Department of Spanish and Portuguese

Prerequisite: One of HISP-S 324, HISP-S 328, HISP-S 331, HISP-S 333, or HISP-S 334

Prior to Francisco Franco’s death in 1975 and especially since the early years of democracy, remembering has been at the forefront of Spanish politics, society and cultural production. How should Spain’s past of Civil War and subsequent 40-year dictatorship be narrated in contemporary society? What should be remembered or forgotten and why? What place do the ghosts of the past have in contemporary life, in a politics of reconciliation or rejuvenation, in the contemporary cultural scene? What traces of that past should be recuperated in urban spaces or in memorial sites? Who gets to make those choices?
   
Debates over these and related questions play out in Spain’s cultural landscape time and again and now assume a more urgent tone through, for example, efforts to unearth graves of the Civil War and dictatorship. Memory politics have become a touchstone in contemporary Spanish culture.
   
This course will analyze contemporary Spanish culture through the lens of memory, history and the collective negotiation of the country’s difficult and contentious past. We’ll study essential aspects of memory studies as a set of tools that we’ll then use to explore the way people are working through these issues in film, graphic novel, memorial sites, sculpture, novels, exhibits, and contemporary tourism.
   
Some of the questions we will deal with include: What role does culture play in a society’s construction of the past and the way it deals with conflict in the present? How does the “ghostly” manifest in contemporary engagements with memory in and on Spain? How do people speak of trauma, transitional justice or human rights when dealing with Spain’s recent history? Given that understandings of the past shift over time, in what ways have intergenerational issues of transmission and postmemory been represented? How does Spain’s painful past affect those who never experienced it first-hand, and what claim to it do younger generations have?
   
Course assignments and discussion will be in Spanish. Theoretical and historical readings will mainly be in English; readings and films will be in Spanish (with subtitles). Films will be viewed outside of class. Course evaluation will likely include a combination of active class participation, oral presentation, analytical essays, and final paper.

HISP-S 411   #23362     3:55P-5:10P     TR     GA 0007      Prof. Melissa Dinverno

• A&H
• GCC
• What are CASE requirements?