Languages, Literatures and Cultures Department at Illinois State University

FRENCH
305.12 Histoire de la Civilisation Francaise 2-3:15 Tuesday & Thursday – 3 Semester Hours
Dr. Raymond Hounfodji, 438-1956, rgnanwo@ilstu.edu
This course provides an overview of the history of French civilization from medieval times to the present. It will be divided into six units, each focusing on the political, social, economic and cultural aspects of a period of French history: medieval France, the Renaissance, and the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Readings from the textbook (Jean Carpentier et François Lebrun’s Histoire de France), will be supplemented by in-class lectures, close readings of primary sources (including cultural and literary texts), and the viewing of films. There will be daily reading and question sheets, a term paper on one aspect of the evolution of French civilization, a mid-term exam, and a final exam. The course is required for all majors.

385.12 Selected Topics in French Literature 5:30-8:20 Tuesday – 3 Semester Hours
Dr. Raymond Hounfodji, 438-1956, rgnanwo@ilstu.edu
This course will offer an introduction to African francophone novels since 1990. The collapse of the Berlin wall in 1989 ended a bipolarized world and brought a new world order with its social, economic, and political transformations. Africa, as part of the new globalized world, is subject to these transformations, too, and as attentive observers, African writers have been documenting them through their fictional writings. Nevertheless, literature courses on Africa in Western universities have been taught using two- or three-generation-old novels by long-acclaimed writers. While some of those novels and writers are still relevant, in part for the recurrence of their social and political criticisms, there are more recent works of fiction that offer fresh perspectives and a better understanding of contemporary Africa. These newer novels, including some by writers from the earlier generations, demonstrate how African narrative discourses have evolved from culture conflicts, the colonial experience and neocolonialism to new thematic paradigms such as immigration, civil wars, political deadlock or struggles.
The course will be divided in five parts. The first part will provide general considerations on Africa and its literature. The second, third, and fourth parts will explore these thematic paradigms fictionalized by writers. The course will conclude by drawing the possible connections between the narratives in the considered novels. While we will use supplementary materials such as newspapers, scholarly articles, films and documentaries to support the themes of this course, the main readings and discussions will be based on the following novels: Trop de soleil tue l’amour by Mongo Beti, Matins de couvre-feu by Tanella Boni and Douceurs du bercail by Aminata Sow Fall.

420.12 Selected Topics in French Literature and Culture 5:30-8:20 Monday – 3 Semester Hours
Dr. Mary Trouille, 438-7983, mstroui@ilstu.edu
The publication in 1721 of Montesquieu's Lettres persanes marked the beginning of what Roger Caillois has called a "sociological revolution" in French letters, "a philosophical strategy in which the author adopts the viewpoint of a foreign visitor to his own society, viewing it from the outside as if he were seeing it for the first time." Like the Indian visitors from Brazil described by Montaigne in his essay "Des Cannibales," Montesquieu's Persians observe French society with a mixture of curiosity, amusement, and surprise. This defamiliarization of the familiar enabled
Montesquieu to explore the relativism of cultural norms and values and to critique French institutions and customs with unprecedented boldness and originality. The tremendous success of his novel encouraged other authors to follow suit and gave rise to an important body of works of social criticism thinly disguised as travel literature.
In this course we will trace the evolution of the topos of the outsider in French fiction by examining some of the major works in this sub-genre, as well as some lesser-known texts. In addition to Montaigne's essay "Des Cannibales" (1530) and excerpts from Montesquieu's Lettres persanes (1721), we will read Françoise de Graffigny's Lettres d'une Péruvienne (1747), Voltaire's L'Ingenu (1767), Diderot's Supplément au voyage de Bougainville (1772), Claire de Duras's Ourika (1823), Camus's L'Etranger (1942), and Marie-Thérèse Humbert's A l'autre bout de moi (1979) set on the island of Mauritius. We will also see a film version of Molière's 1666 play Le Misanthrope, as well as the French-Canadian film Black Robe and the Franco-Brazilian film How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman.
Among the theoretical questions we will address is to what extent the presentation of cultural difference and social criticism is influenced by the gender and national origin of the author, the narrator, the central character(s), and the implied reader. We will also examine the satiric, utopian, and/or reformist undercurrents that characterize the works in this tradition. Finally, we will explore how each author writing in this sub-genre reponded to the influence of his or her predecessors, either imitating or writing against the literary conventions and the philosophical assumptions underlying their works.

GERMAN
310.13 Advanced Study of the German Language
2-3:15 Tuesday & Thursday – 3 Semester Hours Dr. Andrew Weeks, 438-7120, caweeks@ilstu.edu
This course covers a. themes in German linguistics such as phonetics and history of the German language, b. fine points of German grammar and word formation, and c. areas of special interest such as the derivation of family names or the practices of paleography and the critical study of old manuscripts and writings. Studentswilllistentolectures,takepartindiscussions,giveoralreports,writearesearchpaper, and take a final exam.
317.13 Contemporary Issues of the German Speaking Countries 11-12:15 Tuesday & Thursday – 3 Semester Hours

Dr. Elke Segelcke, 438-7570, esegelc@ilstu.edu Study of the history, culture and politics of German society since World War II with a special
focus on contemporary issues and the European Union as reflected in a variety of texts and media.

322.13 Survey of German Literature 9:35-10:50 Tuesday & Thursday – 3 Semester Hours
Dr. James van der Laan, 438-7570, dlvan@ilstu.edu
In this course, we will conduct a survey of German literature from the sixteenth century (the advent of the modern era) to the present. We will read and discuss representative works by major German authors of this time period, beginning with the Luther Bible and the first Faust story through Baroque poetry, Goethe and Schiller, Grimm's fairy tales, a novella from Realism to a postmodern novel by Kehlmann. We will also discuss and learn about the various literary and intellectual currents of that time.

385.13 Selected Topics in German Literature or Culture 4-5:15 Monday & Wednesday – 3 Semester Hours Dr. James van der Laan, 438-7270, dlvan@ilstu.edu
In this course, we will read a selection of the best-known German poems. For example, Goethe's "Heidenröslein" or Schller's "An die Freude" are beloved poems both in Germany and beyond. We will also look at various musical compositions based on these and other poems. Beethoven's symphonic treatment of the "Ode to Joy" is but one such extension of the original poems possibilities. Likewise, we will examine
cinematic elaborations of famous poems like Goethe's "Zauberlehrling" which was brought to life in Walt Disney's "The Sorceror's Apprentice" starring Mickey Mouse

.
SPANISH
311.15 Spanish Phonetics and Phonology
4-5:15 Monday & Wednesday – 3 Semester Hours Dr. Benjamin Schmeiser, 438-7703, schmeiser@ilstu.edu
This course treats the core components that comprise the Spanish sound system. The objectives for this course are two-fold. First, the student will learn the basic components of Spanish Phonetics and Spanish Phonology for both ‘Standard Spanish’ and regional varieties. Second, the student will compare these components to English and his/her own pronunciation of Spanish. By learning these basic components and applying them to his/her own Spanish, the student will gain insight into the Spanish language and s/he will also improve upon his/her own language skills. Though not expected, it is preferable to have basic knowledge of the main field of linguistics and/or have taken a course an introductory course in Linguistics. This course will be conducted in Spanish.

324.15 Spanish Literature, Eighteenth-Century to Present Day 12-12:50 Monday, Wednesday, & Friday – 3 Semester Hours
Dr. Ryan Davis, 438-7759, rdavis2@ilstu.edu
This course offers a general overview of Spanish literature from the XVIII century to the present by focusing on the major literary "movements" of the period--e.g., Romanticism, Realism/Naturalism, Modernismo, Vanguardismo, etc. Students will gain a basic understanding of these movements through the textual analysis of representative works in the various genres: poetry, drama, novel, short story, essay. Course taught in Spanish.

325.15 Spanish American Literature 12:35-1:50 Tuesday & Thursday – 3 Semester Hours
Dr. James Alstrum, 438-7620, jjalstr@ilstu.edu
Masterpieces and Movements
We will examine the unique facets of Spanish American Literature in prose and poetry with emphasis on the writers of the 19th and 20th centuries through the prism of a representative sampling of works by major writers who participated in the major artistic movements of their respective times. We will begin with the foundational writings from the colonial period of the mestizo Renaissance man known as El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and the baroque feminist vantage point of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz proceeding through Romanticism, Modernism, the Avant-garde, the Boom or Nueva narrativa and the post- Boom while showing how the literary canon of Spanish American Letters has evolved and broadened to include more female and heretofore marginalized voices. Writers studied will include the Cubans José María Heredia José Martí, Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda and Nicolás Guillén, the Colombians José Asunción Silva, Luis Carlos López and Gabriel García Márquez, the Chileans Pablo Neruda, Vicente Huidobro and Isabel Allende, the Argentines Esteban Echeverría Alfonsina Storni, Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar, the Mexicans Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera, Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes, Rosario Castellanos and Elena Poniatowska, the Peruvians Ricardo Palma and César Vallejo, the Uruguayan Horacio Quiroga and the Nicaraguan Rubén Darío. Both graduate and undergraduate students will be required to take a midterm examination and write at least one fifteen page research paper in Spanish about the nouvelle or a full length novel. Undergraduates will also be required to take a final examination but graduate students must substitute a second fifteen page research paper in Spanish instead devoted to a poet or a poetic movement of any historical period. Seniors using this course to fulfill their Capstone Project requirement must write a paper in Spanish of at least twenty pages in length excluding the bibliography.

337.15 Selected Topics in Peninsular Spanish Literature 2-2:50 Monday, Wednesday & Friday – 3 Semester Hours
Dr. Maria Pao, 438-7374, mtpao@ilstu.edu
Bildungsroman, novela de aprendizaje, novela de formación, novela de iniciación, the coming-of-age novel—these narratives have traditionally been understood to convey a young person’s journey from adolescence to adulthood. They explore issues such as maturation, identity, and self-realization. This course will focus on twentieth-century iterations of the bildungsroman written by women in Spain. Conventions of the literary mode will be addressed, along with topics in women’s studies and the cultural milieu in which these texts were produced. Authors will include Carmen Martín Gaite, Ana María Matute, Carmen Laforet, and Espido Freire.

360.15 Studies in Spanish Linguistics 2-3:15 Tuesday & Thursday – 3 Semester Hours
Dr. Patxi Lascurain, 438-8178, ilascur@ilstu.edu The Grammatical Encoding of Information in Spanish
The purpose of this class is to study and explicitly characterize information that is grammatically encoded in Spanish. We will consider different grammatical categories (verb, adjective and adverb, preposition), investigate grammatical phenomena in Spanish associated with these categories and analyze those phenomena by characterizing the information encoded in particular lexical forms or grammatical constructions. Specific topics that will be covered in this class are tense, aspect, and mood in the verb system, the semantic characterization of the prepositional system in Spanish, and information issues pertaining adjectives and adverbs. At the same time, we will compare Spanish and English and highlight how these two different languages encode the same types of information by different grammatical means. During the course we will introduce notions and theoretical constructs that will enable us to understand the grammatical constructions under consideration. Thus, the course will be both theoretical and practical: an exploration into Linguistic Theory will give us the tools necessary to better understand some aspects of the grammar of Spanish.
The course will increase students’ awareness of the grammatical tools that the Spanish language offers in order to convey information. This will result in: i) an improvement in the students’ ability to convey information in Spanish (both oral and written), and, ii) an improvement of the students’ ability to use different codes (Spanish or English) to convey the same information (as in translations).

385.15 Topics in Hispanic Literature 3:35-4:50 Tuesday & Thursday – 3 Semester Hours
Dr. James Alstrum, 438-7620, jjalstr@ilstu.edu The Colombian Satirical Tradition In Poetry And Prose
Throughout its literary history, Colombia, probably the most conservative and catholic country in Spanish America, has had an often hidden but surprisingly rich satirical tradition in both poetry and prose which dates back to Juan Rodríguez Freyle's seventeenth century scandalous chronicle popularly known as El Carnero. This course will present the most outstanding writers of satire in poetry and prose beginning with select chapters of the aforementioned work and continuing during the first half of the semester with other outstanding prose satirists including some of the short stories of Tomás Carrasquilla, the allegorical novel by Clímaco Soto Borda entitled Diana Cazadora written during the thousand days civil war at the turn of the twentieth century,an in-depth analysis of the title story Los funerales de la Mamá Grande by Colombia's Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, examining the verbal irony in Rafael Humberto Moreno Durán's El toque de Diana, studying the feminist satire of Marvel Moreno in some of her stories and a nouvelle and culminating in the satirical masterpiece of Hector Abad Faciolince in Basura which is grounded in Cervantine techniques. The second half of the course will be devoted to satirical poetry as practiced by the Colombian antimodernist from Cartagena Luis Carlos Lopez followed by the iconoclastic poems of the nadaístas like X-504 (Jaime Jaramillo Escobar) and J. Mario Arbelaez which culminate in some of the contemporary poets from the Generacion desencantada de Golpe de Dados like María Mercedes Carranza, Darío Jaramillo Agudelo and Juan Gustavo Cobo Borda. All students will be required to take a midterm exam about Colombian satirical prose and write a research paper in Spanish
(12-15 pages in length) due by the midway point in the semester. Undergraduate students must also take the final exam emphasizing satirical poetry and all students must also write a research paper in Spanish about Colombian satirical verse due at the end of the semester. Graduate students will be exempt from the final exam but must write a more extensive research paper in Spanish about Colombian satirical poetry (Minimum 15 pages excluding bibliography). Students will also receive a grade for active classroom participation which will include, in the case of graduate students, the presentation of oral reports critically summarizing journal articles or book chapters assigned by the instructor.

418.15 Seminar in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Spanish Literature 5:30-8:20 Monday – 3 Semester Hours
Dr. Ryan Davis, 438-7759, rdavis2@ilstu.edu
Roland Barthes reminds us that “narrative is present in every age, in every place, in every society; it begins with the very history of mankind and there nowhere is nor has been a people without narrative. . . . it is simply there, like life itself.” Given the universality of narrative, it seems reasonable to make the study of it an explicit educational pursuit—especially for, say, graduate students in literature. The purpose of this course is therefore to enable students to engage various works of Spanish 19th-century literature in a critical and intelligent fashion by equipping them with a basic understanding of certain fundamental terms and concepts from narratology (story v. discourse, event, character, narrator, focalization, author v. implied author, diegesis, etc.). Primary texts include three novels by Benito Pérez Galdós—Marianela (1878), Tormento (1884), and Tristana (1892); which, taken together reflect the broad arc of Galdós’s evolution as an author—Juan Valera’s Pepita Jiménez (1874), and, possibly, select short stories by Leopoldo Alas and Emilia Pardo Bazán.

434.15 Seminar in Modern Spanish-American Literature 5:30-8:20 Tuesday – 3 Semester Hours
Dr. Julie Lynd, 438-7347, jlynd@ilstu.edu Poetry and Anti-Poetry in Chile
Chile is often referred to (poetically) as a “land of poets.” Although Chilean literature includes many splendid narrators as well, the nation has produced several canonical poets, including two Nobel Prize winners, Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda. Poets are often active in the public life of the nation, as politicians, cultural ambassadors, musicians, and sometimes even instigators of scandalous public disturbances. While poetry has often been written within the ivory tower of privilege, Chile has a strong tradition of so-called social poetry, poetry committed to effecting social and political change. This course will offer a brief overview of the history of poetry in Chile, from its prehispanic and colonial origins to the present, but we will spend most of the semester examining vanguard, neovanguard and postvanguard poetry of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We will touch briefly on precolonial Mapuche poetry, Alonso de Ercilla’s colonial epic La Araucana, and nationalist poetry of the nineteenth century, and then delve into the twentieth century beginning with the lyrical, often haunting verses of Gabriela Mistral that garnered her Latin America’s first Nobel in literature. We will study in depth the radical (and not so radical) breaks in poetry ushered in by Vicente Huidobro, the larger-than-life Neruda, the deeply committed revolutionary poetry of Pablo de Rohka, the so-called anti-poetry of Nicanor Parra, and the urban poetry of Enrique Lihn. We will read poetic contributions to revolutionary thought during Chile’s short experiment with socialism, from the folk music of Víctor Jara and Ángel and Violeta Parra to the experimental feminist poetry of Cecilia Vicuña. We will read Raúl Zurita’s poetic denunciation of and resistance to the long and violent military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, and we will conclude with a panorama of Chilean poetry at the turn of the twenty-first century, including the urban and multilingual verses of Mapuche poets in Santiago today and young voices of the Chilean diaspora. The latter include Chicago’s own Daniel Borzutsky--whose work weaves Chilean and US history, culture, and politics-- as well as Roberto Bolaño’s short stories and essays that offer literary sociocriticism through a sometimes sardonic, sometimes moving portrait of poets as infinitely fallible human beings. Coursework will include close readings of individual poems, but the focus on one national literary history will allow for a broader discussion of sociocultural context of particular works and the ever-evolving social functions of poetry.

GENERAL

321.11 Integrating Technology into the Foreign Language Classroom
3-5:25 Monday & Wednesday – 2 Semester Hours (6 week course) Dr. Rachel Shively, 438-7185, rshivel@ilstu.edu
This course will develop skills in selecting, creating, evaluating, and using technological resources and tools for foreign language teaching, with an emphasis on integrating technology into the foreign language curriculum in a theoretically and pedagogically sound manner. Technologies for foreign language learning to be explored include: SMART Board, Web 2.0 tools (e.g., blogs, wikis, social networking, interactive mind-mapping), free web-based tools and resources, synchronous and asynchronous communication, and audio and video editing. Participants will engage with the course content primarily through hands-on experiences with the technologies, but also through readings, discussion, reflection, and demonstration.

405.11 Introduction to Cultural Studies 5:30-8:20 Wednesday – 3 Semester Hours
Dr. Benjamin Schmeiser, 438-7703, schmeiser@ilstu.edu
In this course, we will study different European cinemas, with special emphasis on the French-, Spanish-, and German-speaking countries. We will explore a variety of styles, genres, movements, along with film history. Each week we will typically watch a film outside of class and then discuss it in class. We will watch a mix of classic and more obscure films. The student will be expected to discuss the films within the parameters of cinema studies and carry out original investigation of a particular topic. A primary goal of the course is to illustrate excellence in research and investigation, along with exhibiting strong academic writing skills, and a solid command of the subject matter. The bulk of the grade is comprised of the final paper, quizzes, and participation; there are no exams given. This course is taught in English.

480.11 Advanced Topics in Foreign Language Instruction 5:30-8:20 Thursday – 3 Semester Hours
Dr. Rachel Shively, 438-7185, rshivel@ilstu.edu Doing things with words in a second language: Teaching and learning pragmatics
In everyday life, we use language to carry out a multitude of actions such as making requests, apologizing, complaining, or giving a compliment. We can be polite, rude, or humorous with the way that we say things. However, the way that we use language to do these things varies according to the specific language and culture. The language structure that makes a request sound polite in Spanish may sound very rude translated directly into English. Thus, it is not enough for students of a foreign language to learn vocabulary and grammar structures; for effective communication they must also learn the preferred ways of using the foreign language in real life contexts.
This course will introduce students to the field of second language pragmatics, that is, the study of language use in context as applied to foreign language teaching and learning. We will examine how theories of second language acquisition apply to learning pragmatics and take an in-depth look at pedagogical models and techniques for helping learners discover how to say things in culturally and contextually appropriate ways. Students will develop pragmatics-focused instructional components and classroom-based assessments to use in the foreign language classes that they teach. As part of the course, we will also investigate some of the specific ways that languages such as English, French, German, and Spanish differ in terms of the social norms for language use in particular cultural contexts. The course will include readings, discussion, presentation, analysis of spoken and written data, pedagogical application, and an original research project.

PROJECTED GRADUATE COURSES – FALL 2012
FRENCH
325.12 335.12 405.12: Selected Topics in Francophone Literature and Culture Comparative French/English Grammar and Style Seminar on Contemporary French Civilization
GENERAL & PEDAGOGY
319.11 475.11 485.11
Principles of Foreign Language Teaching Foreign Language Teaching Methodologies at the College Level Selected Studies in Linguistics
GERMAN
To BeAnnounced
SPANISH
305.15 310.15 323.15 327.15 336.15 421.15 484.15: Current Topics in Hispanic Civilization and Culture Spanish Syntax Spanish Literature – Medieval and Renaissance Spanish American Literature – Late 19th Century to Present Selected Topics in Spanish American Literature
History of the Spanish Language Seminar in 20th and 21st Century Spanish Literature
*Some changes may become necessary due to staffing or other changes.