History of Spain 3300-HHis-MSF-1-ZIP

The aim of the course is to offer an interdisciplinary perspective on the history of Spain, with a particular focus on the relationship between historical events and the formation of Spanish cultural and social identity. The course provides an overview of key moments in the history of the Iberian Peninsula: from antiquity to the present day, taking into account not only political developments but also social, religious, economic, and cultural dimensions.
Special attention is given to the perspective of intrahistory, understood here as the history of individuals and social groups that have long been marginalized in traditional historical narratives: women, the working classes, ethnic, national, and religious minorities, as well as communities existing on the periphery of political or geographic mainstreams. In this spirit, the course also incorporates the principles of herstory, exploring the role of women in Spain’s social, economic, and cultural transformations.
The course emphasizes the importance of Spain’s cultural and ethnic diversity, both in historical terms (Arab, Jewish, Romani, Afro-Iberian heritage) and in contemporary contexts (a multicultural society shaped by migration, multilingualism, and autonomous communities). It explores processes of identity formation and negotiation, collective memory, and founding myths, as well as mechanisms of exclusion, symbolic violence, and resistance.
CLASS TOPICS:
1. Spain before the arrival of the Romans
2. Spain under Roman and Visigothic rule
3. The Muslim conquest and Al-Andalus
4. The Reconquista and the emergence of medieval kingdoms
5. The union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon, the Habsburg dynasty on the Spanish throne
6. Spain under the Habsburgs: The Golden Age
7. Spain under the early Bourbons: The Enlightenment
8. The 19th century: from the War of Independence to the First Republic
9. The Bourbon Restoration: Caciquismo and the birth of the labor movements
10. The Second Republic: the rise and fall of a young democracy
11. The civil war: “there is nothing feminine about her”
12. The Francoist dictatorship: national catholicism, the cold war, and the invasion of the Swedes
13. Democratic transition: “We are not monarchists, we are juancarlistas”
14. Socialist rule: from great achievements to great scandals
15. The decline of the two-party system: The Indignados movement and the rise of a third force