The greatest part of the first term will be devoted to the presentation and practice of the basic sound patterns of the language, its fundamental sentence patterns, and sufficient vocabulary to illustrate and practice them. An introduction to the writing system will be offered together with the opportunity to acquire elementary writing and reading skills.

At the end of the second term of the first year of study the student should be able to produce all the significant sound patterns of the language, to recognize and use the major grammatical structures within a limited core vocabulary. The student should be able a) to engage in simple conversations with native speakers about a limited number of everyday situations and b) to read and write simple material related to the situations presented.

The first term of the second year will concentrate on the further development of fluency in oral production and the improvement in the student's ability to understand the flow of speech as uttered by a native speaker. Increased attention will be paid to reading as a means of augmenting a recognition vocabulary and writing as a drill and as a means of consolidating and communicating the knowledge gained.

At the end of the second term of the second year the student should be able to converse comfortably with a native speaker on a variety of non-specialized subjects. The student will be offered an opportunity to experience and more fully understand the culture of the people who use the language through readings of various types. More complex writing tasks will be expected at this level.

Course description coming soon!

The topic and content of this special topics course are variable.

Through this class, students will read literature about the impact language has on interactions between different cultures. There is discussion of the differences in communication within and between various communities.

While giving an overview of the types of languages present in each area of the world, this course explores the composition and trends within and between language families. The course incorporates study of language structure differences as well as sociolinguistic variations.

This course will review the prehistory of South America from its earliest peopling to the Spanish Conquest. Emphasis will be placed on tracing the rise of civilization in the Andes. Although the best known of the prehispanic polities, the Inka empire was merely the last and largest of a long sequence of complex societies. Comparison of the Inka state with these earlier populations will reveal the unique and enduring traditions of Andean political and social organization.

We will explore how multiracial societies were created; how indigenous people and enslaved Africans were subjected to and resisted colonial hierarchies of power; the role of religion in the colonies; and the economic structures of the Atlantic world. Course materials will draw on a variety of primary sources and cultural texts (such as literature, manifestos, art, and film clips) to illuminate the everyday lives of people in the region.

This course will examine the social, cultural, economic, and political history of Latin America during the period of Spanish and Portuguese rule (c. 1500—c. 1825). We will explore how multiracial societies were created; how indigenous people and enslaved Africans were subjected to and resisted colonial hierarchies of power; the role of religion in the colonies; and the economic structures of the Atlantic world. Course materials will draw on a variety of primary sources and cultural texts (such as literature, manifestos, art, and film clips) to illuminate the everyday lives of people in the region.

This course surveys Latin American history from the immediate post-independence period to the present. We will first explore the broad patterns and processes that shaped the formation of Latin American nations in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries: the consequences of the wars for independence; the formation of nation-states and export economies; the varied forms of U.S. intervention; and the crisis of an elite-based order at the turn of the twentieth century. Focusing on specific case studies from Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean, we will then consider the varied paths that Latin Americans have taken in efforts to achieve democracy, social justice, economic development, and national autonomy in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. 

This course explores violence and memory in Latin America by focusing on the long history of U.S. military intervention in Central America and the Caribbean. We will first consider the mid-nineteenth century invasions by U.S. filibusters (“pirates”) and then turn to the lengthy U.S. military occupations of the early twentieth century. Why did these U.S. interventions, typically made in the name of democracy, engender high levels of violence? And in what ways did the violence leave an imprint on local memories? In addressing these questions, we will consider how historians have analyzed diverse forms of U.S. intervention and nationalist challenges to U.S. imperial rule. This focus will allow us to gain a deeper understanding of the different ways of writing history.