TELENOVELAS IN THE CLASSROOM

This coming semester (starts in two weeks!) I will be teaching a class titled "Telenovelas, Culture and Society." I've taught before a 1-credit hour Honors Seminar in Spanish about the topic. But, this is the first time I will be teaching a 3-credit hour course. The students will have an intermediate level of Spanish, enough for them to get the gist of what they will be watching on television.

As far as I know, there are only a handful of courses in the U.S that include telenovelas. Most of them in Romance Language departments. Therefore, there aren't any models to follow in the field of communication.

I' almost done designing my course. However, I would LOVE to know what you, readers of my blog, would include in a course about Telenovelas.

With tremendous gratitude, I look forward to your coments...

FROM TELENOVELAS TO HOLLYWOOD

Venezuelan actors Edgar Ramírez and Marisa Román as Cacique and Verónica in telenovela Cosita Rica (2003-2004). (Pictures courtesy of Dani)



Edgar Ramírez as Paz in The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

It isn't the first time a Latin American actor's journey begins in telenovelas and continues in Hollywood. (See my post Telenovelas, actors and the celebrity factor). But it's still a remarkable development in an actor's career. One that should be celebrated.

Tomorrow, August 3, when The Bourne Ultimatum premieres in the U.S., Venezuelans will be particularly proud to know that Edgar Ramírez will share the screen with Matt Damon and other members of the cast in a film that will surely become a blockbuster. People who follow and enjoy telenovelas will rejoice too because, even though Edgar Ramírez had made several films before playing Cacique in Cosita Rica, his career really took off thanks to the exposure that the telenovela gave him:

The show's success was a turning point for Ramirez, who had acted in a few independent movies but had qualms about introducing himself as an actor.
"That show actually walked hand in hand with the country through one of the most confusing periods of its contemporary history," Ramirez recalled. "It got the highest ratings of anything in the last 15 years or something, so it was totally undeniable — I couldn't not call myself an actor. Everybody knew. I was on TV."
[Kendt, Rob (2007, July 22), "Edgar Ramirez, professional chameleon", Los Angeles Times]