Topics for special study in Spanish of Peninsular and Latin American literatures and cultures. Topics in this series vary from year to year, according to students’ and instructor’s needs and interests. The course may be repeated with consent of the instructor, if the topic has changed. Taught in Spanish.

Topic for Fall 2012: The Monstrous Other--Vampires and Various Horrors in Latin American Cinema and Literature
The monstrous have always served as a metaphor for the unknown, the frightening, and the strange. With that in mind, this course will explore works of Latin American literature and cinema, where the monstrous takes the form of vampires, ghosts, and werewolves, among others, highlighting the link between the feared and the unknown. Latin America in particular has been a privileged space for the emergence, development and exportation of the monstrous, from the cannibals feared by the Spanish conquistadors in the XVI century to the monster/immigrant that haunts the borders of XXI century nations. The course will include a variety of cinematic and literary works from the XIX century to the present day.

Topic for Spring 2013: From Cabinets of Wonder to You Tube--Collections and Cultural Consumption in Latin America and Spain
This course offers a critical vision of the acts of collecting and consumption through the analysis of the cultural and literary production of the Spanish-speaking world (artwork, short stories, novels, films) along with movies, video clips and new media from Europe and the United States. This diversity of media and cultural production will help students facilitate the creation of their own collection of cultural resources, in order to analyze and better comprehend the collection process and its development in the contemporary world.