Courses
Semester I, Fall 2009
Primarily for Undergraduates
POBS 0100: ELEMENTARY PORTUGUESE
Section 01, Registration Number: 10422
An introductory course designed for students with little or no preparation in the language. Stresses the fundamental language skills of understanding, speaking, reading, and writing. Aspects of Portuguese and Brazilian culture are also presented. Uses a situational/natural approach that emphasizes communication in Portuguese from the very first class. A year course; only in exceptional circumstances is credit given for one semester alone.
Ms. Fauri and Ms. Sousa
Meeting Times: 2:00-2:50 pm MW, 1:00-2:20 pm TR
POBS 0110: INTENSIVE PORTUGUESE (Double Credit)
Section 01, Registration Number: 11585
A highly intensive course for students with little or no preparation in the language. Stresses the fundamental language skills of understanding, speaking, reading, and writing. Aspects of Portuguese and Brazilian culture will also be presented. Uses a situational/natural approach that emphasizes communication in Portuguese from the very first class. A two-semester sequence in one semester with ten contact hours each week. Carries double credit and covers the equivalent of two semesters. This course should be chosen by students beginning the study of Portuguese as sophomores who would like to participate in the Brown-in-Brazil Program as juniors.
Ms. Sobral, Mr. Aidoo and Ms. Lima
Meeting Times: 10:00-10:50 am MWF, 1:00-1:50 pm MWF, 10:30-11:50 am TR
POBS 0400: WRITING AND SPEAKING PORTUGUESE
Section 01, Registration Number: 10460
Designed to improve the student's ability in contemporary spoken and written Portuguese. Using such cultural items as short stories, plays, films, videos, newspaper and magazine articles, and popular music, students discuss a variety of topics with the aim of developing good communication skills. Attention also given to developing students' writing ability. A systematic review of Portuguese grammar is included. Prerequisite: POBS 0110, POBS 0200, or placement. Conducted in Portuguese. Completion of POBS 0400 is the minimum requirement for participation in the Brown-in-Brazil Program.
Ms. Grevandecarvalho
Meeting Times: 11:00-11:50 am MWF, 12:00-12:50 pm MW
POBS 0610: MAPPING PORTUGUESE-SPEAKING CULTURES: BRAZIL
Section 01, Registration Number: 10461
Selected literary and cultural texts that serve as vehicles for a deeper understanding of Brazilian society. Literary materials will be taken from several genres and periods with special attention to contemporary writings. Other media such as film and music will also be included. Considerable emphasis on strengthening speaking and writing skills. Prerequisite: POBS 0400, placement or instructor’s permission. Conducted in Portuguese.
Mr. Nielson
Meeting Times: 2:30-3:50 pm TR
POBS 0810: BELONGING AND DISPLACEMENT: CROSS-CULTURAL IDENTITIES
Section: 01, Registration Number: 10462
Focuses on the representation of immigrants, migrants and other “border crossers” in contemporary literature from Brazil and other countries. How do people respond to the loss of home and the shift to a new culture? Is “going home” possible? How do individuals deal with their dual or triple identities? Piñon, Lispector, Scliar, Rushdie, Salih, Cristina Garcia, V. S. Naipaul and others. Conducted in English.
Ms. Sobral.
Meeting Times: 9:00-10:20 am TR
POBS 0910: ON THE DAWN OF MODERNITY
Section 01, Registration Number: 14423
Will analyze how a new mindset that would later be called modernity slowly emerged from the medieval world and how the trials and errors of the 15th and 16th century navigators helped shape that transformation. The seminar is interdisiciplinary insofar as the readings will include developments in astronomy, geography, shipbuilding, mathematics, philosophy, as well as what could be called anthropology, as stepping stones to the first scientific revolution. Conducted in English.
Mr. Almeida.
Meeting Times: 3:00-5:20pm
POBS 0970: TROPICAL DELIGHTS: IMAGINING BRAZIL IN HISTORY AND CULTURE
(Interested students should register for HIST 0970B)
Section 01, Registration Number: 14035
Examines the many ways that Brazilians and foreigners have understood this vast continent-size country, ranging from early European explorers’ anxieties about Cannibalism to modern images of the Amazonian rainforest, Rio de Janeiro’s freewheeling Carnival celebrations, and the array of social movements mobilizing for social justice. Through an examination of historical sources, literature, movies, and popular culture, this seminar will consider how multiple images and projections of Brazil have shaped national and international notions about the country. Conducted in English.
Mr. Green
Meeting Times: 4:00-6:20 R
For Undergraduates and Graduates
POBS 1030: PORTUGUESE STYLISTICS; ADVANCED LANGUAGE STUDY AND CREATIVE WRITING
Section 01, Registration Number: 10463
An intensive writing course covering basic genres: letter, short essay, diary, short story and poetry. Students will write five pages per week on five different pre-assigned topics. These range over a wide variety of subjects in order to expose the students to idiomatic and stylistic writing in a multitude of areas. In class, students read and comment on each other's writings. Conducted in Portuguese.
Ms. Simas-Almeida
Meeting Times: 12:00-2:20 pm T
AFRI 1210: AFRO-BRAZILIANS AND THE BRAZILIAN POLITY
(Interested Students should register for AFRI 1210)
Section 01, Registration Number: 13229
Explores the history and present-day conditions of Afro-Brazilians, looking specifically at the uses of Africana in contemporary Brazil, political and cultural movements among Afro-Brazilians, domestic politics and its external dimensions, and Brazilian race relations within a global comparative framework. Texts from a variety of disciplines. A reading knowledge of Portuguese is not required but students so advantaged should inform the instructor.
Mr. Dzidzienyo
Meeting Times: 3:00-5:20 pm W
POBS 1500A: AFRICAN LITERATURES OF PORTUGUESE EXPRESSION
Section 01, Registration Number: 14922
A survey of representative African narrative literature of Portuguese Expression (Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé e Príncipe, Angola and Mozambique). The selections will cover the periods before and after the independence of these former Portuguese colonies. Conducted in Portuguese.
Ms. Simas-Almeida
Meeting Times: 4:00-6:20pm R
POBS 1600E: EUROPE AND THE INDIAN OCEAN
(Interested students should register for HIST 1950E)
Section 01, Registration Number: 12644
Aims to characterize the Indian Ocean in the early modern period and examine the complex relationship between this lively world and a variety of European players. The classical topics related to the economic history of maritime Asia and how the trading world of the Indian Ocean was impacted by different Western powers (The Portuguese Estado da Índia, the European commercial companies) will be addressed. However, the course focuses on a set of relevant social and cultural phenomena, ranging from the interaction between European and Asian political, religious, scientific and artistic structures to the indigenization of individuals, groups and “micro-societies”, or the formation and circulation of mutual ethnographical images.
Mr. Flores
Meeting Times: 10:00-10:50 MWF
POBS 1670: HISTORY OF BRAZIL
(Interested students should register for HIST 1670)
Section 01, Registration Number: 12256
This course charts the history of Brazil from Portuguese contact with the indigenous population in 1500 to the present. It examines the country’s political, economic, social, intellectual, and cultural development to understand the causes, interactions, and consequences of conflict, change, and continuity within Brazilian society. Conducted in English.
Mr. Green
Meeting Times: 2:30-3:50 pm TR
POBS 1970: READING AND GUIDED STUDY
Section numbers vary by instructor. Please see the registration staff for the correct section number to use when registering for this course.
POBS 1990: RESEARCH AND PREPARATION OF HONORS PROJECTS
This independent study course is designed for students working on honors projects. Written permission of the concentration advisor (Ms. Sobral) is required. Section numbers vary by instructor. Please see the registration staff for the correct section number to use when registering for this course.
Primarily for Graduates
POBS 2020A: APPLIED LINGUISTICS FOR ESL
Section 01, Registration Number 14923
Focuses on the linguistic development of bilingual children. The issues of cognitive, psycholinguistic, and sociolinguistic developmental stages as they affect the acquisition of a second will be explored. A 15-hour practicum is required. Part of the practicum involves observations of an ESL class as well as student interviews. Participants will maintain an interactive journal of their observations, an oral report of their experience, and develop a scholarly paper. Conducted in English.
Ms. Smith
Meeting Times: 4:00-6:20 pm T
POBS 2120A: ESL METHODOLOGY ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION
Section 01, Registration Number 14924
An overview of the current principles, practices and approaches that inform assessment and evaluation for English language learners. Participants engage in class activities that duplicate selected assessment approaches and identify strategies for integrating assessment with planning and instruction appropriate to the language proficiency of students. Participants explore assessment research and theoretical background for an understanding of the complexity of evaluating student achievement. Conducted in English.
Ms. Pacheco
Meeting Times: 4:00-6:20 R
POBS 2500E: PORTUGUESE CULTURAL AND NATIONAL IDENTITY
Section 01, Registration Number 14925
A critical reading of some key issues in Portuguese intellectual history regarding Portuguese national identity. Classical authors such as Verney, Antero de Quental, Teixeira de Pascoais, Fernando Pessoa, Antîonio Sérgio, and Eduardo Lourenço are read along with contemporary theoretical works on the issue of cultural and national identity. Conducted in Portuguese.
Mr. Almeida
Meeting Times: 3:00-5:20 pm M
POBS 2500H: THE CITY AND THE STREET: TRADITION, MODERNITY AND HUMAN SUBJECTIVITY IN BRAZILIAN URBAN LITERATURE
Section 01, Registration Number 14926
From Machado de Assis’s streetcar chronicles, João do Rio’s belle époque flâneur crônicas, and modernists’ views of São Paulo down to the urban paranoia of Rubem Fonseca’s crime narratives and the destabilizing subjectivities of contemporary writers, this seminar examines diverse urban bodies and cartographies for understanding spatial and temporal relationships between the city and bodies, sexual cultures, gender roles, violence, peripheries, and metropolitan apocalyptic tensions. Conducted in Portuguese.
Mr. Vieira
Meeting Times: 3:00-5:20 pm W
POBS 2500J: EARLY MODERN COLONIAL EMPIRES
(Interested students should register for HIST 2970G)
Section 01, Registration Number 15159
This course addresses both the history and historiography of the most relevant European imperial experience in Africa, Asia and America ca. 1400-1800. It will focus on the structure and dynamics of the Iberian case(s) as well as on the profile of the so-called Second European expansion led by the Dutch, the English and a number of other European examples. Particular emphasis will be placed on the relations between these imperial bodies and other non-European Empires by focusing on cross-cultural contacts and conflicts, hybrid societies and images. Conducted in English.
Mr. Flores
Meeting Times: To be arranged
POBS 2970: PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION PREPARATION
Section 01, Registration Number: 11553
For graduate students who have met the tuition requirement and are paying the Registration Fee to continue active enrollment while preparing for a preliminary examination. No course credit.
Mr. Vieira.
POBS 2980: READING AND GUIDED STUDY
See Reading and Guided Study for course description. Section numbers vary by instructor. Please see the registration staff for the correct section number to use when registering for this course.
POBS 2990: THESIS PREPARATION
Section 01, Registration Number: 11660
For graduate students who have met the tuition requirement and are paying the Registration Fee to continue active enrollment while preparing a thesis. No course credit.
Instructor TBA