PORT 2050 Intensive Portuguese with Lilian Feitosa

MoWeFr 12:00pm-12:50pm

Portuguese 2050 is an accelerated Portuguese language and culture course that condenses two semesters (PORT 1110 and PORT 2120) into one. PORT 2050 is designed specifically for UVA undergraduate and graduate students who already possess an advanced level of fluency in one of the Romance languages. The pedagogical approach to PORT 2050 is both proficiency-oriented and task-based and the class will be conducted completely in Portuguese.

PORT 2120 Intermediate Intensive Portuguese with Lilian Feitsoa

MoWeFr 11:00am - 11:50pm

PORT 3030 Perspectives on Lusophone Cultures​ with Lilian Feitosa

MoWe 2:00pm - 3:15pm

Through textual analysis, discussions, and language immersion activities, including podcasts, videos, preparing food, students will continue to gain proficiency in Portuguese, while deepening their appreciation for the rich mosaic of Lusophone cultures. This course will foster critical thinking skills, cultural awareness, and linguistic competence, equipping students with the tools to engage meaningfully with the complexities of the Lusophone world. 

POTR 4240 Contemporary Brazilian Cinema with Eli Carter

TR 02:00pm-3:15pm

This seminar examines contemporary Brazilian cinema from 2002 to the present, with an emphasis on the diversity of styles, regions, and themes that animate Brazil’s film culture in the 21st century. We will explore how filmmakers represent such themes as violence, inequality, family, memory, identity, and belonging. Each film will be paired with readings that provide historical, cultural, and theoretical context. Students will engage in close analysis of both fiction and documentary works, situating them within Brazil’s broader sociopolitical landscape and global cinematic currents

KICH 1020 Introduction to K'iche' II with Esther Poveda Moreno

TuTh 04:00PM-05:15PM

This class is an introduction to the Nahualá dialect of K’iche’, a Maya language spoken in the western Highlands of Guatemala.  With about one million speakers, K’iche’ is one of the major indigenous languages in the Americas. This class aims to make the students competent in basic conversation and to introduce students to Highland Maya culture of Guatemala.

Virtual classroom:  The class is taught at Vanderbilt, but a new partnership with Duke, Vanderbilt, and UVa(link is external) allows students at consortium schools to study three important, less commonly taught languages: Haitian Creole, Maya K’iche’, and Tibetan. This is a virtual classroom, and it will be taught through the zoom platform.

KICH 2020 Intermediate K'iche' II with Esther Poveda Moreno

TuTh 02:00PM-03:15PM

Class description: This class combines formal language instructions with the discussion of topics relevant to the K’iche’ culture and language in Guatemala. The goal and focus of this semester are on advanced grammar, learning to adapt speech to various environments and speech genres, examining oral histories and an introduction to a variety of written K’iche’ texts with a focus on contemporary texts. The class will incorporate exercises strengthening listening-comprehension, reading, and composition.

To achieve this goal students are expected to study and work on their own

Virtual classroom: The class is taught at Vanderbilt, but a new partnership with Duke, Vanderbilt, and UVa(link is external) allows students at consortium schools to study three important, less commonly taught languages: Haitian Creole, Maya K’iche’, and Tibetan. This is a virtual classroom, and it will be taught through the zoom platform.

K'iche' at UVA and Vanderbilt (https://iwl.virginia.edu/language/kiche)

ITAL 1020 Elementary Italian II with Francesco Fiumara & Stella Mattioli

MoWeFr 11:00am-11:50am; 12:00pm-12:50pm

TuTh 9:30am - 10:45am; 11:00am - 12:15pm 

Elementary Italian II is the second class in the four-course sequence that is necessary to complete the world language requirement. In this course, students will learn to narrate in all tenses of the indicative, express opinions, make hypotheses, and give orders. They will improve their writing skills by producing a number of original texts, including blog posts, poems, comics, and short articles. Students will also develop their ability to understand spoken Italian by listening to songs, commercials, and movie clips, and they will read and study lyrics, newspaper headlines, poems, and some short stories. Students of Elementary Italian II will also have many occasions to learn more about life in contemporary Italy including the nation’s media, literature, and politics as they study the country’s language.

Taught in Italian.

ITAL 2020 Intermediate Italian II with Sarah Annunziato & Francesco Fiumara

TuTh 02:00pm-03:15pm; 3:30pm - 4:45pm

ITAL 2020 Intermediate Italian II is the fourth class in the four-course sequence which fulfills the language requirement. In this course, students will further develop their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills as well as deepen their cultural literacy in Italian. You will accomplish these goals with the guidance of your instructor, through review of grammar, short readings, compositions, and listening and speaking activities. Students will have the opportunity to listen to songs, comment on works of art, watch commercials, short films, and television series, as well as read and write newspaper articles. You will also analyze how the Italian language reflects the movement towards gender parity and meet natives of Italy in your quest to become more confident and competent users of the Italian language.

Taught in Italian.

ITAL 2030 Italian for Public Relations, Television, and Social Media with Stella Mattioli

MoWeFr 10:00am - 10:50pm

This intermediate-level course develops students’ Italian language skills through the lens of modern communication, media, and professional contexts. Students expand their vocabulary and refine their speaking, listening, reading, and writing abilities while exploring how Italian is used in public relations, television, journalism, and social media.

Through interactive activities—such as creating and analyzing social media posts, simulating TV interviews, writing press releases, and discussing current media trends—students gain practical language skills relevant to today’s media landscape. Cultural topics related to Italian media and communication styles are integrated throughout the course.

By the end of the semester, students will be able to communicate effectively and creatively in Italian in media-related contexts, with increased confidence and cultural awareness.

ITAL 3020 A Journey Through Italy: Language, Culture, & Everyday Life with Nicole Bonino 

TuTh 02:00pm - 3:15pm

Imagine spending a semester traveling across Italy, moving from city to city and discovering the country through its people, food, music, and traditions. That is the spirit of this course. Every two weeks, we will “arrive” in a new Italian region, exploring its history, culture, and daily life while expanding our ability to speak and understand Italian with greater fluency and confidence. Along the way, you will learn colloquial expressions, cultural insights, and the vocabulary needed to feel at home in Italy.

As we travel, we will also revisit and strengthen key grammatical structures by putting them to work in meaningful, practical tasks. Throughout the semester, you will find yourself writing a restaurant review, designing a travel itinerary, interviewing a classmate about cultural traditions, creating a short promotional video, or staging an everyday conversation as it might unfold in real life.

The course emphasizes an experiential and communicative approach, where grammar is always tied to concrete situations and culture is inseparable from language. By the end of the journey, you will be able to communicate more spontaneously in a variety of contexts, navigate idiomatic and colloquial expressions with ease, and apply advanced grammar accurately in authentic interactions. Get prepared to travel to, live, study, or work in Italy! 

ITAL 3559 An Innovative Journey Through Italy with Sarah Annunziato 

TuTh 12:30pm - 1:45pm

From the Middle Ages to the present, Italy has always been synonymous with invention. In this course, students will explore Italian contributions to art, architecture, astronomy, design, medicine, and technology across the centuries. We will encounter noteworthy inventors and discuss their theories and pathbreaking work. Students will also investigate these topics through experiential activities on grounds and in Charlottesville. You can investigate authentic works of Italian art at the Fralin Museum, explore the architectural splendors of Andrea Palladio by visiting the Rotunda, and discuss Italy’s contribution to medicine by speaking with healthcare professionals from the birthplace of the Renaissance. Students will also have opportunities to grow as writers, readers, and especially speakers of the Italian language as they learn about Italian innovation across the centuries.

This course may fulfill requirements for the major and minor in Italian Studies. Taught in Italian

ITTR 3760 The Best of Youth: Italian Coming of Age Films with Sarah Annunziato 

TuTh 5:00pm - 6:15pm 

What does it mean to come of age? How has Italian cinema captured this process throughout its history? How do Italian films about this topic approach some of its more complex and controversial aspects? As the cinema has evolved both culturally and technologically, how has the genre changed?

This course will explore these questions by studying how psychologists define the stages of child and adolescent development and then examining how Italian films of different eras depict them. Students will examine how Italian cinema portrays concepts such as: nostalgia for childhood, relationships with parents and other adults, sense of self, bullying, lost innocence, coping with trauma and mental health struggles, sexual awakening, and transition to adulthood. We will also study how new technologies have affected the coming-of-age genre in Italy. Films to include: Amarcord, Cinema Paradiso, Io non ho paura, Caterina va in città, Tre metri sopra il cielo, Summertime, Corpo celeste, Il ragazzo invisibile, Zero, Call Me By Your Name, Sotto il sole di Riccione, Sulla stessa onda, and Il filo invisibile.

This course does not require the purchase of any materials. It can also fulfill the requirements for either the major or minor in Italian Studies. Taught in English.

SPAN 1020 Elementary Spanish ll with Daniel Colon

MoWeFr 8:00am-8:50am; 9:00am - 9:50am

This course, designed for students with no prior experience in Spanish, develops listening, speaking, reading and writing skills through engagement with oral and written texts in Spanish and interactive projects. Enables students to perform linguistic tasks that allow them to communicate in highly predictable everyday situations (e.g. expressing basic personal information and needs).

SPAN 1060 Accelerated Elementary Spanish with Matthew Street

MoWeFr 9:00am - 9:50am; 10:00am - 10:50am; 12:00pm - 12:50pm

This course develops listening, speaking, reading and writing skills through engagement with oral and written texts in Spanish and interactive projects. It covers the material from SPAN 1010-1020 in an accelerated one-semester format, enabling students to perform linguistic tasks that allow them to communicate in common everyday situations (e.g., greeting, narrating, describing, ordering, comparing and contrasting).

SPAN 2010 Intermediate Spanish with Daniel Colón​, Esperanza Górriz Jarque, Sara Young, Kate Neff, Filadelfia Soto, Francis Whitfill

MoWeFr 8:00am - 8:50am; 10:00am - 10:50am; 11:00am - 11:50am

TuTh 8:00am - 9:15am; 9:30am - 10:45am; 11:00am - 12:15pm; 12:30pm - 1:45pm; 2:00pm - 3:15pm; 3:30pm - 4:45pm

This course further develops listening, speaking, reading and writing skills through engagement with authentic, culturally rich oral and written texts in Spanish. Enables students to perform linguistic tasks that allow them to communicate in everyday situations (e.g., narrating present and past activities and expressing desires and requests), and to express personal meaning by creating with the language.

SPAN 2020 Advanced Intermediate Spanish with Jennifer Barlow, Germain Badang, David Florez-Murillo, Tammy Hertel, Jennifer Hogg, Jesús Játiva, Ana Piriz

MoWeFr 8:00am - 8:50am; 9:00am - 9:50am; 10:00am - 10:50am; 11:00am - 11:50am; 12:00pm - 12:50pm; 1:00pm - 1:50pm; 2:00pm - 2:50pm; 3:00pm - 3:50pm

TuTh 9:30-10:45am; 11:00am - 12:15pm; 2:00pm - 3:15pm; 3:30pm - 4:45pm; 5:00pm - 6:15pm; 6:30pm - 7:45pm

This course further develops listening, speaking, reading and writing skills through engagement with authentic, culturally rich oral and written texts in Spanish. Enables students to perform linguistic tasks that allow them to communicate in everyday situations with some complications (e.g., describing present, past and future activities, expressing opinions, and persuading), and to express personal meaning by creating with the language. Completion of this course fulfills the College of Arts and Sciences World Language Requirement.

SPAN 3000 The Sounds of Spanish with Joel Rini

TuTh 3:30pm - 4:45pm

SPAN 3010 Finding Your Voice in Spanish with Eliud Segura Encarnacion, Tammy Hertel, Esther Poveda Moreno, Ciara Raczyk

MoWeFr 9:00am - 9:50am; 10:00am - 10:50am; 11:00am - 11:50am; 12:00pm - 12:50pm; 1:00pm - 1:50pm; 2:00pm - 2:50pm

TuTh 8:00am - 9:30am

Imagine the incredible sense of achievement and empowerment you’ll feel when you confidently express yourself in another language! In SPAN 3010, you will explore your evolving proficiency in Spanish by engaging with and creating three cultural texts: a brief memoir, a news story, and a film review. Through examining selected examples of these text types in Spanish, you will grasp the rationale behind specific writing techniques, stylistic choices, and linguistic structures within each genre and their impact on the construction of meaning. You will ultimately acquire a personalized toolkit of linguistic and stylistic devices for crafting your texts. This course treats reading, listening, speaking, and writing not merely as isolated linguistic skills but as interconnected methods for building effective communication. As a participant in this course, you will establish personal learning objectives, enhance your conversational skills in Spanish, assemble a portfolio of your written work, and engage actively with our writing community through discussions, peer evaluations, recitals, and various interactive activities.

SPAN 3015 Spanish for Heritage Learners with Maria Esparza Rodriguez

TuTh 12:30pm - 1:45pm

SPAN 3020 Elevate Your Spanish with Robert Sanchis

MoWeFr 11:00am - 11:50am

SPAN 3020 seeks to develop advanced literacy in Spanish through extensive analysis and discussion of journalistic and literary texts, and documentaries and films from the Spanish-speaking world. We will focus especially on analyzing and learning advanced and late-acquisition grammatical structures and on how grammar and meaning interact to construct the language and textual structures expected in the following types of essays: and op-ed, a literary review, and an academic essay.    

SPAN 3030 Cultural Conversations with Nicole Bonino

TuTh 9:30am - 10:45am 

Ready to take your Spanish-speaking skills to the next level? This interactive course is designed to help you develop fluency through dynamic discussions, creative projects, and real-world engagement. Explore the cultures of Spain, Latin America, and the Caribbean through film, art, and performance. Enhance your speaking skills through interactions with guest speakers and generative AI platforms. To express yourself confidently in Spanish while immersing yourself in the richness of the Spanish-speaking world, you will engage in both individual and collaborative projects aimed at refining your spoken and written Spanish, preparing you for academic and professional settings.

SPAN 3040 Business Spanish with Maria Esparza Rodriguez

TuTh 9:30am -10:45am 11:00am - 12:15pm

This is an intermediate level course in which students read, research, discuss, debate and write in Spanish about recent themes that are relevant to commercial and economic contexts in the Spanish-speaking world. It is a language class that focusses on Spanish in professional settings; no previous academic or practical experience in commerce is required.

SPAN 3050 Spanish for Medical Professionals with Alicia López Operé 

TuTh 11:00am - 12:15pm; 12:30pm - 1:45pm

Spanish for Medical Professions, is a recommended course for students that want to have a career in the health professions, and also for those who need to interact with Spanish-speaking people in hospitals, clinics and similar spaces. The course has been designed to develop linguistic competency as well as cultural competency in the health context. The emphasis is put on the real use of the language and the understanding of cultural differences among Spanish-speaking countries and the United States, and Latino patients in the United States. The course has a background theme on contemplative practices. 

SPAN 3070 Community Engagement with Esther Poveda Moreno 

MoWeFr 1:00pm - 1:50pm 

Sí se puede: Community Engagements in Spanish-Speaking Charlottesville is an advanced conversation course with a community-based language element component. In this specific iteration of SPAN 3070, we will focus on the role of education as a tool for social change in the Spanish speaking world. As part of the course requirements, students will volunteer as bilingual tutors and mentors with the Center for Community Partnership’s Starr Hills Pathway Program. Through community work, engagement with course materials (podcasts, documentaries, graphic novels, short stories, and testimonials), and conversations with guest speakers, we will reflect on the importance of education as the foundation to build more fair, inclusive, and equitable societies, and how this is manifested in the local and broader Spanish speaking world.

SPAN 3200 Intro Hispanic Linguistics with Lorena Albert Ferrando

TuThu 12:30pm - 1:45pm 

The course objective is to provide an introduction into the core areas of linguistic analysis using Spanish as the test case. During the semester, we will cover several areas including: the sounds of Spanish (phonetics and phonology), word formation (morphology), sentence structure (syntax), meaning of words, phrases, sentences, and larger chunks of discourse, also in social context (semantics and pragmatics), history of the Spanish language, regional and social variation (dialectology and sociolinguistics), and language acquisition.

SPAN 3300 Texts and Interpretations with Nicole Bonino, Erica Cobb, Nieves Garcia Prados, Fernando Valverde

MoWeFr 11:00am - 11:50am; 3:00pm - 4:45pm

TuTh 12:30pm - 1:45pm; 2:00pm - 3:15pm

This intermediate level course introduces the student of Spanish to the fundamentals of reading and understanding various genres, and to practice discussing, analyzing, and writing about them in an academic register in Spanish. It draws on texts and materials from both Spain and Latin America, and builds students’ specialized vocabulary. All work for the class, including reading, discussion, and writing, is done in Spanish. SPAN 3300 is a prerequisite for the survey courses. 

SPAN 3400 Spain: From Kingdom to Empire (1200-1700) with Fernando Riva

TuTh 11:00am - 12:15pm

SPAN 3410 Perspectives on Modern Spain (1800 to the Present) with Kelly Moore

TuTh 12:30pm - 1:45pm

SPAN 3420 Politics and Power in the Early Americas (1492-1800) with Fernando Operé 

MoWe 3:30pm - 4:45pm

Este es un curso dedicado al estudio de la literatura que se escribió sobre América desde la llegada de Cristóbal Colón hasta la independencia de América Latina.

Los primeros escritos fueron crónicas y diarios de aventureros, soldados, monjes, o simplemente viajeros, que hoy nos parecen literatura fantástica. Puede citarse los fascinantes relatos del encuentro de Hernán Cortes en su llegada a México (Tenochtitlan), de Francisco Pizarro a Perú (Cusco), y las aventuras o fracasos de muchos aventureros arriba y abajo del nuevo continente (Cabeza de Vaca, Hernando de Soto ente otros). Se incluyen viajes de científicos que llegaron al continente a describir su flora y su fauna (Darwin, Humboldt) y textos que dan cuenta del modo en que España diseñó el Nuevo Mundo que consistía en la fundación de ciudades cristiana, la creación nuevas fronteras, y una sociedad integrada en un calidoscopio de razas.

SPAN 3430 Contemporary Latin American Voices (1800 to the present) with Elizabeth Mirabal

TuTh 9:30am - 10:45am

This course offers a survey of Latin American literature, inviting students to engage with the sociocultural context in which it has evolved from 1800 to the present. As we delve into a variety of short stories, poems, novels, essays, diaries, letters, and autobiographies, we will uncover how the region’s diverse cultures, peoples, and significant historical events have shaped its literary landscape. You will have the chance to express your thoughts and feelings through critical and creative reflection exercises, developing essential skills, such as close reading, debate, and informed and thoughtful writing in Spanish. Upon completing the seminar, you will have a rich interpretive appreciation of Latin America’s diverse literary tradition from the nineteenth century to the present.

SPAN 4040 Translation Spanish to English​ with Erica Cobb & Nieves García Prados​  

MoWeFr 1:00pm - 1:50pm

TuTh 9:30am - 10:45am; 11:00am - 12:15pm

"Lost & Found in Translation" offers an introduction to the "art" of translation, both in practice and theory. Throughout the semester students participate in a series of workshops, collaborating on translations of texts of different genres, from multiple time periods and countries through in-depth readings and discussions, translation activities from Spanish to English and vice versa. This is a dynamic, interactive, inter-disciplinary course. Prerequisites: SPAN 3300, and highly recommended one/two survey(s) of literature and culture (SPAN 3400-3430). For Spanish majors we advise both surveys to be taken before SPAN 4040 (or simultaneously) since surveys cannot be taken during the 4th year.

SPAN 4202 Spanish Social Dimension with Omar Mendoza Velazquez 

MoWe 3:00pm - 4:45pm

SPAN 4403 Structures - SPAN with Joel Rini 

TuTh 2:00pm - 3:15pm

SPAN 4520 Special Topics Seminar: Culture & Civilization with Ricardo Padrón & Samuel Amago 

W  3:30pm - 6:00pm

TuTh 9:30am - 10:45pm

The goal of this course is to critically examine how language and systemic power relations are co-naturalized and how this linkage is constructed, manifested, and underpinned in our everyday language use and identity, as well as in our perception of other groups and speakers. We will focus on Spanish language environments (and in the US in particular) but the contents of the course are applicable to other languages and settings.

SPAN 4530 From Research to Action: Second Language Acquisition and Applied Linguistics of Spanish with Lorena Albert Ferrando 

TuTh 11:00am - 12:15pm

Have you ever wondered how you learned Spanish? Are you curious about why certain teaching methods worked for you—or didn’t? Are you interested in how research can enhance your language acquisition process? Do you want to understand the science behind language learning and teaching?  Are you considering a career in Spanish education or thinking about volunteering in the field? Whether you are planning a future in language education or simply eager to explore your own language journey, this course will guide you through key linguistic theories and approaches. Through class discussion of papers, we will investigate the processes behind the acquisition of Spanish, discover how cognitive mechanisms interact with teaching methods, and learn to apply these insights to practical settings.

SPAN 4559 Becoming a Poet in Spanish with Fernando Valverde 

TuTh 3:30 - 4:45pm 

Seven poets from different Spanish-speaking countries visit the class to talk with students about how they became famous poets. This creative writing class in Spanish is taught by one of today's most acclaimed Spanish-language poets, who was nominated for a Latin Grammy for his songwriting.

SPAN 4710 Latin American Culture & Civilization with Fernando Operé

MoWe 5:00pm - 6:15pm 

SPAN 7220 History of the Language with Omar Mendoza Velazquez

MoWe 2:00pm - 3:15pm

SPAN 7850 Themes and Genres: 

Global Spanish Cinema with Samuel Amago 

M 3:30pm - 6:00pm

Cinematic Time and Care with Kelly Moore

Th 3:30pm - 6:00pm

This course provides an overview of contemporary feminist debates about care work from the perspective of Iberian cinema. What can cinema tell us about the material conditions of possibility for the circulation of labor, about social reproduction? The concept of reproductivism offers a material and figurative analytic for thinking about the subordination of life-making to production. We will combine political theory, feminist thought, and film theory to attend to those indispensable infrastructures which reproduce labor power but also allow for the persistence of collectives through time. What do filmic texts tell us about the relationship between cinematic time and the time of reproduction, between labor and gender, between politics and mothering, between coercion and care? This course will be taught in English. It counts for the WGS graduate certificate.

SPAN 7900 Portfolio Development with Charlotte Rogers 

T 3:30pm - 6:00pm