Spanish 561 Topics in Hispanic Literature                                                       Fall 97

 

Recovering the Hispanic Heritage: Colonial Literature from the Documentary Relations of the Southwest Archive, Arizona State Museum

 

Tuesdays  4-6:30                                         ML 535

 

Professor: Lydia Fossa                  Office : ML 533                                   Office hours:

Phone: 621-3629

 

Course Description

The Department of Spanish and Portuguese is sponsoring a research project in the Documentary Relations of the Southwest (DRSW) archives, located in the Arizona State Museum, on Campus.  This research is devoted to an initial survey of those fonds, funded by the Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage project based in the University of Houston.  It involves searching for texts of literary value, of cultural and historical significance, in an effort towards the recovery of Spanish and possibly native voices.  A broadened Colonial Literature perspective allows us to incorporate in academic studies those discourses that played a major role in the cultural life of the Southwest in the past.

 

The course will be based on the primary and secondary texts that the initial survey has produced. The search has been conducted within the following main areas of interest: Spanish Colonial Literature, sermons, and writings by and about women.

 

Course Objectives

The documents that form our corpus will be identified, studied, analyzed and contextualized in class.  In order to achieve these objectives, the class will comprise the following themes: Hispanic Paleography XVI - XIX centuries, Colonial discourse theory and analyses, comparison of primary and secondary sources (if needed), and Colonial history of New Spain.

 

Students will be proficient in the reading of manuscript documents from the nineteenth to the sixteenth century.  The historical semantic changes will be addressed, using period dictionaries.  These activities require a very strong command of Spanish.  Familiarization with post-colonial and deconstructive theories will be obtained along the course.  Methodological input for textual analysis will also be provided.  Historical contextualization will require that small groups of students do their own research on the subjects/texts and present them to the class. 

 

Course Materials

We will use a coursepack with the manuscripts during the first half of the course.  A second coursepack with the primary texts to be analyzed will be used during the second half of the course.  Four books (see bibliography) will help us deal with the theory and methodology that will be in use also during the second half.  I consider these books to be important academic and professional sources, for present and future consultation.


Evaluation

The Paleography section of the course will be mainly a  Ahands-on@ experience with copies of the documents.  Evaluation of weekly exercises and class participation will constitute the main input for grading.

 

The second section of the course is related to the historical contextualization of each text and subsequent analysis of its contents.  Weekly reports will be evaluated, as well as class participation.

 

The final grade will be an average of the grades obtained in the two sections of the course.

 

 

SYLLABUS

 

August 26                     Principles of Paleography:

Writing in the Americas, historical semantics

Course Methodology

Reading XIX century manuscripts

 

Sept 2             Principles of Paleography: types of manuscripts,

documentary elements

Reading XVIII century manuscripts

 

Sept 9                          Principles of Paleography: Abbreviations

Reading XVIII century manuscripts

 

Sept 16                        Principles of Paleography:

Numbering, Punctuation, Accentuation

Reading XVIII century manuscripts

 

Sept 23                        Transcription Norms

Reading XVII century manuscripts

 

Sept 30                        Descriptive Fiche Design

Reading XVII century manuscripts

 

Oct 7                           Period Measurements: Weight, Surface, Monetary

Reading XVII century manuscripts

 

Oct 14                         Paper making in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

Paper distribution

Writing instruments

Reading XVII century manuscripts

 

Oct 21                         Watermarks.  Dating manuscripts.

Reading XVI century manuscripts

 

 

Oct 28                         Sixteenth/Seventeenth century Spanish Semantics

Sixteenth/Seventeenth century bilingual Semantics: native                                                   languages/Spanish

Reading XVI century manuscripts

 

Nov 4                          Catecismo

La Ciudad Letrada

 

 

Nov 11                        AOn the Semiotic Mechanism of Culture@

(Veterans= Day)

 

Nov 18                        Poema

Semiótica narrativa y textual

 

 

Nov 25                        AObject and Alphabet@

 

 

Dec 2                           Sermón

ASigns and their Transmission: The Question of the Book@

 

 

Dec 9                           Interpretation and Overinterpretation

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

Chabrol, Claude, Ed.            Semiótica narrativa y textual, Universidad Central de Venezuela,                    Ediciones de la Biblioteca, Caracas, 1978

 

Eco, Umberto               Interpretation and Overinterpretation, Cambridge University Press, 1992

 

Hill Boone, Elizabeth and Walter D. Mignolo, Eds.  Writing Without Words.  Alternative                  Literacies in Mesoamerica and the Andes, Duke University Press, 1994

 

Rama, Angel                 La ciudad letrada, Introd. M. Vargas Llosa, Prolg. H. Achúgar, Ediciones             del Norte, 1984

 

                                               

 

 

 

                                                November 24, 1997

 

 

 

Dr. Roger Myers

Manuscripts Curator and Archivist

University Library

Research Archives, Museums, and Special Collections

University of Arizona

 

Dear doctor Myers:

 

I am writing to thank you for the wonderful opportunity of becoming familiarized with the manuscript and rare book collection you organized for me and my Sp 561 class to see.

 

The exhibit of texts in Spanish dating from the sixteenth century onwards you prepared especially for us was the keynote of the theme about papers, inks and writing instruments developed within the paleography component of the graduate course.  As we had not been able to have a feeling of the old manuscripts themselves, since we were working with photocopied material, this was an outstanding opportunity for observing the qualities of actual old paper and inks.

 

It was also an opportunity to become acquainted with the wonderful examples of rare books that are housed in your collections.  They should certainly be admired by more students and faculty alike.

 

Thank you again for your interest in supporting our course work and contributing  in widening the academic experience of graduate students.

 

                                                                                                            Cordially,

 

 

 

                                                                                                            Lydia Fossa

                                                                                                            Assistant Professor

 

Cc:  Malcolm A. Compitello, Head

        Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese