Did you know that Portuguese is spoken by 240 million people worldwide? The sixth most spoken language in the world, Portuguese is the official or co-official language of 10 countries on 4 continents: Europe (Portugal), South America (Brazil), Africa (Angola, Mozambique, Cabo Verde, São Tomé e Príncipe, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea), and Asia (Timor Leste and Macau). Today, there are large and growing Portuguese and Brazilian immigrant communities in the U.S. Brazil, the fifth largest country and ninth largest economy in the world, hosted the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016.
Our Portuguese program, established in the 1960s, is one of the oldest and most respected in the nation. Courses are offered by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Indiana University is one of the only universities in the country that offers a Portuguese major, minor, M.A., and Ph.D.
Student Spotlight
Chelsea Simpkins is pursuing a Dual Master’s degree in LA&C Studies and Public Health. Her interest in Portuguese began when a non-profit she volunteered for started a campaign to translate all their resources. After graduation, Chelsea hopes to work at the World Health Organization or the Pan-American Health Organization and use her Portuguese skills as a Health Program Manager in Brazil.
Course Offerings (some courses not offered every semester)
An advanced course designed to build vocabulary and competence in more sophisticated written Portuguese. It involves composition, reading and grammar. Themes are drawn primarily from current issues in Brazil. This course is recommended as a continuation of P200-P250. Note:The above class meets with HISP-P 492.
Emphasis on conversational and reading skills using plays, short stories, poetry, and novels from Brazil, Portugal, and Lusophone Africa. Students will also be introduced to the basics of literary appreciation.
This course studies a variety of literary works from the Portuguese-speaking world (including novels, novellas, a drama, and short stories) and their film adaptations. In addition, this course provides students with a theoretical background for thinking about film adaptations and their connections to literature. The films selected are highly diverse and reflect a broad range of styles and approaches to movie making. The course will examine the differences between film and literature as media, and attempt to define a politics of adaptation-discussing the ways in which films can employ literature to acquire cultural capital, forge national and cultural identities, and effect political change. This class carries CASE Arts and Humanities credit. Note: Above class meets with HISP-P 498 and HISP-P 505.
Readings of Brazilian, Portuguese and Luso Phone African writers from a comparative perspective. Specific topics may vary in any given semester. Taught in English.
Representative authors and works from 1915 to the present.
This course offers a glimpse of the literary production by Brazilian writers, with an emphasis on the last 30 years and a special focus on narrative fiction. We will discuss questions of self-representation in literature, as well as intersections between authorship, gender, and race. We will also examine dialogues between literature and the mass media, as well as new approaches to memory, nationality, and violence. Taught in Portuguese.
This course will introduce students to representative authors from Lusophone Africa. Discussions will focus on topics such as the relationship between oral culture and the written word, colonial and postcolonial attitudes toward race and social class, and gender issues. Primary readings include novels, poetry, and short fiction.
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