RMST454

Cross-listed with ITAL 404

Eros Unbound: The Ecology of Love at the Edge of Modernity

Orpheus and Eurydice, © Emily Balivet 2012

Is there such a thing as an “ecology of love”? The short answer is: “yes”; the long answer is: “we may have forgotten almost all about it.” Can we retrieve the memory of that ecology, and thus free love from its fetters, so as to reclaim truer bonds: bonds that make us free, rather than imprison us?

The stories of Eros and Psyche; Echo and Narcissus; Orpheus and Eurydice; Persephone, Demeter and Hades are myths that have guided the Western mind through the millennia in its renewed attempts to grapple with the mysteries of love, life, death. These stories informed the poetics of countless verbal and visual expressions of union and separation, particularly at the time when European societies were transitioning into “modernity” – ‘modernity’ being perhaps the most separative experiment ever undertaken by humanity in its yearning for freedom from ‘the environment,’ and from all bonds. How do these myths address the bonding of relationship and its severing? How did these myths get inflected over time, in order to warn, or disguise, or negate that tragic severing of the erotic, nurturing bond between feminine and masculine, the living earth and its human inhabitants, between psyche (soul)-body, and mind?

This course will retrace both the endorsed and the rejected reading of these myths, which have been central to the formation (and loss) of an “ecology of love” in the ancient, pre-modern and modern worlds. We will explore how these primordial images of eros have contributed to shaping our understanding of the relationship between the human psyche and its environment. We will take an especially close look at the poetics of desire and the dynamics of power in the cultures of the pre-modern Mediterranean and Romance cultures, and of Renaissance Italy.

These narratives that teach us of the cosmic power of eros are as alive, and worthy of attention, today, as they were in past ages, hence we will complement our rediscovery of their ancient, medieval and early modern re-creations with contemporary literature that probes their meaning for our times, at the intersection of psychology, ecology, and the arts.

Required readings:

• Bedier, The Romance of Tristan and Iseut. Hackett 2013. 978-1603849005
• The Romance of the Rose (excerpts in pdf)
• Dante Alighieri, The New Life, tr. S. Applebaum. Dover 2006. 978-0486453491
• Other texts will be provided in pdf via Canvas.

Language of instruction: English

Prerequisites: No prerequisites

Note: Credit will be granted for only one of RMST 454, ITST 414 or ITAL 404.

From Text to Palate: Literature, Food, and Society in Spain and Latin America

The ancient link between food and books is particularly significant in the Hispanic World where eating has always been essential in defining individuals, groups, cultures, societies, and nations. Through an interdisciplinary approach to Hispanic short texts from a wide range of authors (Abu Hamid, Don Juan Manuel, Cervantes, Josep Plá, Manuel Vicent, Ricardo Palma, Juan José Saer, Pablo Neruda, Rosario Castellanos, Laura Esquivel, Zoe Valdés, Martín Caparrós), this course studies food (everything ingested) as a cultural product concocted by forces such as ritualization, technology, colonization, travelling, (de)globalization, or climate change. We will pay particular attention to the intersections of food with economy (i.e., production and consumption, ethical eating), social class (i.e., abundance vs. hunger, etiquette), religion (i.e., fasting and feasting, gluttony), gender (i.e., kitchen as gendered space), migration (i.e., fusion food), language (i.e., alimentary metaphors), and health (i.e., dietary prescriptions, disorders). Course materials and content will be divided into four modules that represent a four-course menu: Appetizer, First Plate, Second Plate, and Desert.

Accessibility—in terms of topics addressed and types of works studied, affordability and easy access to course materials, and student interests and levels– is a major priority for the courseʼs instructor.

Required readings:

• Coursepack provided in digital format and made available to students with adapted excerpts

Prerequisite: SPAN 221; and SPAN 301 or equivalent expertise in written and spoken Spanish.

Language of Instruction: Spanish

Beginners’ Catalan

This course introduces students to Catalan language and culture. It seeks to foster students’ linguistic, communicative and cultural competence in Catalan while exposing them to the main sociocultural aspects of the Catalan-speaking regions of Spain.

Aligned with CEFR level A1 objectives.

Prerequisites: No prerequisites

Note: Credit will be granted for only one of CTLN 101 or CTLN 301.

Language of instruction: English & Catalan

Intensive Elementary Spanish

SPAN 203 is a 3-credit Intensive Elementary Course that combines learning objectives of two existing courses, SPAN 201 and 202. This course is designed for highly motivated learners with previous experience in Spanish or other Romance languages, and offers the opportunity to review the linguistic, cultural and communicative topics at the elementary level of the language (CEFR A2) at a more appropriate pace.

Throughout the semester, students will demonstrate an ability to listen to, discuss, read and write about personal and society-related topics in the past, present, and future by using simple and complex verb tenses, as well as engage with complex modes of expression in real and hypothetical situations.

Topics covered (science and technology, work and the economy, popular culture and mass and new media, literature and art, and more!) will expose students to ways of thinking and understanding the world that promote intercultural knowledge, and build toward competencies required for upper-level courses in our program through exposure to literature, culture, and media related to the Spanish-speaking world.

The design and structure of the course is founded on adaptive and inclusive principles of teaching and learning that consider the interests and needs of all learners and strive toward greater personalization of learning, flexibility and accessibility for all students, including students with disabilities.

Required texts

The same textbook is used for Spanish 103 and Spanish 203.  Students that plan to take both courses, should purchase the 12 month access plan.

• Enfoques 6e SSPlus(v) + wSAM(5 month)
• Enfoques 6e SSPlus(v) + wSAM(12 month)

Prerequisite: One of SPAN 103, SPAN 102 or placement test for native or near-native speakers of other Romance Languages.

Language of Instruction: Spanish

Love and Revolution

Love is a central virtue of human kind that frames some of the most significant relationships and roles we will experience in our lifetime, particularly during times of change.  From guerrilla movements and political upheaval to intimate acts of resistance and desire, we will examine how love in its various enactments—patriotic, romantic, familial, erotic—serves as metaphor and material force in accounts of revolution in Latin American literary and cultural production of the 20^th and 21^st centuries.

Beginning with Pedro Páramo (1955), Juan Rulfo’s haunting representation of (post)revolutionary Mexico and ending with Cantoras, Caro de Robertis’s unapologetic imagining of five women’s fight for freedom in Uruguay’s military dictatorship, RMST 280 traverses countries (Mexico, Cuba, Nicaragua, Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay), rebel movements, and genres to evaluate how some of the most influential voices and works-in-translation from both fiction and non-fiction traditions frame the powerful interplay between love and revolution in a Latin American context: Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s Cuban campaign diary, Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War and Gioconda Belli’s autobiographical memoir on love and revolution in Nicaragua, The Country Under My Skin, as well as Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude and Manuel Puig’s seductive exploration of intimacy and resistance from within the prison cell in The Kiss of the Spider Woman, among segments from other representative texts.  We will also consider the intersections of the works studied with music, film and documentary, and artistic production, as well as other themes that shape perceptions of love during times of revolution.

Accessibility—in terms of topics addressed and types of works studied, affordability and easy access to materials, and student interests and levels—is a major priority for the instructor.

Language of instruction: English

Instructor: Dr. Brianne Orr-Álvarez

Prerequisites: No prerequisites