SP3001 Spanish Language 1

The overall objective of this core module is to promote advanced skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing in Spanish. In addition there will be elements that stimulate a high level of awareness of grammar. The syllabus is based on a selection of modern Spanish texts from both Spain and Spanish America which are used as sources for the study of various registers through reading and listening comprehension, precis and writing and rewriting exercises. The grammar involves a full understanding of an array of issues dealt with by Butt and Benjamin.

SP3002 Spanish Language 2

The overall objective of this core module is to promote advanced skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing in Spanish. The syllabus combines two main types of material: listening comprehension on the basis of recordings and a selection of texts for the study of different linguistic registers (including dialogues from fictional works and essays, books and sports reviews and written portraits of famous characters from newspapers.)

SP3006 Literary Translation

This module is designed to guide and train the student of the Spanish language in the translation of demanding literary texts, both from and into Spanish. The emphasis will be on practical translation. The source texts will be chosen so as to represent a variety of periods, genres and registers. The module has a complementary relationship to language work in the core language modules. It will require systematic use of sources of information about Spanish (e.g. dictionaries, grammars). Emphasis will be placed on the quality of the translation. To achieve that end, the module will be conducted in seminar mode in order to stimulate discussion and revision of draft translations.

SP3011 History of the Spanish Language

The module explores the evolution of Spanish from Latin to the seventeenth century. A prior knowledge of Latin is not expected. In addition to linguistic and socio-political history, the module involves an introduction to the works of Spanish linguists of the period.

SP3101 Spanish Integrated Year Abroad

The objective of the module is language learning and cultural familiarisation through work placements in a Spanish speaking country. Placements will be as language assistants or on other assignments approved by the department. Formal learning and assessment will be through a supervised project chosen in consultation with the module co-ordinator, who will provide more detailed guidelines. The project will be 5,000 words in Spanish to be received by the department by 5 May.

SP3122 Spanish American Literature 2

The aim of the module is to study a topic or genre in Spanish American literature. The module includes texts which are not particularly Latin American in their depiction of historical or cultural aspects of the continent, such as modernismo, River Plate cosmopolitanist literature or the novel of the Boom. The selection is likely to include three or four works by the following authors: Borges, Onetti, Cortazar, Donoso, Sabato, Garcma Marquez, Rosario Castellanos, Alfonsina Storni, Juana de Ibarbourou. Apart from general and historical introductions, the course proceeds on the basis of seminar papers by students.

SP3123 Spanish Cinema (Topic)

The aim of the module is to develop critical expertise in and enjoyment of cinema, and through film to gain an understanding of contemporary Spanish cultural and social issues. Linguistic skills will also be developed. The student studies four or five films selected because they represent a topic of cinema studies and an aspect of the Spanish cinema, for example censorship and the Spanish cinema of the Franco dictatorship, (inter)national identity and the Spanish cinema of the eighties, film genre and post-modernism in the Spanish cinema of the nineties.

SP3138 Mexico in the Nineteenth Century

Students will examine political and historical developments of Mexico in the Siglo de Caudillos (from the beginning of Independence in 1810 to the start of the Mexican Revolution in 1910). Particular attention will be given to the tensions which characterised the period - such as Church-State relations, military-civil relations, federalism versus centralism, conservatism versus liberalism, constitutionalism versus authoritarianism - and to key political leaders, 'caudillos', such as Hidalgo, Morelos, Iturbide, Santa Anna, Juarez, Maximilian and Diaz. Reading will include primary material such as letters, speeches and articles from the Mexican press as well as secondary historical studies of the period.

SP3143 Literature & Cinema in Spain 1920-1936

In this module students will examine key aspects of the impact of the cinema on the creative imagination in Spain between approximately 1920 and 1936. Attention will be given to experimental films of the period by cinematographers such as Luis Bunuel, as well as to texts that are either influenced by cinematic techniques, written for the cinema or are directly about the cinema.

SP3148 The Argentine & Chilean Avant-Garde (1920s-1930s)

This module explores the literary modernisms of two countries of the Southern Cone, Argentina and Chile. It includes close readings of texts by major Latin American authors (Jorge Luis Borges, Oliverio Girondo, Vicente Huidobro, Pablo Neruda). We will study the hybrid nature of these modernisms and identify the different and often opposed aesthetic traditions upon which they are constructed. Also, we will see how Borges projects hybridization as the natural process in the production of culture in Latin America and beyond, thus contesting the distinction between central (European/North American) and peripheral (Latin American) cultures.

SP3157 Autobiographical Writing in Twentieth-Century Spain

In this module the exploration of autobiographical writing in contemporary Spain has multiple objectives. It will provide an introduction to the problems and characteristics of autobiographical writing as an important literary genre. These theoretical tools will be applied to a problematic and ambiguous example (Lazarillo de Tormes) as well as to the works of major writers who have had an impact on their society (Rafael Alberti, Carmen Martin Gaite, Terenci Moix). It will also consider the texts as interventions in the cultural and historical context as well as identity debates in contemporary Spain. In this context, exile, popular culture, collective identity and the relations of genre and gender will be studied in relation to autobiographical writing.

SP3159 Gender & Violence in Golden Age Literature

This module will examine how conflicts and cultural tensions in the Spanish Habsburg Empire are reflected and acted out in Golden age literature. The students will focus on the representation of violence and its fascinating and disturbing relation to gender and power in texts drawn from different literary genres, such as autobiographical writing (e.g. Catalina de Erauso, the "lieutenant nun"), narrative literature (e.g. Maria de Zayas, Miguel de Cervantes), theatre (e.g. Cervantes, Lope, Calderon) or poetry (e.g. Gacilaso de la Vega). The module involves the discussion of critical approaches developed within the framework of Queer and Gender Studies.

SP3160 Facing the New: Spanish Literature and Society (1888 - 1918)

This module will explore changes and tensions in Spanish culture, society, literature and art from the evolution of literary realism and naturalism to the beginning of the historical avant-gardes and the First World War. Through varied materials (poems, short stories, novels, plays, paintings, etc.) students will discuss the transformations of the role of the artist and the intellectual, the modernist 'tradition of the new' and the aesthetical currents of the era. The module will focus on specific literary examples (the novels by Miguel de Unamuno and Jos? Martinez Ruis 'Azorin') as well as the cultural and artistic life of the times through the analysis of literary magazines.

SP3221 Language, Conflict and Society

This module aims to provide a sound understanding of important modes of literary expression in Spain and Spanish America following a source of conflict across the centuries. The syllabus will involve the study of a selection of canonical texts from Spain and Spanish America. The reading list will be available online as from the preceding month of May.

SP3222 Language, Love and Loss

This module aims to provide a sound understanding of important modes of literary expression in Spain and Spanish America following an expression of emotional tension across the centuries. The syllabus will involve the study of a selection of canonical texts from Spain and Spanish America. The reading list will be available online as from the preceding month of May.

SP4003 Spanish Language 3

The overall objective of this core module is to build on advanced skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing in Spanish. The syllabus is made up of a selection of texts in different registers (fiction, topical magazines, interviews, economic and political reports from newspapers) which provide the basis for both written and oral work in class.

SP4004 Spanish Language 4: Communication Skills

The overall objective of this core module is to build on advanced skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing in Spanish. The syllabus uses listening comprehension based on recording, debates and oral presentations by students, and a selection of texts for the study of different linguistic registers (including dialogues from fictional works, essays, and translation and rewriting of texts using a different style). The final oral examination will form part of this module.

SP4008 Contemporary Spanish Language

The module builds on the skills of the four Honours core language courses whose overall objective is to promote the advanced communicative skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing in Spanish. Its objective is to stimulate creative writing in Spanish in a variety of linguistic registers. The syllabus is made up of a selection of texts in different registers (but drawn basically from fiction and commercial writing) which provide the basis for creative writing exercises.

SP4012 Linguistic Study of the Spanish Language

This module presents the scientific approach to describing languages as well as the concept of linguistic variability and some of its salient manifestations in Spanish across the Hispanic world. Structural features will be treated at phonological, morphological, syntactic and lexico-semantic levels, and variation will be examined at geographical, social and stylistic levels.

SP4098 Dissertation on a Spanish Topic

This module offers students the possibility of personal advanced study on a topic on which they already have adequate basic knowledge and for which a suitable Supervisor can be found. Guidance will be offered on research methods and on presentation. The Critical Review involves the evaluation of a range of secondary material on a given subject. It should be 5,000 - 6,000 words in length, be submitted in accordance with guidelines and deadlines, and normally written in English. The topic must be formally agreed in advance with the research co-ordinator and potential supervisor.

SP4099 Long Dissertation on a Spanish Topic

The dissertation offers students the possibility of personal advanced study on a topic on which they already have adequate basic knowledge and for which a suitable Supervisor can be found. Guidance will be offered on research methods and on presentation. The dissertation will, as a rule, consist of a study of a given body of primary material in a given perspective. Its length should be 10,000 words maximum, and it should be submitted in accordance with guidelines and deadlines, and normally be written in English. The topic must be formally agreed in advance with both the research co-ordinator and the potential supervisor.

SP4102 Semester with Study Abroad in Spain

The objective of the module is to allow students who are unable to take a year or a semester away from St Andrews in a Spanish-Speaking country to spend one term (September to December) studying in Spain at an institution with which we have a Erasmus exchange. The students will take a range of approved courses at the host university, Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. They will also take SP4099, Spanish Dissertation; a dissertation topic will have been negotiated with their tutors before the summer recess. Preparation for SP4099 will be carried out during their stay in Spain, and continued in St Andrews during January and Semester 2. If places are available, the module can also be open to students who spent their WIYA year at a non-Spanish-speaking country, but not to those who have already spent an Erasmus year.

SP4103 Residential Project in Spanish Speaking Country

The object of the module is language learning and cultural familiarisation through self-access residence in Spain or Spanish America. The student will spend six weeks in a Spanish-speaking country during the summer vacation. There will be an approved project, so that the process of understanding and writing in Spanish is conscientiously and formally addressed. It will be written up on the student's return and in lieu of SP4003 or SP4203. The project will not exceed 6,000 words, although recorded material and its transcription may be supplementary.

SP4223 Language, History and Culture

This module aims to provide a sound understanding of important modes of literary expression in Spain and Spanish America following the representation of different historical moments through fictions. The syllabus will involve the study of a selection of canonical texts from Spain and Spanish America. The reading list will be available online as from the preceding month of May.

SP4224 Language, Reality and Illusion

This module aims to provide a sound understanding of important modes of literary expression in Spain and Spanish America following the conflict of reality and illusion across the centuries. The syllabus will involve the study of a selection of canonical texts from Spain and Spanish America. The reading list will be available online as from the preceding month of May.