PORT 1100a, Elementary Portuguese I: Spaces of Identity  Staff

Portuguese 1100: Spaces of Identity introduces students to Portuguese and its cultures through an in-depth engagement with a thematic exploration of identity and urban spaces in the Portuguese-speaking world. The course invites reflection on how cities influence our daily experiences, and how urban environments can inspire belonging, social change, or resistance. The course is organized into three units - Who Are You in the City? Who Is the City Space in You? and What Do You See from Your Window? - through which students engage with questions about identity, cultural spaces, and urban architecture. Students learn to describe, formulate context, and bring histories to people, places, and experiences while expressing their perspectives through creative projects, including collages, videos, exhibitions, and a collaborative digital book. Activities are exclusively based on authentic materials; no textbook is required, as in all Portuguese courses. At the end of this course, students will have gained an understanding of the language across a range of textual genres, focusing on diverse aspects of the Portuguese-speaking world. Students will have the opportunity to submit their productions for publication in our digital magazine: Revista dos Estudantes de Português da Yale. Conducted in Portuguese.  L1  1½ Course cr
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PORT 1240a, Portuguese for Romance Language Speakers I  Mariana Centanin Bertho

This course is an introductory course designed for advanced students of Romance languages and/or heritage speakers of Portuguese and other Romance languages, equivalent to Portuguese 110 and Portuguese 120. The course explores the Portuguese language and cultures through in-depth involvement with cultural topics of the Lusophone world. Organized into four content units, namely, Who Are You in the City?, What Do You See from Your Window?, Between Here and There, and Ludic Spaces, students express reflections and produce projects in Portuguese about their connections to cities and places of memory. By delving into the transformative nature of urban spaces, the course explores the intricate link between subjectivity and the cities or places we inhabit. It examines how structures of coloniality we inherit and modernity can alter our relationship with the environment. Students engage with authentic materials such as visual arts, songs, clips, movies, and texts of different genres to investigate the proposed topics. Paced activities focus on comprehension, contextualization, reflection, and the creation of new meaning to correlate with both academic and personal life. Each unit concludes with a small project, involving different media or text creation, allowing students to apply the knowledge and skills acquired individually and in groups. Upon completing this course, students will have gained an understanding of the language across various textual genres, delving into diverse aspects of Portuguese-speaking cultures. At least one of the following language levels: SPAN 140 or 145, FREN 140 or 145, ITAL 140 or 145, or higher; a satisfactory placement test score; heritage speakers of Portuguese; or instructor's permission.  L1, L2  1½ Course cr
MTThF 9:25am-10:15am

PORT 1300a, Intermediate Portuguese I: Ancestral Future  Staff

This course is a continuation of Portuguese 1200 and is guided by a central thread: how different forms of representation - visual, digital, and philosophical - organize how reality is imagined and narrated. The course is organized in three units and examines (1) the relationship between museum art, street art, and Afro-Lusophone artistic expression; (2) the circulation of fake news and digital misinformation; and (3) Indigenous cosmovisions as responses to environmental crisis and deforestation. The units move from visual representation (how art constructs and dialogues with cities), to media representation (how digital discourse structures public perception), to epistemological frameworks (how different worldviews reorganize reality and time in light of ecological crises). Students analyze how these narratives from Portuguese-speaking countries produce meaning and diverse perceptions of the world. Activities are based entirely on authentic materials; no textbook is required. Students expand their ability to narrate and describe in present and past time frames and to refer to future possibilities. Each unit leads students to create diverse projects, with the opportunity to submit for publication in our digital magazine. By the end of the course, students can interpret and produce Portuguese across diverse genres while articulating complex analyses. Conducted in Portuguese. Port 1200, Port 1240 (or equivalent)  L3  1½ Course cr
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PORT 1440a, Portuguese for Romance Language Speakers II  Giseli Tordin

This course is designed for advanced students of Romance languages or heritage speakers of Portuguese. It follows a content and project-based learning approach. The course examines a variety of perspectives on the environment and cities, featuring Indigenous art and film, essays on the Amazon, and the works of women photographers, filmmakers, and authors. Students explore how we can decolonize our viewpoints by revisiting the past and reimagining the future. Instead of traditional textbooks, students analyze authentic materials, such as newspaper articles, short novels, essays, media, and academic texts that address contemporary political, social, and environmental issues. Through compelling themes, author interviews, and cultural topics, students deepen their language skills while critically examining social issues. Students refine their Portuguese through multimodal texts and projects, with an opportunity to submit their work for publication in the Yale Portuguese Students’ Digital Magazine. Prerequisites from two of these three options: (1)SPAN 1400 or 1450, FREN 1400 or 1450, ITAL 1400 or 1450, or higher; a satisfactory placement test score; heritage speakers of Romance languages; (2) PORT 1240; (3) Instructor Permission.  L3, L4  1½ Course cr
MTThF 10:30am-11:20am

* PORT 2161a / FILM 2161a / LAST 2161a / SPAN 2095a / WGSS 2161a, Love in the Lens? Romance and Resistance in Latin American and Iberian Cinema  Giseli Tordin

Is love truly captured through the lens? Whose desire are we witnessing - the characters’, the audience’s, or the male gaze? How do films shape representations of gender through the camera’s gaze, and how can cinema subvert these ways of looking? This course, taught in Portuguese and Spanish, explores these questions through Luso-Brazilian, Latin American, and Iberian cinema while allowing students to use the languages to interpret scenes, describe characters’ perceptions and emotions, compare films, and analyze dialogue, visual composition, and cinematic techniques. Students read critical texts and film analyses, discuss ideas in class, and produce essays, scripts, and video essay projects in Portuguese or Spanish, demonstrating the ability to construct arguments, present evidence, and reflect on cultural and historical context. Themes such as unrequited love, emotional emptiness, and longing are examined not simply as romantic failure but as experiences intertwined with memory, trauma, and societal pressures, often against the backdrop of authoritarian regimes. The course considers how these films challenge a cinematic tradition shaped by Victorian ideals, where early cinema framed love as individual fulfillment and moral triumph. Postwar cinema further dramatized love through predominantly white, heterosexual relationships, reinforcing patriarchal visual norms. Through close analysis of discourses and cinematic techniques - framing, sound, spatial composition, sequence, and camera angles - students examine how film language constructs or challenges norms of gender, sexuality, and class. Students may speak and submit assignments and projects in either language (Portuguese or Spanish), creating a multilingual space for critical engagement with Ibero-Latin American visual culture and the politics of the gaze. Prerequisite: PORT 1400 (or equivalent) or SPAN 1400 (or equivalent). Conducted in Portuguese and Spanish.  L5, HU
TTh 4pm-5:15pm

PORT 2181a / LAST 2181a, Amazonia in Word and Image  Kevin Ennis

Amazonia is globally known for its natural environments, especially the rainforest and the many rivers and tributaries that populate maps of the region throughout the centuries. Moving beyond stereotypical, monolithic views of the region, in this course, we examine how writers, artists, and other cultural agents imagine Amazonia—historically, literarily, culturally, and linguistically. How is Amazonia defined, and in what terms? What is the role of cultural expression in world-sharing and world-building in and from the region? This course focuses on the Brazilian Amazon in its interrogation of Amazonia, broaching these questions by reading a broad range of texts, watching films and documentaries, and looking at works of art that respond to questions of defining and understanding Amazonia from a variety of perspectives, human and more-than-human. Course units focus on recent news media portrayals of Amazonia; extractivism and environmental conflict in the region; Indigenous literatures and arts; and hope and optimism in and for Amazonia alongside contemporary environmental humanities. This course also aims to further build communicative proficiency in Portuguese and develop knowledge of the diverse cultures of the region through sustained reading, discussion, and writing. L4 Portuguese: PORT 140, PORT 1400, PORT 1440, or equivalent in placement.  L5, HU
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

* PORT 3220a / AFAM 222 / AFST 3323a / CPLT 3760a / ER&M 3532a, The Empire Sings Back: Popular Music and Cultural Resistance in Africa and Portugal  Staff

In this course students learn about the vibrant musical scene that has emerged in Lisbon, Portugal, as a result of a longstanding colonial and imperial history connecting Portugal and several countries in the African continent (Angola, Cabo Verde, Guinea Bissau, São Tomé e Príncipe and Mozambique). We look closely at some of the main musical genres that originated in Africa during the colonial period, as well as those that have emerged in Portugal in recent times within African and Afro-Portuguese communities, such as Kuduro Progressivo, Kizomba, and Rap Kriolu, drawing comparisons with African American and other diasporic African popular music. We compare the social and political realities informing the respective colonial and postcolonial historical contexts, with particular attention to how race and ethnicity interact with the production, distribution, reception, and enjoyment of music, and how public perceptions of the worth of these cultural productions are shaped. Finally, we dedicate some attention to the use of a traditional genre such as Fado in LGBTQ political and social activism through the Fado Bicha project. Taught in Portuguese.  L5, HU
MW 11:35am-12:50pm

* PORT 3920a / CPLT 2960a / LAST 3392a, Brazil's Cannibal Modernism: From Modern Art Week to Antropofagia  Kenneth David Jackson

A study of Brazilian modernism in literature and the arts, centered on São Paulo's "Modern Art Week" of 1922 and the "Cannibal Manifesto" from the perspective of major figures and works, and transatlantic exchanges with figures from the European avant-gardes. Includes analysis of antropofagia as a post-colonial strategy. Reading knowledge of French and Portuguese helpful but not required.  WR, HU
Th 1:30pm-3:25pm

* PORT 3940a / CPLT 2940a / LAST 3394a, World Cities and Narratives  Kenneth David Jackson

Study of world cities and selected narratives that describe, belong to, or represent them. Topics range from the rise of the urban novel in European capitals to the postcolonial fictional worlds of major Portuguese, Brazilian, and Lusophone cities. Conducted in English.  WR, HU
T 1:30pm-3:25pm