SPAN 318W Vida en obras (taught in Spanish) 

SPAN 318 combines advanced critical writing instruction in Spanish with the study of Hispanic cultural topics. This particular section of the course will focus on the relationship between life and learning as reflected in a wide range of texts about young adults — novels, short stories, epistolary writing, essays, journalistic writing, film – across a broad chronological and geographic spectrum. Life is always a work in progress, that is, ‘en obras;’ the course will provide an opportunity for students to reflect on their own experience of the relationship between life and learning through their liberal arts education at Emory and their course work in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Topics will include the Hispanic Bildungsroman, or coming of age novel; the global traveler; family, love and friendship; vocations and careers; material and spiritual riches; identity and difference; success, failure, and resilience. We will also read a number of essays (primarily in English) that address contemporary debates about the value of the humanities and the liberal arts and will put those essays in dialogue with the primary texts in Spanish.