Academics

Courses at the University of Sevilla

All students on the Sevilla program will take the following four courses:

Spanish Language Courses

1) Spanish as a Foreign Language

All students will take one basic Spanish language course. Low and High Intermediate courses will be offered, and students will be placed according to language ability.

2) Commercial Culture of Spain

This course will offer an overview of key aspects of commercial culture in Spain and the Hispanic world.

English Language Courses

3) Socio-Political Differences between the United States and Europe

Though in some senses they share a common heritage, Americans and Europeans tend to see things differently. They differ greatly in their fundamental worldview and, consequently, in their outlook on several social and political issues - religion and politics, capital punishment, the right to bear arms, the war in Iraq, and the Middle East, to name a few. In this course, students will examine how historical events and developments have shaped the values and the character of the U.S. and Europe in order to better understand why these differences exist. At times, due to the diversity among European states on certain policies, students will examine individual countries for purposes of comparison. Spanish views and policies will always be a point of reference.

The GVPT department has pre-approved this course for GVPT 309 credit. Students should, therefore, be able to use this course as an upper level elective.

4) Back to Democracy: The Representation of Spain during the Franco Years

The aim of this course is to make students familiar with developments in Spain from the onset of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) through the re-establishment of a democratic regime with a new Constitution in 1978. Students will examine the main ideological aspects of the Franco dictatorship and, in contrast, the successive changes which took place in Spanish society. In spite of the political constraints, these changes found their way into literature and cinema, which thus became a way of representing the aspirations of a new society and a criticism of the old regime. Students will be required to write a midterm research paper on a specific aspect of Spanish culture during this period. They will also produce a final critical paper on one of the tests or films from the reading/viewing list.

The CMLT department has pre-approved this course for CMLT 270 credit. Students should, therefore, be able to use this course as an HL CORE.

Transfer Credit

At the end of the semester, all grades earned in Spain will appear as transfer credit on each student's University of Maryland transcript.

Although many courses have been pre-approved by individual departments, all accepted students must discuss their course selections with their academic advisors in order to determine how courses taken in Spain will count towards graduation requirements.