Spanish

The study of Spanish at Boston University engages learners at all levels in a rich and varied program.  Six semesters of communicative language courses put beginner, intermediate, and advanced students directly in touch with the language, literature, and culture of the Spanish-speaking world, preparing them for global citizenship and international careers. All four skills – speaking, writing, reading, listening—are given emphasis.  Advanced learners at the third-year level may focus on such diverse topics as Latino culture, business Spanish, or the techniques of poetry writing in LS 305 (“Topics in Hispanic Language and Culture”).  Students whose interest lies primarily in translation from Spanish to English may opt for Spanish through translation courses (LS 121-LS 222).

Courses for majors, minors, M.A. and Ph.D. graduate students in Spanish explore a range of periods and topics.  Recent courses have dealt with the contemporary city (“Writing the City/Walking the Text”); textual criticism and biography (“Lives and Texts”); Latin American and Spanish film; poetry, painting, and the sister arts; intellectual currents between Spain and the Americas; the social poetry of Central America; and individual authors like Borges, García Lorca, García Márquez, Quevedo, or Rubén Darío.

Medievalist Irene Zaderenko, known for her ground-breaking research on the Poem of the Cid, teaches epic poetry, the sentimental romance, and the history of Spanish. Pedro Lasarte explores a range of Colonial topics, from European and Spanish American Baroque poetry to satire centering on 17th-century Lima.  Adela Pineda explores the relations between Mexican, U.S., and French culture from the nineteenth century to the present as well as the cinematic representation of the Mexican Revolution. Alicia Borinsky, widely known as a poet and fiction writer, teaches modern and contemporary Latin American literature.  James Iffland, an authority on Quevedo, Cervantes, and Golden Age prose and poetry, also offers courses on literature and social change in Central America.  Alan E. Smith offers a range of subjects, from Galdós to the “Generation of 27” to modern and contemporary Spanish poetry and theater.  Christopher Maurer teaches Spanish poetry as well as the intersection of biography, editing, and translation.  Dylon Robbins teaches courses on Brazil and the Caribbean, including “Race and Culture in the ‘Hispanic’ Caribbean” (spring 2010), “Cannibalism” (spring 2011), “Introduction to Brazilian Cinema” (spring 2011), and “Trance and Political Subjectivity” (fall 2011).  His research interests include the cultural and theoretical production of these regions, in addition to that of the African Diasporas in general, with particular concern for intellectual and cultural histories, media, cinema, and popular music.

Spanish majors and minors have study-abroad and internship opportunities in Madrid, Burgos, Buenos Aires, Lima/Ayacucho, and Quito, and some of these offer opportunities both for undergraduates — who study for a semester or year — and graduate students, who serve as teaching assistants.