The Spanish Language Program offers the possibility of completing all MAT course requirements in three summers, depending on enrollment. The MAT in Spanish is designed for individuals already teaching Spanish, but also is open to prospective teachers at the K-12 school level. Credits from World Languages Institute courses may be applied towards state certification and/or continued professional development. Teachers are required to complete successfully at least two Spanish courses in the World Languages Institute before applying to the MAT program. Details are available at the Department of Spanish and Portuguese or its web site at http://span-port.rutgers.edu.FALL 2025
Additional Course Offerings: See Core Curriculum
LANGUAGE RACE, AND (IN)JUSTICE IN LATIN AMERICA (CR. 3)
16:940:506:01:12478
T, 3:50 - 7:00 PM; Room 403, 1 Spring St, Downtown NB
THOMAS STEPHENS
This class will confront issues of language and racial/cultural norms in greater Latin America, varying from related social justice models in North America. It will consider how language varieties are associated with discrimination and attempt to answer specific instances in which language upholds discrimination and injustice. Topics will include fairness in multilingual settings, racial epithets in civil society, gendered pronouns, discourses regarding migrants/migrations/immigration, patterns of communication that create more just societies, historical views of (non-)feminist speech/sexist, unconsciously misogynist and paternal language patterns, accounts of BLM-related and indigenous movements in Spanish America and Brazil, the power of symbols, and the long struggle for recognition and rights in Haiti. There will be invited guest speakers. Projects will revolve around real speech and its connection to a civil and just world. Taught in Spanish.
Course objectives
This course aims to teach students about:
- Discourse of a daily variety used as a form of prejudice and discrimination
- Euphemisms and dysphemisms
- Social class, racial group, and poverty
- Protest signs and racial/social injustices (e.g., BLM, Mujeres de la Plaza de Mayo, Marielle Franco, Mapuches and other indigenous groups in Chile)
- Gendering and pronoun replacement
- Similarities between various American cultures and acts of social (in)justice
- Politicizing of bilingual education
- Feminist speech and political correctness
- Language of political repression and social movements
- Language maintenance and linguistic freedoms
