Country(s)

Spain

Dates

May 23 - June 1, 2025

Registration Deadline

January 23, 2025

Courses

ENG 217 - Study Abroad Topics, 3 credits, (prerequisite: WRT 105, WRT 110, or equivalent)  

WL 300 - Topics in World Language Cultural study, 3 credits, (prerequisite: permission of instructor)  

PROGRAM DIRECTOR: 

Prof. Gilbert L. Gigliotti
English  
(860) 832-2759  
gigliotti@ccsu.edu  

Prof. Noemi Martin Santo  
World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures  
noemimartinsanto@ccsu.edu  

Scholarship

A limited number of scholarships are available. Scholarships will be a minimum of $500 based on the available funds. A minimum GPA requirement is 3.0! Scholarships are awarded on a first-first come first-served basis. The registration portal has a limited timeframe, we suggest you prepare your scholarship essay before starting the application! They are due together. 

Click here to see the scholarship prompts.

Contact Information

Zongxiang Mei
International Education Coordinator
Center for International Education
Clarence Carroll Hall
130
Chaihyung Christine Park
Course Abroad Program Associate
Center for International Education
Clarence Carroll Hall
128

Old Madrid/Old Hollywood: Where Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega, & El Greco Meet Ava Gardner, Ernest Hemingway, & Salvador Dali

In WL 300, students explore the literary, artistic, and political culture of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Madrid. In these years of desengaño (disillusion), Cervantes, Quevedo, and Vega wrote some of Spain's most important works: Don Quijote de la Mancha, Fuenteovejuna, etc. In art, Velazquez and El Greco painted the images of the decadence of kings and nobility, while Murillo portrayed the people of the streets. On the outskirts, the architect Herrera designed the Monasterio de El Escorial, a palace and tomb for the royals. In the meantime, marginalized communities, like the Roma people or the formerly enslaved, developed their own artistic expressions, like flamenco.  

American actor Ava Gardner's relationship with Spain was an intensely personal one. While it was the setting, inspiration, and filming locale of some of her most successful and career-building films, like Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, The Barefoot Contessa, and The Sun Also Rises, Spain also was the place where Gardner fled from Hollywood's prudish and sexist constraints. And Spain, not inconsequentially for an under-educated girl from rural North Carolina, was also where she would befriend Hemingway, Graves, and Dali, while feuding with her neighbor, ousted Argentinian dictator Juan Peron. Through a series of readings and screenings of the best of her "Spanish" films and a 2018 Spanish television series, students in ENG 217 explore how these artists use Spain to (mis)understand Ava, and Ava to (mis)understand Spain.