Romance Languages Course Descriptions: 2012/2013

To view course descriptions simply click on a course number or scroll down.
To veiw all classe offered at the UO see the UO class schedule or the UofO Online Catalog.

Only courses in bold or with active links will be offered during the 2012/2013 academic year

* There may be more than one course with this course number offered during the same term*

Courses that combine materials from two or more of the Romance Languages are taught under the course number RL 407/507. Each professor who proposes an RL course has compelling reasons for choosing the materials, languages, and periods his or her course will cover, and that information is posted well in advance along with the course description (e.g., French Period 1 + Italian Period 1). No exceptions will be made to the announced languages and periods the course will cover.

FALL 2012

RL 407/507: Travel Literature in the Age of Curiosity- Hester
For centuries travel and travel writing have been parallel endeavors. In the early modern period, prescriptions concerning the art of travel also addressed how to properly chronicle a journey. However, as curiosity became an acceptable motive for travel, European travelers took greater individual liberties not only in choosing an itinerary but also in narrating their travels. In this course we will read from English, French, Italian, and Spanish travel accounts in order to consider a broad range of issues and questions, including: taxonomies of travel writing, travel narrative as theoretical discourse, and the construction of local and global identities through the representation of travel. Readings will include the travel writing of humanists, navigators, conquistadores, Grand Tourists, adventurers, and fugitives.
This course is taught in English. Romance languages students will read the primary texts and complete written work in their target language to receive credit in French, Italian, or Spanish. M.A. periods: Spanish 1,2; French 1, 2; Italian 2,3.           return to course list

RL 607: Doctoral Workshop- Taylor
no description available at this time.      return to course list

RL 608: Workshop on Teaching Methodology -Davis
This course is an introduction to the basic principles of second language acquisition and their application in classroom settings. Topics covered include instructional techniques for developing the three language modes (presentational, interpretive, interpersonal), standards for foreign language learning, proficiency assessment, content-based instruction (CBI), techniques for addressing learner variables, and the role of culture in the L2 classroom. In addition to the theoretical readings and discussions, students will develop a portfolio of teaching materials ready for classroom use. (All lectures and readings are in English; individual projects are prepared in your target language.)      return to course list

WINTER 2013

RL 407/507: Music Wandering the Medieval Romance-Speaking Mediterranean- Wilhite
This course on lyrics composed in Arabic, Hebrew, proto-Spanish, Occitan, Catalan, French, and Italian will be conducted in English. Our objective as regards understanding the geography of the region will be twofold: First we will examine the unique abundance of cultural activity that benefits the region due to its situation along the Mediterranean coast. The historical documents will lead our journey so that we may attempt to recreate the itineraries of medieval musicians. By the end of the course we should be capable of mapping the movements of musical traditions crisscrossing the coasts of the Mediterranean as well as the Sea itself. Second, in so doing we will carefully watch how our study of historical relationships transforms our understanding of a particular region so that we are able to break free from anachronistically viewing the region as divided according to its current national boundaries.

We will focus on the lyrical traditions that move from Baghdad to the Califate of Cordoba which then push upwards towards the Pyrenees where the lyrics of fin' amors composed by troubadours dominate on both sides of the mountain range until the Albigensian Crusade sends its songs into the safety of Catalonia and the Apennine Peninsula. Current scholarship will ground us in the relatively new discipline of Mediterranean Studies. The primary texts will be largely lyrical with examples coming from the Arabic and Hebraic traditions of Al-Andalus, the fin' amors cansos and political sirventès of the troubadours, and the Sicilian school to the dolce stil nuovo. However, the course must also address the travels that take place after the joglars and trobadors fell still in silence; the very characteristics of uniquely Mediterranean cultural confrontations and exchanges is what explains the strange transmission of these lyrical cultural legacies.  M.A. Period: 1      return to course list

RL 407/507: Auteurs and Authorship in French and Italian Cinema: Rigoletto
Internationally famous thanks to canonical directors such as Visconti, Fellini, and Renoir, Italian and French cinema are often defined against Hollywood’s system of mass production, distribution and exhibition. This understanding largely relies on the significance that film auteurism as a critical and cultural practice has had in these two countries. Emerging in France in the 1950s, the politique des auteurs propounded a romantic vision of the film director as supreme creative force. It established the idea that cinema could achieve the status of art only when a film was the expression of a single artist successfully struggling against an industrial system to assert his/her creative autonomy. In Italy, this notion was especially influential in the 1960s thanks to the work of directors such as Michelangelo Antonioni, who reached international fame for his distinctive stylistic approach and his ability to resist mainstream modes of film narration.

In this course, we will learn to recognize distinctive authorial markers (e.g. stylistic signature, idiosyncratic modes of narration etc.) in a number of films including A bout de souffle (dir. Godard, 1960), Les quatre cents coups (dir. Truffaut, 1959), L’avventura (dir. Antonioni, 1960), Il conformista (dir. Bertolucci, 1970) and Caché (dir. Haneke, 2005). We will also consider some of the problems that film auteurism raises. For example, we will test the usefulness of this critical approach in light of the largely collaborative nature of film production (the role of scriptwriters, actors, cinematographers etc.) and of the hierarchies and exclusions that this approach tends to produce.  M.A. Period: 4      return to course list

RL 620: Graduate Study in Romance Languages- Herrmann
Discussion of purposes, problems, and methods of graduate study in Romance languages. Elements of critical method, research techniques, scholarly writing, and professional development.  M.A. Period: 4     return to course list

SPRING 2013

RL 407/507: The Idea of Europe- Gould/Hester
The Idea of Europe is a team-taught, multi-disciplinary course that explores the meaning(s) of Europe past and present, and the conundrum that is European identity. Guest faculty from a variety of disciplines on campus (humanities, social sciences and the arts) lecture weekly on the European legacy as we explore cultural, historical, political and social institutions that continue to inform our ideas of Europe today. While the overall framework is historical, the course is a creative investigation into different perspectives, texts, issues, and disciplinary assumptions--often incompatible or competing--that shape “Europe” as an object of study. Each lecture and selected readings open an aspect of Europe from antiquity to the present. While the course is taught in English, it may bear credit for all degree programs in Romance Languages. Individual exploration of original materials in the European languages is encouraged. Students will be required to keep a reaction journal and to complete a term paper or project on some aspect of Europe. (Can qualify for any M.A. period depending on the final project).           return to course list

RL 407/507: Preforming Pilgrimage- Psaki
The basis of this course will be the writing associated with pilgrimage in the Middle Ages. We will read the pilgrimage guides and lyric song of men and women traveling for religious purposes, to Rome, to the Holy Land, to Conques, to Santiago de Compostela, to Canterbury. The culmination of the course will be a public performance, with Lori Kruckenberg’s MUS 4/507, of an array of high and late medieval songs composed for pilgrimage.

Our readings will emphasize how medieval pilgrims received, preserved, and interpreted their journey and their spirituality in musical form—and also how modern people receive, preserve, and interpret these songs of the Middle Ages. Our primary sources will lead into several other areas: related literature from medieval France, Provence, Iberia, and Italy; the scripts, compilation practices, purposes, and value of medieval manuscripts (as opposed to modern critical editions); the ethos and values of mysticism, communal worship, penitence, armed pilgrimage (what we call Crusade), and formal religion; and the musical landscape of medieval France, Italy, and Iberia.

Our class sessions will be divided among short lectures, discussions (open class and in small groups), structured listening, and reading. Reading for class, participating in class discussion, and contributing to the collective project are as important as writing assignments. We’ll usually be meeting with the students in MUS 4/507 for the 5-6 p.m. hour. Performance-friendly participants will be encouraged to deepen their understanding of medieval lyric through a personal performance, including song, accompaniment, recitation, or a combination of these. However, no specialized background is necessary for this course: all students will contribute to mounting the performance, though not all will be performing in it.  Period 1     return to course list

RL 623: Literary Translation: A Workshop in Theory and Practice- Gladhart & McPherson
In this course, we begin with the premise that the practices and theories of literary translation are profoundly interconnected and that they can most productively be explored together. The questions and challenges we encounter in literary translation have vital implications for our work as literary scholars. Engaging in (and thinking about) translation gives us insight into the rich complexities of what we are doing as readers of texts. Translation is also about the promises of and obstacles to cross-cultural communication and understanding. The work for this course will include close readings and analysis of selected literary texts alongside their translations; critical readings of translators’ introductions and notes; and readings of seminal texts in translation history and theory. Students will also participate in language-specific translation workshops. Visiting speakers will include: Québec feminist Nicole Brossard whose literary and theoretical work offers a vital and profound engagement with translation as a feminist practice; Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood, one of Brossard’s translators; and Professor Gary Racz, specialist in translation studies, translator of poetry and drama from Spanish into English, and current president of the American Literary Translators Association. While the course is taught in English, students may make arrangements to earn credit for Period 3 or Period 4 in French or Spanish. May be taken for 2 or 4 credits.            return to course list

*SUMMER 2013*

No RL courses are scheduled to be offered during the Summer of 2013 . . . check back later for possible updates.
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