Embodied Life and Memory Writing: Twenty-First-Century Auto(bio)graphical Literature in Argentina and Spain from a Transatlantic Perspective 3305-UZZP-U
Research questions:
What image of social reality emerges from recent Argentine and Spanish self-narratives?
How does the turn towards the body and embodiment reshape autobiographical narrative, and what new elements does it introduce?
How do new embodied self-narratives address history, memory and postmemory?
What social and symbolic negotiations take place in twenty-first-century auto/bio/graphical literature from Argentina and Spain?
How does life and memory writing construct marginalised subjectivities: female, queer/trans, migrant, classed, racialised, or marked by illness, violence and loss?
Research hypotheses:
The twenty-first century has seen a turn towards new, politically inflected autobiographical narratives.
Together with this turn towards political self-narration, the body becomes a key category and a new type of subject emerges: relational, socially engaged and experiencing reality through the body.
The genre is being renewed through the clash of different tendencies and through a gradual departure from the egoism and individualism characteristic of earlier autobiographical models, as well as from postmodern ideas of the “end of history” and the “end of ideology”.
In Argentina after the 2001 crisis and in Spain after the 2008 crisis, life writing becomes a privileged site for the re-politicisation of the first person and for reconfiguring relations between intimacy, the body, memory and community.
Melancholy, mourning and a sense of loss are not merely private themes: in recent self-narratives they operate as instruments of social critique and as forms of working through what remains unrecognised, unheard or deemed ungrievable in the public sphere.
Embodied self-narratives produce new forms of political subjectivity: relational, affective, situated and vulnerable, yet also capable of resistance and of creating counter-archives of memory.
Module aims:
to reconceptualise the main issues in the study of life writing and memory writing in Argentina and Spain from a transatlantic perspective;
to provide an advanced discussion of auto/bio/graphical literature from Argentina and Spain over the last twenty-five years;
to identify its position, specificity and relationship to social and cultural debates;
to distinguish the most characteristic currents of embodied autobiography;
to analyse the image of social reality inscribed in these texts and the problem of social engagement;
to compare Argentine and Spanish life and memory writing as practices which not only represent exclusion but also co-produce new social and political imaginaries;
to discuss the principal axes of exclusion present in the corpus: class, migration, racialisation, gender, sexuality, illness, violence, geographical marginalisation and family memory;
to enable students to apply analytical tools combining autobiography studies, memory studies, gender and queer studies, affect studies, body politics and sociocriticism independently.
Thematic scope:
the genealogy of autobiography, autofiction, testimony and memory writing;
the biographical space, the authorial figure, body-corpus relations and the scene of narratability;
melancholy, mourning, loss, the “promise of happiness” and critiques of private scripts of the good life;
life after crisis: Argentina after 2001 and Spain after 2008;
social movements, feminisms, Ni Una Menos, 15-M, feminist strikes, queer/trans activism and politics of memory;
class, migration, racialisation, language, centre/periphery, España vacía and borderland experience;
the body as an archive of violence, memory and resistance: the ill, trans, maternal, sexualised, wounded and labouring body.
Core reading list:
1. Javier Cercas, El monarca de las sombras. Barcelona: Literatura Random House, 2017.
2. Marta Dillon, Aparecida. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 2015.
3. Najat El Hachmi, El lunes nos querrán. Barcelona: Destino, 2021.
4. Federico Falco, Los llanos. Barcelona: Anagrama, 2020.
5. Ariana Harwicz, Matate, amor. Buenos Aires: Mardulce, 2012.
6. Belén López Peiró, Por qué volvías cada verano. Buenos Aires: Madreselva, 2018.
7. Alana S. Portero, La mala costumbre. Barcelona: Seix Barral, 2023.
8. Marta Sanz, Clavícula. Barcelona: Anagrama, 2017.
9. Camila Sosa Villada, Las malas. Barcelona: Tusquets, 2019.
10. Dani Zelko, Oreja madre: mi cuestión judía. Buenos Aires: Caja Negra, 2025.
Content note:
Some of the auto/bio/graphical texts discussed in the module may include material that some students may find difficult: representations of violence, sexual violence, traumatic experience, illness, explicit language or erotic content. Students are asked to take this into account when deciding whether to enrol on the module.
Course coordinators
Type of course
Learning outcomes
S1K_W01, S1K_W02, S1K_W05, S1K_W06, S1K_W07, S1K_U01, S1K_U02, S1K_U03, S1K_U04, S1K_U05, S1K_U06, S1K_K01, S1K_K02, S1K_K03, S1K_K04.
Knowledge
students will know and understand the subject-specific and methodological profile of research into the literature and culture of the Spanish-speaking world, together with the relevant terminology;
they will have advanced knowledge of contemporary Argentine and Spanish literature and culture from a transatlantic perspective;
they will be familiar with theories, methodologies and concepts relevant to life writing, memory writing, autofiction, testimony, postmemory, embodiment, affect and exclusion;
they will understand complex relations between self-narration, history, memory, social visibility, recognition and marginalisation;
they will be able to identify key contemporary literary and cultural phenomena concerning gender, sexuality, class, migration, racialisation, violence, illness, mourning and community.
Skills
students will be able to carry out an advanced critical analysis and interpretation of literary texts and, more broadly, cultural texts, using appropriate research methods;
they will be able to acquire, select and synthesise knowledge in literary studies, cultural studies and contemporary humanities scholarship independently;
they will be able to prepare an abstract, an academic paper, a presentation and written work in accordance with the conventions of academic discourse;
they will use Spanish at a level that enables them to analyse literary texts, participate in discussion and formulate scholarly arguments;
they will use specialist terminology from autobiography studies, memory studies, gender and queer studies, body studies, affect theory and trauma studies;
they will be able to compare Argentine texts and texts from Spain from a transatlantic perspective, taking into account distinct historical, political, social and linguistic contexts.
Social competences
students will be ready to evaluate their own knowledge critically, assume different roles in group work and participate in academic discussion;
they will understand the need for the continuous development of research, linguistic and interpretative competences;
they will be able to work with texts concerning violence, trauma, exclusion and memory in an ethically responsible manner, with respect for diverse experiences and perspectives;
they will understand the significance of the humanities for recognising contemporary social and cultural problems.
Assessment criteria
• Presentation: an oral paper with a multimedia presentation, prepared in accordance with the principles of academic discourse discussed during the module.
• Written completion of two reading questionnaires.
• Active and regular participation in classes.
• One questionnaire may be comparative and may cover one Argentine text and one text from Spain, selected according to a shared problematic axis: the body, mourning, migration, class, gender, sexuality, memory or exclusion.
A maximum of two unjustified absences is permitted. If this limit is exceeded, the student must contact the module convenor in order to agree a form of making up the missed material. If absences exceed 50% of classes, the student will be marked as not classified (NK).
Practical placement
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Bibliography
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Arfuch, L. (2002) El espacio biográfico. Dilemas de la subjetividad contemporánea. Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Arfuch, L. (2018) La vida narrada. Memoria, subjetividad y política. Villa María: Eduvim.
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Leibovici, M. (2011) „Le «Verstehen» narratif du transfuge”, Tumultes, 36, s. 91-109.
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Smith, S. i Watson, J. (2001) Reading Autobiography. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Torras, M. i Pérez Fontdevila, A. (2019) ¿Qué es una autora? Encrucijadas entre género y autoría. Barcelona: Icaria.
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