Hispanic Studies

MA PROGRAMME

The MA in Hispanic Studies runs for one-year (full-time) or two-years (part-time) from the date of first registration for the programme. Applicants should normally have a primary degree with at least a Second Class (Grade I) Honours in Spanish. They may be required to present themselves for interview or further assessment before a final decision is made. Prospective candidates are encouraged to contact the Department informally before applying. Applications received before the end of the first week in July will be considered immediately. Applications received thereafter will be considered before mid-September.

Candidates for the MA in Hispanic Studies are required to take four courses, two of which are prescribed:

Core:

(i) SP510 Translation (general and literary) into and out of Spanish.

(ii) LL6000 An Introduction to Research Methods.

The remaining two courses must be chosen from the following list of options. One of these should lie in the area of the candidate?s research dissertation. The other should be in another distinct area of study. The choice of options must be approved by the Head of Department and the Research Officer.

The programme will be assessed by coursework and examination.  In addition, candidates will be required to present a dissertation (SP530) of 15,000-20,000 words on an agreed topic of research. The choice of research topic must be finalised before the end of Teaching Period 1.

Note: Postgraduate students specialising in the areas of Medieval or Golden Age Studies who desire to develop a competence in Latin are encouraged to take the Beginners' Latin course (LT5001).

Options:

• SP512 The Galician/Portuguese Cancioneiros
• SP513 The Spanish Epic
• SP514 Modern Galician Literature
• SP515 The So-Called Feminist Debate in the Fifteenth Century
• SP516 Cervantes
• SP521 Catalan Studies
• SP532 Filming the Revolution: Cuban Cinema since 1959
• SP533 Methodologies and Linguistics: Aspects of Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language
• SP534 Novel into Film: The Spanish Context
• SP535 Contemporary Spanish Narrative
• SP536 Portuguese Modernism and Fernando Pessoa
• SP537 Love and Desire in Golden-Age Literature

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It is unlikely that a member of staff will offer more than one option in any given year. Students wishing to do a course on a research interest of a member of staff that is not listed as an option, are encouraged to discuss the matter with the Research Officer .

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SP512: The Galician/Portuguese Cancioneiros (Professor David Mackenzie)

These ?song-books? contain the poetry produced in Galician-Portuguese in the Castilian and Portuguese courts principally during the thirteenth century. The corpus, preserved in three later manuscripts, consists of love poetry in the form of cantigas de amor (man to woman), cantigas de amigo (woman to man) and cantigas d?escarnio (obscene and scabrous verse). It is a continuation and elaboration of the Provençal lyric of the previous century. A representative selection will be studied. Assessment will be based on a number of essays and a longer research paper.

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SP513: The Spanish Epic (Professor David Mackenzie)

The Poema or Cantar de mio Cid is the only extant epic poem in Spanish, but there are apparent vestiges of other poems, some of which have been reconstructed from Chronicles, while others survive only as fragments. Depending on the experience of the class, the course will either study the Poem of the Cid in detail before studying the problems of the Spanish epic in general, or it will concentrate on the critical controversies that have raged over the past fifty or so years concerning the existence of an epic tradition in Spain. The work of Smith and the ?neotraditionalists? will be contrasted with that of the ?oralists?, mainly Armistead and Monroe. Assessment will be based on a number of essays and a longer research paper.

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SP514: Modern Galician Literature (Professor David Mackenzie)

An overview of literature in Galician from Rosalia de Castro to the present. Assessment will be based on a number of essays and a longer research paper.

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SP515: The So-Called Feminist Debate in the Fifteenth Century (Professor David Mackenzie)

The so-called ?troubadour revival? of the reign of John II of Castile (1406-54) was accompanied by a Courtly Love attitude to women, by which they were placed on a pedestal and revered, and this was carried through to the sentimental romances, beginning with the Siervo libre de amor of Juan Rodríguez del Padrón, and carried on to the end of the century, with the Cárcel de amor of Diego de San Pedro. The moralists reacted violently to what they perceived as a dangerous and blasphemous perversion, producing a body of anti-?feminist? literature which forms the basis of the later Castilian invention of the novel, and containing such masterpieces as Corbacho by Alonso Martínez de Toledo and Celestina by Fernando de Rojas. A representative selection of both poetry and prose will be studied.

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SP516: Cervantes (Mr Stephen Boyd)

A selection of Cervantes? major works (prose, drama and some poetry) will be examined in order to familiarise students with the shape of his work as a whole and with the major themes which permeate it, especially that of the nature and role of literature itself. Assessment will be based on a number of essays and a longer research paper.

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SP521: Catalan Studies (Mr Stephen Boyd)

The major cultural and literary movements of 19th and 20th century Catalonia will be surveyed. Students will be assisted in writing a research project on an individual author of their own choice. Assessment will be based on the project and a number of shorter essays on more general aspects of the period covered by the course.

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SP532: Filming the Revolution: Cuban Cinema since 1959 (Dr Nuala Finnegan)

This course will explore questions of identity - national, personal, political - as they are played out in film making in Cuba since 1959. It will consider the cultural and theoretical writings of the New Latin American Cinema movement in the late 1950s and assess its impact on the development and study of Third World cinema. The course will examine the key role of ICAIC (National Cinematographic Institute) in Cuba focusing on the work of acclaimed filmmaker, Tomas Gutiérrez Alea. Films studied include Memorias del subdesarrollo, Fresa y chocolate, Guantanamera, Hasta cierto punto.It will also examine Mikhail Kalatozov?s representation of the revolution in Cuba in his epic, Yo Soy Cuba.

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SP533: Methodologies and Linguistics: Aspects of Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language (Ms Eugenia Bolado Colina)

The course will focus on theories of language teaching along with advanced study of the Spanish language with special emphasis on syntax.

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SP534: Novel into Film: The Spanish Context (Dr Anne Walsh)

A selection of novels that have been subsequently translated into film will be examined, chosen with regard to genre, era, impact, theme, context etc.Particular attention will be paid to the historical circumstances of Spain which have promoted the use of novels as inspiration for film (The Franco Regime 1939-1975 & the Miró years 1982-1986). The role played by censorship, subsidies and foreign investment will also be considered.SP535 Contemporary Spanish Narrative.

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SP535: Contemporary Spanish Narrative (Dr Anne Walsh)

This course will examine the development of Spanish narrative from the pre-civil warera to contemporary times. Special emphasis will be placed on recent writings by both male and female authors. It will be seen that there are strong development elements in evidence with contemporary literature having inherited much from its past.

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SP536: Portuguese Modernism and Fernando Pessoa (Ms Sofía da Silva Mendes)

The course takes as its starting point the early days of modernism in Portugal and the experimental movements, Paúlismo, Interseccionismo, Futurismo and Sensacionismo. These movements have in common a concern with identity along with the fragmentation of the self, concepts which are central to Pessoa?s work. The course will focus on Pessoa?s poetry but consideration will also be given to his semi-autobiographical novel, Livro do Desassossego?. The course will also include study of his contemporaries Almada Negreiros and Sá Carneiro.

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SP537: Love and Desire in Golden-Age Literature (Prof. Terence O'Reilly  & Mr Stephen Boyd)

This course examines the portrayal of love and erotic desire in a number of representative Spanish Golden-Age literary texts written in a variety of genres between c.1500 and 1700. The class meets every fortnight. Before each meeting all students are required to prepare in advance and read aloud to the group a paper on a specified aspect of the text under consideration.At the conclusion of the session this paper will then be submitted to staff, who will comment on it and return it to the student before the next meeting.