SPAN 397 - Peninsular Seminar

FDR: HL
Credits: 3

Winter 2020, SPAN 397A-01: Peninsular Seminar: Early Modern Spanish Theater: Reading, Writing, and Performing Comedia on Both Sides of the Atlantic. (3). Prerequisites: SPAN 220 and SPAN 275. Much like today’s prestige television, the early modern Spanish theatrical genre known as comedia nueva fused popular and elite entertainment, drawing spectators from every level of society into packed playhouses from Madrid to Mexico City. Comedias were not only blockbusters, however, but also bestsellers, with the burgeoning commercial print market circulating play texts far beyond 16th- and 17th-century stage. In this seminar, we explore the comedia as both a literary phenomenon and as a performance practice; as a transatlantic genre penned not only by elite Peninsular men but also by women, creole, mestizo, and indigenous writers; as a medium to transmit imperial ideology from the metropolis to the periphery; and, simultaneously, as a space for playwrights on the margins of society and empire to explore their identities within these systems of power. Course readings place the works of Peninsular figures, including Lope de Vega and Ana Caro, in dialogue with those of their transatlantic counterparts, from the loas of Mexican poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz to the Quechua-language comedias of Peruvian playwright Gabriel Centeno de Osma. (HL) Hernández.

Fall 2019, SPAN 397A-01: Peninsular Seminar: Representaciones de la Guerra Civil Española (3). This course examines the fundamental importance of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) in literary and visual texts of the Franco and contemporary periods of Spain. Through these readings, students come to understand the evolution of often conflicting histories, ideologies, obsessions, and artistic notions surrounding the war itself and its consequences. After a review of the events leading up to the Spanish Civil War and of the prelude to the Second World War, we observe how the themes and issues of the war manifest in fiction, poetry, film, and other visual texts, paying particular attention to the Franco regime, the pact of silence, and the desire to uncover the past in myriad ways. Literature includes works by Federico García Lorca, Jaime Gil de Biedma, Carmen Laforet, Alberto Méndez, and Mercè Rodoreda. Visual texts include posters, newspapers, letters, government documents, documentaries, fictional films, and NO-DO reels from the Franco era. Mayock.