This paper is available for the academic year 2025-26.
Sp9 paper covers more than a century of literature, film, and art produced not only in Spain, and in Spanish, but also in other languages of the Spanish state that extend beyond its physical borders in relation to Spain’s colonial holdings. Students who completed SP4 in Part IB will find a wealth of new material and ideas to explore. Those who have not followed Iberian-centered courses in the past will encounter a rich variety of cultures from the late nineteenth century to the present. The material is grouped into four broad topics which allow students to approach varied artistic, cultural, historical, and political questions. The topics are porous, meaning that texts from any given topic are often relevant to other topics. Students should therefore feel free to explore alternative connections and combinations as they prepare for the written exam.
'Genealogical Fictions' examines questions related to politics, gender, and power in Restoration-era Spain. The four lectures will focus on two important novels from the late nineteenth century. 'Experiments in Form' covers literary experimentation in Spain from the avant-garde period, centering on questions of vision, fragmentation, gender, sexuality and politics in the first three decades of the twentieth century. 'Writing Memory' explores questions related to the writing of the nation, as well as the writing of the self in a range of works from the Francoist dictatorship to the present. 'Spain in Crisis' looks at a series of intersecting crises (democracy; gendered labor; migration; climate change) in twenty-first century Spain through the prism of the financial crash of 2008.
NB: Many key texts can be found online for free at www.gutenberg.org or http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/.
MICHAELMAS TERM 2025
‘Genealogical Fictions’
Primary texts:
Emilia Pardo Bazán, Los Pazos de Ulloa (1886)
Leopoldo Alas (“Clarín”), Su único hijo (1891)
Seminar Readings:
Excerpts from Pedro Felipe Monlau’s Higiene del matrimonio, o el libro de los casados (1865) - available on Moodle
‘Experiments in Form’
Primary texts:
José Ortega y Gasset, La deshumanización del arte (1925)
Ramón del Valle-Inclán, Luces de bohemia (1920)
Rafael Alberti, Sobre los ángeles (1929)
Federico García Lorca, El público (1929-1930)
Seminar reading:
Viktor Shklovsky, "Art as Technique"
Bertolt Brecht, "Theatre for Pleasure and Theatre for Instruction"
LENT TERM 2025
‘Writing Memory’
Primary texts:
Carmen Laforet, Nada (1945)
Jaime Gil de Biedma, Las personas del verbo (1975)
Donato Ndongo, Las tinieblas de tu memoria negra (1987)
Helena Tornero, No hables con extraños: fragmentos de memoria (2013)
Limam Boisha, Ya calló la lluvia (2019)
Seminar reading:
Marianne Hirsch, "The Generation of Postmemory." Poetics Today 29:1 (Spring 2008)
Jo Labanyi, "Memory and Modernity in Democratic Spain: The Difficulty of Coming to Terms with the Spanish Civil War." Poetics Today 28:1 (Spring 2007)
‘Spain in Crisis’
Primary texts:
Pere Portabella, Informe general II. El nuevo rapto de Europa (2015)
Alejandro González Iñárritu, Biutiful (2010)
Carlos Vermut, Magical Girl (2014)
Oliver Laxe, O que arde (2019) / Rodrigo Sorogoyen, As bestas (2022)
Seminar readings:
Lauren Berlant, “Cruel Optimism,” Cruel Optimism (23-49)
- The History of Modern Spain: Chronologies, Themes, Individuals, edited by Adrian Shubert and José Álvarez Junco (2017)
- The Modern Spain Sourcebook, edited by Aurora Morcillo, et al. (2018)
- Spanish Literature: a Very Short Introduction by Jo Labanyi (2010)
- El cine español: una historia cultural by Vicente Benet (2012)
- Spanish National Cinema by Nuria Triana-Toribio (2004)
Teaching is provided through 17 lectures (4/5 hours on each topic) with an introductory seminar for each topic (4 hours total). Students should also receive 8 fortnightly supervisions (plus revision support in Easter term for the exam). You are expected to attend all lectures for the paper. In supervisions you should expect to look at all the topics. Please self-enroll on the SP9 page on Moodle (no password required) for more information.
SP9 in 2026: Timed exam in person without access to resources. Students will compose three essays related to three of the four modules on offer.
Essays may be written in either English or Spanish, using only one language for each individual response.
Candidates for this paper may not draw substantially on material from their dissertations or material which they have used or intend to use in another scheduled paper. Candidates may not draw substantially on the same material in more than one question on the same paper.
It is possible to offer an Optional Dissertation in place of the SP9 exam.
Dr Bryan Cameron |
