Spanish Literature and Social Change 3700-ISSC-SLSC23-OG

Spanish Literature and Social Change course offers instruction in history of ideas and culture from the perspective of literary texts in the context of Iberian Peninsula from the Enlightenment period to the current times. Its aim is twofold: trace a broad panorama of issues related to the history of ideas and culture from the 18th up to 21th century and analyse a short selection of ground-breaking and decisive social phenomena through the lenses of literary texts. In doing so, we will be able to see the history of the western part of the Mediterranean area as a response to the broader social and cultural processes in Europe and Western World. The key place in the classes will be given to literary and paraliterary texts understood from the perspective of cultural studies: as social artefact that are both a reflection and a place of negotiation of the key ideas and aesthetic currents in a given community. It is an interdisciplinary course, straddling the disciplines of cultural studies recent approaches (postcolonial studies; gender and queer studies; feminist critique; affective theory; microhistory; anthropology of space and place) and various approaches from literary theory.

Along the course we will analyze textual representations of sexual identities, gender, religious, and racial/ethnic relations, colonial processes and their postcolonial consequences, migration phenomena, cultural transfer, and multiculturalism in the Spanish literature along with the meanings, implications, and repercussions of these representations. Through the close reading of literary texts (novels, poetry, short fiction, drama), the paraliterary sources (diaries, newspapers, letters), and with an aid of visual art sources (pictures, movies, handcrafts, photography, etc.), we will investigate how different social, political and cultural identities are constructed and interrogated and how they respond to and initiate social change.

Because this course asks the students to reflect critically on ethical and social issues, the student will analytically engage with depictions of identities in our past and present, particularly through the course’s required oral class presentations and roundtables. Class sessions will be discussion-based and rooted in close reading of literary texts with the help of theoretical articles. The class block (two meetings) involves: an introduction to the historical and cultural context in a lecture form, presentation and discussion on theories and concepts under consideration, followed by an all-class analysis of selected texts. Because this course relies on student’s active performance and seeks to foster students’ critical thinking skills, students will complete regular reading assignments in fulfilment of course completion. In order to complete the course students are expected to actively participate in the class discussions and sit final graded essay that will examine students’ familiarity with issues under discussion throughout the course. As the course will be held entirely in Spanish and will be based on the analysis of primary sources, to participate in it the student has to possess at least intermediate (B2) language level.

Type of course

elective courses
general courses

Prerequisites (description)

Students with a good and excellent command of Spanish (B2 or better) are welcome to enrol. This course is intended for students willing to develop their literary and analytical reading skills. Since the course offers a bulk of selected readings students must be prepared to find time for self-study.

Course coordinators

Julia Lewandowska

Learning outcomes

The graduate
1. understands what it means to analyse social, cultural and political phenomena from the perspective of cultural studies, in particular migration processes, multiculturalism, independence and separation movements in the Iberian Peninsula from the 18th to the 20th century (K_W01)
2. knows and is able to apply methodological tools and selected theoretical approaches from the field of cultural studies, appropriate to the analysed textual and visual sources, in the study of cultural diversity in the historical process and is aware of the dynamic development of the discipline (K_W03; K_W11; K_U06; K_K04)
3. knows the most important schools of thought, aesthetic, literary and political trends and their representatives in the Iberian Peninsula area from the 18th to the 20th century and understands the interdependence of political, social and cultural phenomena (K_W03; K_W11)
4. is able to formulate oral and written opinions on cultural phenomena in relation to historical and political processes, individually and in groups, pointing out difficulties and contentious issues and arguing his/her position in relation to the main themes presented in the lecture (K_U06; K_U09; K_U10;)
5. is ready to consciously participate in discussions concerning the cultural diversity of Spain and Portugal and its historical transformations, while respecting the principles of tolerance towards cultural differences and the importance of multi-religiousness and multi-ethnicity for the Iberian Peninsula in the European and world context (K_U06; K_U09; K_U10)
6. is able to search, analyse and interpret various textual (fiction, paraliterature, paratexts) and visual sources independently, creatively and in depth (film, painting, sculpture, architecture) (K_U06; K_W11; K_U09)

Assessment criteria

Assessment is based on in-class performance, attendance (two uncertified absences allowed; third and fourth absence to certify and make up during tutor’s office hours; fifth absence and over - failure) and active participation in the discussions; and completion of response papers/class presentations.

Bibliography

[The full list of primary sources and critical readings will be given at the first meeting]
Bibliography:

Ahmed, Sara (2000), Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality. London: Routledge.
Álvarez Junco, José; Adrian Shubert (2000), Spanish History since 1808. Bloomsbury Academic, Year: 2000
Baranda Leturio, Nieves; Lucia Montejo Guruchaga (2010), Literatura española. Madrid: UNED.

Bellesteros Vega, Fernando et. al. (eds.) (2020), Antología de la literatura contemporánea española, Ministerio de Educación.
Charnon-Deutsch, Lou (2003). „Gender and Beyond: Nineteenth Century Spanish-Women Writers” in: The Cambridge Companion to The Spanish Novel. From 1600 to the Present, Turner, Harriet & Adelaida López de Martínez. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 122-137.
Deacon, Philip (2008). “Spain and Enlightenment” in: The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature, David T. Gies (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 293-306.
Díaz López, Laura; Pilar Escabias Lloret et. al. (2019), Curso de literatura española moderna. Nivel intermedio y avanzado. Madrid: EdiNumen.
Domańska, Ewa (2005). Mikrohistorie. Spotkania w międzyświatach. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, pp. 129-162.
Domańska, E. (2006), Historie niekonwencjonalne. Refleksja o przeszłości w nowej humanistyce. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie.
Gies, David T. (ed.) (2008). The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
González Fernández, Helena (2009). “La mujer que no es sólo metáfora de la nación. Lecturas de las viudas de vivos de Rosalía de Castro”. Lectora. Revista de dones i textualitat, 15, pp. 99-115.
Haidt, Rebecca (2003). “The Enlightenment and fictional form” in: The Cambridge Companion to The Spanish Novel. From 1600 to the Present, Turner, Harriet & Adelaida López de Martínez. Cambridge: Cambridge University press, pp. 31-49.
Husar, Wioletta. „Decentralizacja niesymetryczna w Hiszpanii- implikacje polityczne i ustrojowe”, Annales (Universitatis Mariae Curie Skłodowska), XXI (2), pp. 45-63.
Johnson, Roberta (2003). “From the Generation of 1989 to the Vanguard” in: The Cambridge Companion to The Spanish Novel. From 1600 to the Present, Turner, Harriet & Adelaida López de Martínez. Cambridge: Cambridge University press. pp. 155-171.
Kirkpatrick, Susan (1989), Las Romanticas: Women Writers and Subjectivity in Spain, 1835-1850. California: University of California Press.
Labanyi, Jo (ed.) (2002), Constructing Identity in Twentieth-Century Spain: Theoretical Debates and Cultural Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Labanyi, Jo (2010), “Doing things: Emotion, Affect and Materiality”, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, 11, 2-3, pp. 223-233.
Labanyi, Jo (2010), Spanish Literature. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 10-41.
Labanyi, Jo (2011). “Modernidad y representación” in: Género y modernización en la novela realista española. Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra-Universitat de València-Instituto de la Mujer.
Markowski, Michał; Ryszard Nycz (eds.). (2012, II ed.), Kulturowa teoria literatury. Główne pojęcia i problema. Kraków: Universitas.
Martos Pérez, María Dolores; Neira Jiménez, Julio (eds.) (2021), Literatura española y género. Madrid: UNED.
Mujica, Bárbara (2002), Milenio. Mil años de literatura española. New York: John Willey and Sons.
Nieva-de la Paz, Piler (ed.) (2009), Roles de género y cambio social en la Literatura española del siglo XX. Amsterdam-New York: Rodopi.
Panikkar, K. N. (2012), „Literature as History of Social Change”, Social Scientist, Vol. 40, No. 3/4, pp. 3-15.
Rico, Francisco; José Carlos Mainer (1980), Historia y crítica de la literatura española. Modernismo y 98. Barcelona: Editorial Crítica.
Stephanie Sieburth, Stephanie (2008). “What does it mean to study Spanish culture?” in: The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature, David T. Gies (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 11-20.
Stephanie Sieburth (1994), Inventing High and Low: Literature, Mass Culture, and Uneven Modernity in Spain. Durham: Duke University Press.
Shubert, Adrian (1990). A Social History of Modern Spain. Routledge.
Smith Rousselle, Elizabeth (2014). Gender and Modernity in Spanish Literature. 1789-1920. NY: Palgrave, Macmillan.
Scott, J. W. (2010), “Gender: Still a Useful Category of Analysis?”, Diogenes 57, pp. 7-14.
Spivak, G.Ch. (1999), A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of Vanishing Present. Cambridge.
Tuñon de Lara et al. (1997). Historia Hiszpanii. Kraków: Universitas.
Turner, Harriet & Adelaida López de Martínez (eds.) (2003). The Cambridge Companion to the Spanish Novel: From 1600 to the Present. Cambridge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Additional information

Information on level of this course, year of study and semester when the course unit is delivered, types and amount of class hours - can be found in course structure diagrams of apropriate study programmes. This course is related to the following study programmes:

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Description of 3700-ISSC-SLSC23-OG in USOSweb