Spanish and Contemporary Chinese Studies BA

Welcome to Spanish at the University of Nottingham — this is where your journey to Spanish fluency begins!

Designed for students who have little or no prior experience of the language, this module will support you as you develop all the key areas of language acquisition: reading, writing, listening and speaking. To keep the classes interesting and relevant we'll use a wide range of source material from newspapers, audio-visual content and websites.

Through this, not only will your speaking and comprehension skills improve, but also your grammar usage and ability to understand the language in different contexts. By the end of this module, you'll be able to read basic texts, follow everyday conversations and engage in social conversation.

You'll also become more culturally aware of the countries that make up the Spanish-speaking world and get a better understanding of their varying current affairs and cultures.

This module is designed as a foundation for all later modules covering Spanish and Portuguese literatures. The main aims of this module are to give you a general introduction to literature and the study of literature, while providing you with a partial overview of literary writing in the Spanish language. As well as to introduce some of the key theoretical issues of literary study and instil good reading and critical habits. Through this you will be tested on your skills in close reading, textual analysis, seminar participation and the ability to write cogent and convincing commentaries and essays. This module is worth 20 credits.

Welcome to Spanish at the University of Nottingham — this is where your journey to Spanish fluency shall really begin to take off!

Designed for students who have completed an A level in the language, this module will support you to improve in all the key areas of language acquisition: reading, writing, listening and speaking. To keep the classes interesting and relevant we'll use a wide range of source material from newspapers, audio-visual content and websites.

Through this, not only will your speaking and comprehension skills improve, but also your grammar usage and ability to understand the language in different contexts.

You'll also become more culturally aware of the countries that make up the Spanish-speaking world and get a better understanding of their varying current affairs and cultures.

This module is designed as a foundation for all later modules covering Spanish and Portuguese literatures. The main aims of this module are to give you a general introduction to literature and the study of literature, while providing you with a partial overview of literary writing in the Spanish language. As well as to introduce some of the key theoretical issues of literary study and instil good reading and critical habits. Through this you will be tested on your skills in close reading, textual analysis, seminar participation and the ability to write cogent and convincing commentaries and essays. This module is worth 20 credits.

Through a combination of lectures, guided reading and research you'll explore the main patterns of Latin American political, economic and social history, between independence in the 1820s and the end of the twentieth century.

We'll focus on specific concepts, terminology, events and people, so as to develop an understanding of different perspectives and interpretations of the history in question. We'll also encourage you to appreciate the interaction between the ‘political history’ of major events and protagonists in official positions of power, and the ‘social history' of populations who both contributed to, and were affected by, political change.

You will learn to develop a critical approach to the study of history through a variety of materials; gain an ability to distinguish between the particular and the general and to develop the tools for comparative analysis.

This module is designed as a foundation for all later modules covering Spanish and Portuguese literatures. The main aims of this module are to give you a general introduction to literature and the study of literature, while providing you with a partial overview of literary writing in the Spanish language. As well as to introduce some of the key theoretical issues of literary study and instil good reading and critical habits. Through this you will be tested on your skills in close reading, textual analysis, seminar participation and the ability to write cogent and convincing commentaries and essays. This module is worth 20 credits.

Through a combination of lectures, guided reading and research you'll explore the main patterns of Latin American political, economic and social history, between independence in the 1820s and the end of the twentieth century.

We'll focus on specific concepts, terminology, events and people, so as to develop an understanding of different perspectives and interpretations of the history in question. We'll also encourage you to appreciate the interaction between the ‘political history’ of major events and protagonists in official positions of power, and the ‘social history' of populations who both contributed to, and were affected by, political change.

You will learn to develop a critical approach to the study of history through a variety of materials; gain an ability to distinguish between the particular and the general and to develop the tools for comparative analysis.

This is the start of an exciting journey where we'll take you through the basics of learning Mandarin.

Designed for beginners, this module will cover Chinese phonetics, grammar and vocabulary helping you to start feeling confident in understanding and communicating in your new language.

We make our sessions as practical and communicative as possible by using a core textbook, supplemented by a wide variety of Chinese learning resources including online news articles, graded storybooks and online video/audio files.

Besides language skills, we recognise the importance of employability skills, such as creativity, teamwork, critical thinking and problem-solving . We'll also integrate drama activities including story or script writing, performing and dubbing to not only help you gain new skills but build confidence in your new language.

You will also begin to learn about Chinese culture and society helping you to put your new language understanding into context.

Now that you have gained in confidence and ability, we're going to take your Mandarin skills to the next level!

We'll use interesting examples from online resources to further develop your Chinese comprehension (written and aural) and expression (written and oral).

You'll also learn about Chinese culture and society, preparing you for the exciting time you'll spend in China during year three.

Now that you have gained solid Mandarin language skills, we'll push you to develop them to a more sophisticated level. Not only will you continue to improve your understanding of the language but also the cultures of the Mandarin-speaking world.

With your increased proficiency you'll be able to examine more complex texts covering themes such as leisure activities and lifestyles, personalities, love and relationships, economic developments, language learning, and social customs.

You will be asked to reflect and compare your own culture and the target culture via group discussions and debates to enhance both, your cultural awareness and intercultural competence.

In this module we will look at the social and cultural changes that have taken place in China, since 1979. The module will begin by setting out the programme of economic reform, introduced by Deng Xiaoping in order to integrate the Chinese economy into global flows of goods, services and investments. For example, we will outline the measures introduced to increase foreign direct investment in the country and map the different global companies that have set up business in China since the Reform.  

We will then look at the complex set of social and cultural changes that have taken place in China as a consequence. In this respect we will look at issues such as internal migration from the countryside to the city and international migration from China to the rest of the world. We will address the profound impacts on education, health and social care policy.

We will also look at the rise of the consumer society in China. The focus here will be on issues to do with travel and tourism, leisure time and holidays, the national diet and the rise of the internet, social media, online shopping and electronic payment systems using apps such as ‘wechat’.   

Topics covered may be taken from:

• Chinese Open-door policy and reform ( economy reform and its impact)
• The economic impacts of the Reform with the emphasis on foreign direct investment
• Internal migration
• International migratory flows
• Education, health and social care policy
• The rise of consumer society
• Travel and tourism industry
• Retail sector in China
• Online shopping and electronic payment systems
• Dietary change 

This module will build on the language and cultural skills developed in year one and get you started on your exciting journey towards degree-level Spanish. Over the year, we're going to take you to the next level so by the end of the module you'll be ready to spend time living in a Spanish-speaking country.

We'll further develop your grammar and communication skills, building your confidence so that you feel happy working or studying abroad during year 3. We know the thought of essay writing in another language may feel daunting, but we will help you develop these skills to competence.

To prepare you for participating in conversation with fluency we'll pay special attention to developing your ability to use complex sentence structures and rhetoric. You'll get plenty of practice during laboratory classes where you'll have access to a wide range of contemporary audio-visual materials.

This module will build on the language and cultural skills developed in last year's beginners' classes and will get you started on your exciting journey towards degree-level Spanish. Over the year, we're going to take you to the next level so by the end of the module you'll be ready to spend time living in a Spanish-speaking country.

We'll further develop your grammar and communication skills, building your confidence so that you feel happy working or studying abroad during year three. We know the thought of essay writing in another language may feel daunting, but we will help you develop these skills to competence.

To prepare you for participating in conversation with fluency we'll pay special attention to developing your ability to use complex sentence structures and rhetoric. You'll get plenty of speaking and writing practice during classes, collaborative projects and on your own time through a wide range of online and in-person interactive activities.

Explore relations between early modern Spain, Portugal and their empires through art, cinema and historical documents to better understand the Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries in Latin America today.

Together we’ll study paintings starting from the mid-15th century in Portugal where voyages of ‘discovery’ were well under way, to Mexico and Brazil in the late eighteenth century.

To explore the political and cultural relations between the old countries in Europe and the new lands in the Americas we’ll read travelogues, testimonies and political discussion about the New World and look at modern cinematic and theoretical responses to the conquest and colonisation of the Americas.

These complementary areas of history and culture are perfectly balanced to help you understand how the Portuguese and Spanish empires are so relevant to contemporary global geo-politics.

In this module you will explore a cultural period in the Hispanic world characterised by profound social change and the emergence of major world-figures of modern art (eg Pablo Picasso). It is structured around key literary and artistic movements from Spain and Spanish America from the early 19th century to the late 20th century, such as Romanticism, Realism, and Modernism. A large part of your focus will be reading literary and visual texts of the period in relation to the socio-economic and political context of Spain’s and Spanish America’s rapid, but hugely uneven, modernisation.

Individual novels, plays, films, paintings or poems will also be used to exemplify and explore particular movements and historical moments. You will develop skills in close analysis of complex texts, an understanding of some of the major directions of Spanish and Spanish American literature in the 20th century, and the ability to relate texts studied to historico-cultural contexts. This module is worth 20 credits.

Take your understanding of Spanish and Portuguese further by delving into the rich history of cinema in Spain, Portugal, Latin America and Portuguese-speaking Africa. This will assist your language skills and also deepen your knowledge of a diversity of global cultures.

In the first semester we'll examine cinema from Spanish America since the 1960s, then, in the second semester, cinema from Brazil, Portugal and Africa. In so doing, we'll address questions of cinematic style and technique, socio-historical contexts and the politics of film-making.

Don't worry if you're just starting out on your language journey, the films will be available with English subtitles.

This module will focus mainly on:

• reading skills for understanding research-relevant texts
• writing skills for presenting academic ideas and debating in such contexts
• understanding spoken Mandarin Chinese for academic contexts and about social and cultural issues
• communication in spoken Mandarin Chinese for such contexts

This module includes: 

• topics such as careers, job application, contemporary Chinese families and marriages, gift cultures corruption and life for Chinese people today 
• vocabulary on the above 
• grammar knowledge for the level 
• language functions such as expression ideal situations, reasoning for choices and opinions 
• understanding of authentic materials on the above topics 
• productive skills for the above topics

Now that you have gained in confidence and ability, we're going to take your Mandarin skills to the next level!

We'll use interesting examples from online resources to further develop your Chinese comprehension (written and aural) and expression (written and oral).

You'll also learn about Chinese culture and society, preparing you for the exciting time you'll spend in China during year three.

Now that you have gained solid Mandarin language skills, we'll push you to develop them to a more sophisticated level. Not only will you continue to improve your understanding of the language but also the cultures of the Mandarin-speaking world.

With your increased proficiency you'll be able to examine more complex texts covering themes such as leisure activities and lifestyles, personalities, love and relationships, economic developments, language learning, and social customs.

You will be asked to reflect and compare your own culture and the target culture via group discussions and debates to enhance both, your cultural awareness and intercultural competence.

This module emphasises sociological theories with reference to current events and social policy making in China. Topics change every year according to what is in the news, but may include:

• nationhood, identity and ethnicity
• gender, family and sexualities
• inequalities, social capital and welfare
• health, education and popular culture
• crime, deviance and justice

Combine our in-depth sector knowledge with the Careers and Employability Service skills development experience to get noticed when applying for jobs and during interviews.

From constructing an outstanding CV to practicing graduate level interview skills we'll build on your existing abilities.

You'll also get something concrete to talk about through a multi-week work placement. This will be tailored as far as possible to your subject and career aspirations.

This sort of attention to detail is what makes Nottingham graduates some of the most sought after in the job market.

This module is worth 20 credits.

This advanced module will be your final step towards fluency, training you in a more formal, sophisticated register of spoken and written Spanish.

We'll continue to use a wide range of authentic Spanish texts to further deepen your knowledge and confidence at this advanced level. We'll look at how the texts are put together so that you may use these skills within your written and spoken Spanish, taking you to the highest level of proficiency.

This module looks at key 20th century Spanish American novels and short stories and considers issues such as race, gender, sexuality and the conflict of cultures. You will be trained in using a broad range of tools of narrative and rhetorical analysis so as to engage in debates about literary representation and aesthetics, and will hone your use of these through a programme of research tasks, seminar presentations, group discussions, and written assignments.

Explore how literature and film can give us a deeper insight into the experiences of conflict in 20^th and 21^st-century Latin American and Iberian societies.

Together we’ll investigate the way in which film and literature have reflected, resisted, interrogated and remembered the socio-political violence and conflicts that have shaped the 20th and 21st centuries so far in Europe (with a particular emphasis on the Iberian Peninsula) and Latin America (including Brazil).

Your Spanish and Portuguese language skills (along with translations or subtitles where needed) will help you adopt a comparative approach focussing on the formal experiments and common preoccupations of filmmakers and writers across different national cultures and historical contexts.

You will discuss questions around a range of themes which may include; authoritarianism, confronting colonial and neo-colonial practices, racial and class inequality, social injustice, gender and sexuality, and living on with the legacies of past traumas.

You can expect to discuss works by writers such as Roberto Bolaño, Ruben Fonseca, Alejandro Zambra, Mariana Enríquez, Clarice Lispector and Liliana Heker. Feature films and documentaries by Alfonso Cuarón, Pedro Almodóvar, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Claudia Llosa, Patricio Guzmán and Susana de Sousa Dias will also be discussed.

An understanding of Brazilian slavery is key to understanding not only the history of the country but also appreciating their culture today. Within this module, we'll explore the significance of Brazilian slavery in both, the transatlantic slave systems and slave societies across the Americas. 

In addition to gaining historical understanding, you'll also learn how to use different historical approaches, tools and skills.

You may believe that politics and literature are two distinct fields of study, but this module will help you understand the complex but integral relationship between the two.

We’ll explore the representation of key social and political issues within contemporary Spanish literature. You’ll discover how literature in late capitalism, and contemporary ‘Hispanic’ authors in particular, dealt with issues of language, identity, culture, society, nationhood, gender, class, memory, time and writing.

We also explore debates regarding the consistency of the categories of ‘Spain’ and ‘Spanishness’ when analysing cultural production in contemporary Iberia. This shall lead us to assess the competing discursive practices involved in remapping the notion of Spanish canonical literature at the beginning of the new millennium.

Taught in Spanish, this module has been designed to give you a thorough insight into Spanish business including the contexts that have influenced its development and the ways it interacts with wider society.

We'll investigate a range of factors that have shaped the Spanish business landscape since the transition to democracy, such as:

• changes within the global and European regulatory environment
• ideological factors
• entrepreneurship
• government action to attract foreign investors, promote Spanish FDI and boost trade with regions such as Latin America, Europe and China.

You'll not only gain a historical understanding, but a contemporary perspective too by looking at case studies of both companies like Inditex (the owners of Zara and other important fashion brands) and important Spanish industries such as tourism. The module also explores some of the less positive impacts and criticisms of Spanish business practices relating to the environment, debt and corruption.

Free education from cradle to grave has been central to modern Cuba’s cultural and ideological identity. This module will encourage you to explore Cuba’s revolutionary change since 1959, through an examination of its evolving ideologies. You’ll review the critical factors of nationalism, dependency, radicalism and leadership which shaped developments from the original rebellion up to the present day.

Together we’ll discover the role of education policies and the ways in which a ‘cultural revolution’ was fundamental to the socialisation process of, and popular participation in (or dissent from) the Revolution.

This study will help you form conclusions about both the meaning of ‘ideology’ within the context of the Revolution, and the international geo-political significance of Cuba's self-definition and evolution.

One of the best ways to truly understand a nation is to study its culture. Together we’ll explore a key moment in 20th century Spanish history, literature and film-making. By looking at the context and circumstances in which filmic and literary texts were produced under Franco you’ll develop awareness of generic conventions in both literature and film and perfect your skills in close textual analysis. 

You will gain a solid knowledge of the Franco régime and of the literature and film produced at this time, plus an understanding of the conditions for cultural production under the Dictatorship. 

By the end of the module, you will have developed a good command of the concepts and vocabulary required to analyse literary and filmic texts, a capacity for close reading and textual analysis, as well as presentation skills and research and essay-writing skills.

In this module students learn to devise and develop projects and teaching methods appropriate to engage the age and ability group they are working with. The module enables students to gain confidence in communicating their subject, develop strong organisational and interpersonal skills, and to understand how to address the needs of individuals.

This module aims to provide you with the training necessary to be able to engage independently, under the guidance of a supervisor, in self-directed research on a topic that the student selects on the basis of an aspect of your Year Abroad experience.

Through a series of one-on-one tutorials, and the submission of a proposal, a literary review, and chapter draft, the student is advised on how to sustain an argument over up to 7,000 words, and how to underpin this argument with appropriate and innovative research.

Now that you have gained solid Mandarin language skills, we'll push you to develop them to a more sophisticated level. Not only will you continue to improve your understanding of the language but also the cultures of the Mandarin-speaking world.

With your increased proficiency you'll be able to examine more complex texts covering themes such as leisure activities and lifestyles, personalities, love and relationships, economic developments, language learning, and social customs.

You will be asked to reflect and compare your own culture and the target culture via group discussions and debates to enhance both, your cultural awareness and intercultural competence.

This module includes: 

• topics such as careers, job application, contemporary Chinese families and marriages, gift cultures corruption and life for Chinese people today 
• vocabulary on the above 
• grammar knowledge for the level 
• language functions such as expression ideal situations, reasoning for choices and opinions 
• understanding of authentic materials on the above topics 
• productive skills for the above topics

This module will focus mainly on:

• reading skills for understanding research-relevant texts
• writing skills for presenting academic ideas and debating in such contexts
• understanding spoken Mandarin Chinese for academic contexts and about social and cultural issues
• communication in spoken Mandarin Chinese for such contexts

China, as the new and upcoming superpower, has become a focal point of global attention. This module introduces you to the major topics in China’s interaction with the evolution of China’s foreign policy since 1949 as well as its role in the international political economy.

The module will explore how domestic politics and other developments have contributed, on the one hand, to the rise of China as a great power of the first league and to the emergence of a 19th-century European-type of nationalism, on the other.

Much of the module will be an examination of China's political and economic relations with major powers and regions such as the US, Asia, the EU, the UK, Russia and Africa, the responses towards China from these powers and regions, and major issues in their relations. This module will also survey China's role in critical global issue(s) as well as the global order and governance.

After assuming his role as General Secretary in 2013 Xi Jinping stated in a meeting on propaganda and ideology that the task ahead was to "tell China’s story well, and properly disseminate China’s voice." It marked the beginning of an intensified global propaganda campaign. In stark contrast, recent years have also witnessed an intensification of western media reporting upon topics that are typically considered taboo in the Chinese domestic discourse.

This module will juxtapose 'official' and 'unofficial' narratives about China. Drawing on a wide range of domestic and international media sources you will go beyond the news headlines and learn to put media reports in their historical, political, social, and cultural contexts.

You will learn how to synthesize insights gained from official Chinese media, unofficial and more independent Chinese sources as well as international media reports about China. Typically, you’ll explore foreign affairs and international relations; technology and business; cultural and creative industries, as well as social policy issues ranging from health, education to social security.