Portuguese and Brazil-related courses for the Spring Semester, 2008

    * Portuguese Language Courses
    * Core Curriculum
    * Government
    * History
    * Music
    * Social Studies

PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE COURSES

Portuguese A. Beginning Portuguese

Portuguese Ad. Beginning Portuguese for Spanish Speakers
Clémence Jouët-Pastré and staff
Half course (spring term). M., W., F., at 12 or 1.
A continuation of Portuguese Ac. By the end of the second term, students should be able to communicate easily with native speakers and be acquainted with basic elements of Luso-Brazilian culture.
Note: Conducted in Portuguese. May not be taken Pass/Fail but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Not open to auditors. Section on-line on the Portuguese Ad website.
Prerequisite: Portuguese Ac.

Portuguese Ba. Introduction to Portuguese
Clémence Jouët-Pastré and staff
Half course (spring term). Section I: M., W., 3-5; Section II: Tu., Th., 3-5.
A basic introductory course for students who can devote only one term to the study of Portuguese. Teaches fundamental communication skills-understanding, speaking, reading and writing-but does not offer a complete study of grammar.
Note: Conducted in Portuguese. May not be taken Pass/Fail, but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Not open to auditors. Section on-line on the Portuguese Ba website.

Portuguese Cb. Intermediate Portuguese II
Clémence Jouët-Pastré and staff
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., 11:30-1.
Aims to further develop the four communicative skills while expanding studentsï¿½ background knowledge of the history and cultures of the Portuguese-speaking world. Portuguese Cb covers the important grammar points not studied in Portuguese Ca.
Note: Conducted in Portuguese. May not be taken Pass/Fail. Section on-line on the Portuguese Cb website.
Prerequisite: Portuguese Ca or permission of course head.

Portuguese 44. Images of Brazil: Contemporary Brazilian Cinema
Clémence Jouët-Pastré
Half course (spring term). M., W., 2:30-4.
Examines major Brazilian films in their historical, political, and social context. Class discussion also focuses on documentaries, reviews, and critical articles. In-depth textual and grammatical analysis, vocabulary building, reflections on the similarities and differences of the oral and written Portuguese will lead students to achieve a high level of competency.
Note: Conducted in Portuguese. May not be taken Pass/Fail, but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Section on-line on the Portuguese 44 website.
Prerequisite: Portuguese Ca/Cb or permission of course head.

Portuguese 60. Portuguese and the Community
Clémence Jouët-Pastré and staff.
Half course (spring term). W., Th., 3-4:30 plus four hours of service per week.
An advanced language course examining the Luso-African-Brazilian experience in the US. Promotes community engagement as a vehicle for greater linguistic fluency and cultural understanding. Students will be placed with Boston-area community organizations and agencies. Class work focuses on readings and films by and about Luis-African-Brazilians and specific uses of Portuguese language from these communities. Authors include D. Macedo, Braga Martes, Margolis, Sales, Albues, and Villas Boas.
Note: Section on-line on the Portuguese 60 website.
Prerequisite: Portuguese 37, 38 or a score of 100 on the Harvard Placement Test.

Portuguese 91r. Supervised Reading and Research
Clémence Jouët-Pastré and members of the Department and Tutorial Board
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Advanced reading in topics not covered in regular courses.
Note: Limited to juniors and seniors.

Portuguese 97. Tutorial - Sophomore Year
Clémence Jouët-Pastré and members of the Department and Tutorial Board
Half course (spring term). W., 1-3.
Successful completion of one term of Portuguese 97 is required of all concentrators in their sophomore year.

Portuguese 98. Tutorial - Junior Year
Clémence Jouët-Pastré and members of the Department and Tutorial Board
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Successful completion of one term of Portuguese 98r is required of all honors concentrators. To enroll see course head.

Portuguese 99. Tutorial - Senior Year
Clémence Jouët-Pastré and members of the Department and Tutorial Board Full course.
Hours to be arranged.
For honors seniors writing a thesis. Successful completion of one term of Portuguese 99 is required of all honors concentrators. To enroll, see course head.

Portuguese 155. Performing Arts, Literature and Culture in Modern Brazil
Catalog Number: 3301
Nicolau Sevcenko (Universidade de Sao Paulo)
Half course (spring term). Tu., 1-3. EXAM GROUP: 15, 16
One of the main features of Brazilian culture is the way by which all forms of artistic creation tend to converge and coalesce into organic units, more often than not centered on music and dance. This course will try to explore and understand the driving forces behind this multi-artistic instinct.
Note: Conducted in Portuguese.

Portuguese 227. Fernando Pessoa
Catalog Number: 7375
Joaquim-Francisco Coelho
Half course (spring term). M., 2-4. EXAM GROUP: 7, 8
Study of the works of Portugal's most distinguished literary figure of the 20th century as poet, critic, and prose writer, as well as his relation to the corpus of Portuguese literature.
Note: Conducted in Portuguese and English.

Portuguese 266: Urban Explosion: City and Culture in Rio and Sao Paulo
Catalog Number: 8916
Nicolau Sevcenko (Universidade de Sao Paulo)
Half course (spring term). Th., 5-7 p.m.. EXAM GROUP: 18
Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, energetic centers of cultural creativity in modern Brazil, also experienced exponential urban growth, laying groundwork for extreme social tension, political unrest and widespread violence. Can culture play a role to curb urban malaise?
Note: Conducted in Portuguese.

COURSES BY AREA OF STUDIES

Core Curriculum:

Foreign Cultures 74. Cultures of Southern Europe
Catalog Number: 0603
Michael Herzfeld
Half course (spring term). M., W., (F.), at 12, and a weekly section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 5
This is a survey of the modern cultures of Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, and Spain. Southern Europe has been viewed as both the fount of "Western civilization" and as a poor and crime-ridden backwater; it has been home to imperial powers and humiliated client-states alike. Through the reading of anthropological field studies (urban and rural), literary and historical portrayals, and artistic representations (including film and opera), this course focuses on what such contradictions mean for people in those countries at the level of everyday life, and provides an account of differences as well as similarities among the countries discussed.

Government:

Government 1295. Comparative Politics in Latin America
Catalog Number: 4241
Steven R. Levitsky
Half course (spring term). M., W., 2-3:30 and a section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 7, 8
Examines dynamics of political and economic change in modern Latin America, focusing on Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, and Venezuela. Topics include the rise of populism and import-substituting industrialization, revolutions and revolutionary movements, the causes and consequences of military rule, the politics of economic reform, democratic transitions, and democratic consolidation. The course analyzes these phenomena from a variety of different theoretical perspectives, including cultural, dependency, institutionalist, and leadership-centered approaches.

History

History 1759. The History of Latin America, 1914-2007
Catalog Number: 7328
John Womack, Jr.
Half course (spring term). M., W., (F.), at 12. EXAM GROUP: 5
A survey of Latin American societies and politics, from World War I to the present, with emphasis on the conjunction of global and internal changes to explain economic developments and struggles for power, justice, progress, and security.

Music:

Music 194r : Special Topics: Proseminar
Harvard College/GSAS: 2846
Spring 2008
Professor Jason Stanyek
Meeting time (spring): F., 1-3

This interdisciplinary course will offer a series of interlocking perspectives on the performative politics of Brazilian music and dance. Using critical readings on Brazilian social, political and cultural history we will engage with some of the key concepts and topics that concern scholars working in the humanities and social sciences: race, cultural politics, citizenship, violence, tourism, embodiment, gender, sexuality, place, globalization, translation, political economy, power, voice, diaspora, memory, and improvisation. At the center of the course is a heightened attentiveness to the overlapping relationships between sound and movement, the aural and the kinesthetic, music and dance. One of our principal aims will be to consider how various forms of identity (racial, gender, class, religious) are constructed and negotiated within disparate contexts of music and dance performance (in religious ceremonies, at informal gatherings, in the mass media, in carnival, on stages and in concert halls, in recording studios, within cultural institutions, etc.). We will also examine how the contours of racial (and gender and class) politics in Brazilian society shifted over the course of the twentieth century and how Brazilian social history has made a rather complex braid with broader international and transnational geographies. Course conducted in English.

Social Studies:

Social Studies 98cv. Authoritarianism and Democracy in Latin America
Catalog Number: 5595 Enrollment: Limited to 10.
Steven R. Levitsky
Half course (spring term). Tu., 2-4.
Examines regimes and regime change in Latin America, particularly Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela. Compares modernization, Marxist, cultural, choice-centered, and institutionalist approaches to explaining the military coups of the 1960s/1970s and democratic transitions of the 1980s/1990s.
Note: This course will be lotteried.

-- 
Marcio Siwi
Fellow / Program Officer
Brazil Studies Program
Harvard University
David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies
1730 Cambridge St.
Cambridge, MA 02138
tel (617) 495-5435
http://drclas.harvard.edu/brazil