College of Arts and Science Courses in Madrid

Open to students with no previous training in Spanish and to others on assignment by placement test. 4 credits. Beginning course designed to teach the elements of Spanish grammar and language structure through a primarily oral approach. Emphasis is on building vocabulary and language patterns to encourage spontaneous language use in and out of the classroom.  

Spanish for Beginners  - Sample Syllabus (PDF)

Prerequisite: SPAN-UA 1 or the equivalent.

Intensive Spanish for Advanced Beginners is an intensive language course designed to help students with limited knowledge of Spanish strengthen their language skills and develop their cultural competency. The course covers the materials of Spanish 2 and Spanish 3 in one semester. Successful completion of this course prepares students for a fourth semester college Spanish language course. 

Intensive Spanish for Advanced Beginners - Sample Syllabus (PDF)

Prerequisite for NYU students: SPAN-UA 10 or SPAN-UA 2. Conducted in Spanish.

Completes the equivalent of a year's intermediate course in one semester. Promotes proficiency in reading and writing as well as oral performance. This course provides direct contact with and immersion in the Madrid community, supplemented by cultural activities, lectures, and excursions with professional guides and professors whose field of expertise corresponds to any given activity. 

Intensive Intermediate Spanish - Sample syllabus (PDF)

Prerequisites for NYU students: SPAN-UA 0003
Conducted in Spanish.

Intermediate Spanish Level II is a four-credit course that reviews and continues the material covered in Spanish SPAN-UA 0003. The principal goal of this course is to provide you with the opportunity to improve your oral and written communication skills in the language, by applying all the grammar rules you have learned and will be reviewing. You will be expected to substantially increase your working vocabulary and make solid progress in reading and writing skills. 

Intermediate Spanish II - Sample syllabus (PDF)

PREREQUISITES: SPAN UA 4 OR SPAN-UA 9015 OR SPAN-UA 20 (or equivalent courses) OR Qualifying Placement Test Score

Course can be taken concurrently with SPAN-UA 9004 or SPAN-UA 9050. This course counts as an advanced conversation course for Spanish minors or majors.

The course is designed for students in that would like to perfect their Spanish, as they expand their knowledge regarding literature, cinema, and social and political problems that exist today within modern Spanish society. The reading of different texts, such as newspaper articles and short stories, and various videos and films throughout the semester will serve to expand lexicon, strengthen grammar and improve students’ language oral and written skills. The students will participate actively in class discussions and be guided to conduct their own research on topics related to Spain today.

Spain Today - Sample syllabus (PDF)

Prerequisite: SPAN-UA 4 or SPAN-UA 20, assignment by placement test, or permission of the director of the Spanish language program. Conducted in Spanish.

For non-native speakers only.

Designed to expand and consolidate the student's lexical and grammatical understanding of the language and to introduce the student to the fundamental principles of expository writing as they apply to Spanish, through exercises, readings, and intensive practice of various prose techniques and styles. 

Advanced Spanish - Sample Syllabus 

Prerequisite: Prerequisite of SPAN-UA 50 Advanced Spanish (or equivalent courses) OR Qualifying Placement Test Score. For non-native Spanish speakers only.

Conducted in Spanish. 

This course aims to develop students’ written skills in a more sophisticated and academic manner in order to be able to report on their overall cultural experience in Spain. We will work with newspaper articles, podcasts, radio, and TV programs from Spanish media to cover current social, political and cultural issues. The coverage of political and cultural developments in Spain in American media will also be examined to complement our newsgathering and research.

Students will publish a blog that includes their different journalistic articles and their summaries about the different class and program activities. Therefore, our aim will be to acquire a broad understanding of Spanish modern society while developing new linguistic skills in Spanish. 

Blogging Spain - Sample syllabus (PDF)

Prerequisites: SPAN-UA 50 Advanced Spanish OR SPAN-UA 51   Advanced Spanish for Spanish-Speaking Students (or equivalent courses) OR Qualifying Placement Test Score   

Course can be taken concurrently with SPAN-UA 9050 or SPAN-UA 9051 (if offered).

Conducted in Spanish.

A survey of Hispanic cinema from the early beginnings of the silent movie to the present day. The works of important film directors from Spain and Latin America, like Buñuel, Gutiérrez Alea, María Novarro, and Almodóvar, are studied, as well as the phenomenon of cinema as a reflection of the political, social, and cultural development of the country and its people. A selection of the most representative films is shown in class and in theatres of arte y ensayo, such as the well-known filmoteca of Madrid. 

Spanish Culture Through Cinema - Sample syllabus (PDF)

Prerequisite of SPAN-UA 50: Advanced Spanish or SPAN-UA 51: Advanced Spanish for Spanish Speakers (or equivalent courses) or qualifying placement test score 

Course can be taken concurrently with SPAN-UA 9050 or SPAN-UA 9051 (if offered).

The course analyzes Spanish literature and culture and, specifically, the crisis as a literary, historical, ideological, artistic structure. In this way, key problems of art and modern thought will be debated, such as the crisis of the subject and language, the relationship between writer and society, urban experience, the rewriting of collective history, critical fiction from women’s perspectives, metafiction as an analytical resource, the political and economic crisis, and the most recent crisis, the pandemic and the artistic effect produced during confinement.

Culture and Crisis in Contemporary Spanish Literature- Sample Syllabus

Conducted in English. A gallery course focusing on the Baroque schools of Rubens and Rembrandt, "tenebrist" painting, Velázquez, and the etchings and paintings of Goya. Ends with a survey of the painters of the 18th and 19th centuries. 

Masterpieces in the Prado Museum - Sample syllabus (PDF)

Expressive Culture is intended to introduce you to the study and appreciation of human artistic creation and to foster your ongoing engagement with the arts. Through critical engagement with primary cultural artifacts, it introduces you to formal methods of interpretation and to understanding the importance of expressive creation in particular and historical contexts.

This course analyzes the films of the two most well-known Spanish filmmakers, Luis Buñuel and Pedro Almodóvar, from the standpoint of grotesque expression. There are serious differences between the two directors. Buñuel is the most representative filmmaker of Spanish modernity, while Almodóvar is the clearest representative of postmodernism. They were born in very different times: Buñuel in 1900 and Almodóvar fifty years later. Despite these differences, there are things they share that allow us to investigate very different moments in the cultural history of Spain with a specific focus: both were born and received their first sentimental education in rural areas, under strong religious influence (and religious repression), and in their works we can see a strong use of the grotesque expression. Both repression and grotesque expression will be related in our analysis of the films, since grotesquery is a way of degrading and decentralizing what is considered the center of social authority. Almodóvar and Buñuel react in their grotesquery to the dominant Catholic culture of their times, both rejecting and admiring this culture at the same time. The presence of that religion is something that the students will be able to see constantly in the field trips and visits to Museums.

Expressive Culture: Film - Sample Syllabus

Conducted in English.

This course will examine the intellectual history, social roots and historical evolution of fascist political movements in Europe. The course is comparative in method and scope concentrating on the common characteristics of all fascist regimes. Historically, the course will focus on the paradigmatic cases of the interwar period--Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany--as well as on the more unorthodox case of Francoist Spain. 

Comparative Fascism - Sample syllabus (PDF)

A study of Spain and its integration into the European Common Market. The historical background examines Europe in the aftermath of World War II, Spain under Franco's dictatorship and its relationship to other European countries, as well as the events leading up to the actual foundation of the European Economic Community (EEC). Emphasis is on the negotiations leading to Spain's incorporation into the EEC, and a detailed analysis is given of the present-day European Common Market and its goals for the future.

Spain and the European Union: Political and Economic Issues - Sample Syllabus

Previously numbered POL-UA 9994 or SOC-UA 9970

This course is a study of comparative human rights between European countries, including Spain, and the United States of America. International human rights legislation imposes the same obligations on all signatory countries. Despite this, however, interpretation and application of these rights vary considerably between countries. Students will explore a set of controversial issues in order to understand the complex differences between the United States and European countries’ interpretation of human rights obligations, and will also look at how these differences are portrayed in society by comparing international and national media coverage of the issues.

Comparative U.S. and European Human Rights - Sample Syllabus