SPAN 343 - Don Quixote and Narrative Theory

This course will consist of a close reading of Cervantes’s masterpiece in conjunction with the works of theorists such as Michel Foucault, Gyorgy Lukács, Anthony Cascardi, and Mary Malcolm Gaylord, who have written about Don Quixote in the development and exploration of their various “theories of the novel.” To better understand the context of Don Quixote, we will begin with a careful consideration of political, cultural, and historical aspects of the Spanish Golden Age. During the final weeks of the semester we will read texts by Jorge Luis Borges and Paul Auster that exploit narrative conventions found in Don Quixote. We will end the semester with student presentations that focus on adaptations and appropriations of Don Quixote in modern narrative. Conducted in English. Students taking the course for Spanish credit will meet in extra sessions.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Prerequisite(s): For Spanish credit: SPAN 321
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Cross-listing(s): LIT 390
Not offered: 2024-25
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).