HISPANIC STUDIES
COURSE DESCRIPTIONS - YEAR 1
SN1100 Spanish through Texts
Course description: This course is designed to help those on the beginners’ pathway to
boost their reading skills in Spanish in order to be able to appreciate reading Hispanic texts
in their original Spanish as soon as possible. It is also recommended – and sometimes
prescribed – for students whose Spanish language skills are too strong to be placed on the
beginners’ pathway, but who are relatively weak for the post-A level pathway. The course
will take students quite slowly through a range of Spanish texts, with a clear focus on
understanding the language and developing strategies to cope with problems in this regard.
Key bibliography: Students will be expected to purchase their own copy of the following
written text:
• Federico García Lorca, Yerma. Edited with introduction, critical analysis, notes and
vocabulary by Robin Warner. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994.
Other set texts will be made available in digital form.
There will be one cinematic text, which will be selected from the range already available in
the library. Students will not be expected to own their own copy of this.
SN1108 Authors and Readers in 20th-Century Spanish American Fiction
Course description: This course provides an introduction to the study of literary texts
through the discussion of fiction by Julio Cortázar, Jorge Luis Borges, Mario Vargas Llosa
and Gabriel García Márquez. In particular, the course explores the notions of the author, the
reader, the narrator and the relations between reality and fiction suggested in a range of
short stories and novels.
Key bibliography: CLS students with no reading knowledge of Spanish may use English
translations. Students of ab-initio Spanish are permitted to read texts in English in the first
term, but in the second term they must read and quote in Spanish. All other students are
expected to read and quote from the Spanish texts for the entirety of the course.
Students are expected to purchase their own copy of the set texts (the following are the
recommended editions, but any edition is acceptable):
A. For students reading Spanish:
 Jorge Luis Borges. Ficciones. Edited with introduction, notes, bibliography &
vocabulary by Gordon Brotherston & Peter Hulme. London: Bristol Classical Press,
1999 (short stories in Spanish, notes and vocabulary in English).
 Julio Cortázar. Siete cuentos. Edited with introduction, notes and vocabulary by Peter
Beardsell. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999 (short stories in Spanish,
introduction and notes in English).


Gabriel García Márquez. Crónica de una muerte anunciada. Barcelona: De Bolsillo
(Random House Mondadori), 2010.
Mario Vargas Llosa, La tía Julia y el escribidor. Madrid: Punto de lectura, 2006.
B. For students using English translations:
 Jorge Luis Borges. Labyrinths. Selected stories and other writings. Ed. Donald A.
Yates and James E. Irby, preface by André Maurois. London: Penguin, 2000.
 Julio Cortázar. Blow Up and Other Stories. Translated by Paul Blackburn. New York:
Pantheon Books, 2004.
 Gabriel García Márquez. Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Translated by Gregory
Rabassa. London: Penguin, 1982.
 Mario Vargas Llosa. Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. Translated by Helen R. Lane.
London: Faber and Faber, 1998.