More [+]