In the year 1492, we all know that "Columbus sailed the ocean blue"—but that is not all that happened! It was also a year of critical shifts that affected the history of the Mediterranean Sea. 1492 was the year that the Christian armies conquered Granada, the last Muslim stronghold in the Iberian Peninsula. It was the year the first grammar of the Spanish language was published. It was also the year that the Catholic Monarchs, Fernando, and Isabel, expelled all of the Jews from the Peninsula, forcing them to resettle across the Mediterranean. When Columbus arrived in the Americas, the medieval world was already undergoing radical changes that would transform it forever, giving way to Early Modern Spanish culture and the beginnings of the Spanish empire and the Spanish language. This course will explore the meaning of 1492 for Spanish literature, art, film, and culture, including the foundation of Spanish grammar and the foundations of Spain as a global power. It will look at the legend of Boabdil, the last Muslim ruler who surrendered the Alhambra in Granada. It will read early writing about the voyage of Columbus to the Americas. And it will explore the importance of 1492 for Jewish culture, as the Jews relocated to other Mediterranean and Atlantic lands but preserved many aspects of Spanish culture and language. This course will explore how in 1492, entire worlds were made and unmade, and Spain itself was born as a power that would rule from the Mediterranean to the Pacific.

This class counts toward the Spanish major and as literature credit for the Spanish minor.

MW sessions will be held in Spanish, and F lectures will be in English. All writing and most reading will be in Spanish.