This paper is available for the academic year 2024-25.
This page is up-to-date for the texts to be taught during the 2024-25 academic year.
SP4 offers an overview of Spanish culture from the late eighteenth century to the present. Each of the paper’s thematic units will situate a range of cultural production—literature, cinema, visual materials (painting, etchings, cartoons, photography), and state legislation—within its cultural, social, and political contexts. Deploying a patently historical focus, SP4 will require students to develop knowledge of major events and central figures in modern Spanish culture while considering artistic representation as an index of the times in which these artists lived and worked. While the historical component of the paper will be emphasized in lectures, seminars, and supervisions, students will be required to engage a number of intersecting fields (literary studies, cultural studies, and cinema studies) over the course of the academic year.
NB: Many key texts can be found online for free at www.gutenberg.org or http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/
Topics taught in Michaelmas 2024:
The Darker Side of Modernity
Francisco de Goya, Los desastres de la guerra (1810-20) PRINTS
José María Blanco White, Bosquejo del comercio de esclavos (1814) ESSAY
Mariano José de Larra, “Literatura” (1836) and “El día de difuntos de 1836” (1836) ARTICLES
José Zorrilla, Don Juan Tenorio (1844) PLAY
(Post-) Imperial Fictions
Benito Pérez Galdós, Tormento (1884) NOVEL
Jose Rizal, “Como se gobiernan las Filipinas” (1890) and José Martí, “Nuestra América” (1891) ESSAY
Emilia Pardo Bazán, “La exangüe” (1899) and “El rompecabezas” (1899) SHORT STORIES
Topics taught in Lent 2025:
The Problem of Spain
Carmen Laforet: Nada (1945) NOVEL
José Antonio Nieves Conde: Surcos (1851) FILM
Carlos Saura: La caza (1966) FILM
Victor Erice: El espiritu de la colmena (1973) FILM
Spain beyond Spain
Carmen de Burgos: En la guerra (1909) NOVELLA
Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, Sab (1841) NOVEL
Javier Fernández Vázquez, Anunciaron tormenta (2020) FILM
Najat El Hachmi, El lunes nos querrán (1985) NOVEL
You are strongly encouraged to read as many texts as possible from the reading list over the summer vacation. At a minimum, however, please prepare Benito Pérez Galdós's Tormento before arriving in Michaelmas Term. We also ask that you read Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda's Sab prior to the start of Lent Term.
Teaching is provided through 16 lectures (4 hours on each topic) and four introductory seminars (1 for each topic). Students receive 8 fortnightly supervisions (plus revision support in Easter term if offering the exam). You are expected to attend all classes for the paper. In supervisions you should expect to look at all the topics.
For full reading list, please see SP4's Moodle page. The enrolment password can be collected from the paper coordinator.
Assessment is by 5-hour examination in which candidates answer three questions, in each response making reference to at least two texts, films or artists. Examination Candidates must provide one answer based on one of the novels (Tormento, Sab, Nada, or El lunes nos querrán) taught in the paper.
This paper is also available for examination by Long Essay.
Dr Rebecca Fell (Paper coordinator) |
