Intermediate Spanish II A course for students seeking to perfect their academic writing skills in Spanish. The course is also an introduction to literary analysis and critical writing and will include reading and oral discussion of literary texts. The course will also include a thorough review of grammar at a fairly advanced level. This course may be used to fulfill the foreign languages distribution requirement.

Understanding Decolonial Thought In this course we will read texts on decolonial theory to analyze cinema from the Americas (e.g. White Zombie, King Kong, Pelo malo, Get Out, Rhymes for Young Ghouls, The Milk of Sorrow, A Fantastic Woman, The Silent House, Too Late To Die Young, The Lost Daughter and Soldiers or Zombies, S1). Decolonizing requires the exposure of structures of oppression that remain in a society after colonization. We will therefore focus on coloniality of power (e.g. intersection of race and capitalism, biopolitics), coloniality of gender (abortion, the privilege of the phallus, hypersexualization, violence against female and trans bodies), coloniality of knowledge (education, privileging the Global North), coloniality of being (religious imaginaries, existential phenomenology), and visuality vs. countervisuality (what we are allowed to see vs. what is there to be seen). Among authors included: Quijano, Fanon, Mbembe, Lugones, Segato, hooks, Maldonado-Torres, Mierzoff, Coates, Wynter, and Ahmed.

Decolonizing Porn: Circulating Desire between Europe and the Americas In this course we will use feminist, queer, critical race, and decolonial theories to analyze porn in Europe and the Americas. The goal is to give students the analytic tools they need to think deeply about the centrality of porn to our lives and to global capitalism, creating jobs in the “gig economy” as well as huge amounts of profit even as it extracts unpaid labor from trafficked bodies. We will consider pornographic photography, cinema, AI, and deep fakes. Texts will include Linda Williams’ Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the ‘Frenzy of the Visible,” Gayle Rubin’s “Thinking Sex,” Heather Berg, Porn Work and Jennifer Nash’s The Black Body in Ecstasy. In the SPAN section of the course, students will also be asked to participate in Spanish at least three times on the Spanish-language day of the class. All students will present their public-facing projects at the end of the class.

Decolonizing Zombies Zombies are generally depicted as metaphors that represent contemporary affects. In this course we will study a number of zombie movies with a focus on theories of race, gender, coloniality, iconoclasm, and queer temporality. With a strong emphasis on the American continent, the course will have a global approach, which will allow us to delve into issues of neoliberalism, cannibalism, genocide, diaspora, virus spread, and political criticism. The main goal is to expose colonial structures embedded in the representation of zombies, as well as in the making of the genre. Among films included are: White Zombie, The Night of the Living Dead, Savageland, World War Z (United States); Mangue negro (Brazil), Juan de los muertos (Cuba), El desierto (Argentina), El año del apocalipsis (Peru); Ladronas de almas, Halley (Mexico); Descendents (Chile), Rec (Spain), I’ll see You in my Dreams (Portugal), The Girl with All the Gifts (United Kingdom); Train to Busan (Korea); The Empire of Corpses, and Versus (Japan).   (Two 3XX courses or by waiver) (Previously SPAN 0381.)

Making Monsters: Global Visual Culture In this course we will trace a cultural history of the monster, focusing on the construction of monstrosity as an imaginary concept based on cultural ideas regarding power and its manipulation, deformed and reproductive bodies, witchcraft, sexuality, race, the intelligence of female subjects, transgression of heteronormativity, masculine fears, fears of the other, and fears of the unknown and the powerful. Monsters also have a biopolitical dimension and can manipulate our lives. Using a global perspective (e.g. the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa), we will study monsters as depicted in science, art, cinema, and popular culture. We will emphasize feminist, decolonial and horror theories, as well as post- and transhumanism. Resources may include: Divine images, mythological and folklore figures, representation of the Native Americans during colonization, freaks, ‘degenerate’ art, industrial and nuclear accident monsters, vampires, zombies, and mutants.

Lusa-Hispanic Painting from the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque Eras The main goal of this course is to analyze art. Focusing on aesthetics, we will learn to appreciate the differences between Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque painting. Regarding formal elements we will work on the use of lines, colors, proportions, and perspective. Artistic appreciation will be complemented with readings on historical and theoretical issues regarding the intersection between imperial power and religion, race, and ethnicity (Casta painting), mythology, the use of the body as a metaphor, still lifes, and Vanitas painting. The course will also include a chapter on art by ‘forgotten’ women, as well as a chapter on architecture, including Brazilian colonial monuments. Students will compare artistic manifestations from Portugal, Spain and the New World, and will be able to trace connections with contemporary art. Among artists included: El Greco, Clara Peeters, Velázquez, Josefa de Óbidos, Goya, Illescas and The Quito School of Art, Villalpando, Correa, and Cabrera (México), Aleijadinho, Zapata, Master of Calamarca and many anonymous painters from the Cusco School (Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia).

Decolonizing Zombies! Zombies are generally depicted as metaphors that represent contemporary affects. In this course we will study a number of zombie movies with a focus on theories of race, gender, coloniality, iconoclasm, and queer temporality. With a strong emphasis on the American continent, the course will have a global approach, which will allow us to delve into issues of neoliberalism, cannibalism, genocide, diaspora, virus spread, and political criticism. The main goal is to expose colonial structures embedded in the representation of zombies, as well as in the making of the genre. Among films included are: White Zombie, The Night of the Living Dead, Savageland, World War Z (United States); Mangue negro (Brazil), Juan de los muertos (Cuba), El desierto (Argentina), El año del apocalipsis (Peru); Ladronas de almas, Halley (Mexico); Descendents (Chile), Rec (Spain), I’ll see You in my Dreams (Portugal), The Girl with All the Gifts (United Kingdom); Train to Busan (Korea); The Empire of Corpses, and Versus (Japan).

Open Topic Research Seminar In this seminar students will develop a research project on a topic of their choice. At the beginning of the semester, the class will focus on research methodology, the discussion of different cultural theories, and their application. Students will be encouraged to focus on, or make comparisons with, contemporary cultural phenomena that they are passionate about so that they can explore how to discuss current issues from a theoretical perspective. The seminar will include a mixture of group and individual meetings; readings will be adjusted according to students’ interests.  At the end of the semester, students will present their final paper in a departmental venue. (Two Spanish courses numbered 0350 or above or by waiver) 3hrs. sem/disc

Patricia Saldarriaga

Reviews and ratings for Patricia Saldarriaga at Middlebury College.Patricia Saldarriaga teaches Intermediate Spanish II, Decolonial Thought, Decolonizing Porn and more.  Explore top rated instructors and find the best for you.Is Patricia Saldarriaga good ? Find out on MiddCourses.

I took this course Fall 2022. Thoroughly enjoyed the course. There are weekly discussion posts, but they're relatively easy. Movies and reading were the majority of the work, but as long as you watched the movie, you had enough for participation. Pretty interesting content if you're into film classes, the prof is very fair and was accommodating for me.   

Professor Saldarriaga is very passionate about the topic of decolonizing zombies (she recently published a book about the topic), making her teaching very enthusiastic. Some of the readings are hard to understand, but she does a great job in explaining the concepts during instruction hours. Overall, class discussions are usually about films or shows assigned to watch before class making the course more interesting. She is very understanding when it comes to late work.