SPAN 190-000: Freshman Seminar: Spanish: Citizen & Belonging Hisp World (Fall 2012)

This course explores the many meanings of citizenship in the age of globalization and social networking, and in relation to such controversial issues as “illegal” immigration, multinational citizenship, same-sex marriage, and economic inequality.  We will also consider what citizenship means in different parts of the world and what it has meant at different historical times and places.  The course will be framed by these questions: Who belongs, who doesn't...and why? More importantly, how has the story of citizenship and belonging been told? Film screenings, visits from distinguished scholars in the field of citizenship studies will bring all the students enrolled in the course together from time to time in the course of the semester.

This particular section of the course also aims to develop and explore a comparative -- historical and cross-cultural -- context for contemporary and highly charged discussions related to citizenship in the Hispanic world. This will be our focus during the second half of the semester. More specifically, we will be looking at how citizenship, understood broadly as belonging to and participating in a civic community, has been defined in medieval Spain, colonial Spanish America, and the US borderlands from the early twentieth century to the present.