This paper is available for the academic year 2024-25.
This paper covers more than a century of literature, film and art produced not only in Spain, and in Spanish, but also the other languages of the Spanish state that extend beyond its physical borders in relation to Spain’s colonial holdings. Students who studied SP4 in Part IB will find a wealth of new material and ideas to explore and some revisions of previously presented materials.. Those who have not followed Peninsular focused courses before will encounter a rich variety of cultures from the early nineteenth-century to the present day. The material is grouped into four broad topics which allow students to approach varied 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.
'Genealogical Fictions' examines questions related to education, degeneration, politics, art versus science, gender, power, city and country 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, centring 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 late nineteenth century to the late 1980s. 'Spain in Crisis' explores the forty-year legacy of democracy in Spain from the Transition in the mid 1970s to the present. Students will be asked to screen a series of films that look back at this period through the prism of the financial crash of 2008 and the culture of crisis permeating Spain and other Western nation-states in the wake of the neoliberal turn.
NB: Many key texts can be found online for free at www.gutenberg.org or http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/.
MICHAELMAS TERM 2024
‘Writing Memory’
Primary texts:
Donato Ndongo: Las tinieblas de tu memoria negra (1983)
Gabriela Wiener, Huaco Retrato (2021)
Limam Boica, Ya cayó la lluvia (2019)
Javier Cercas, Soldados de Salamina (2001)
Seminar reading:
Cathy Caruth, “Introduction: The Wound and the Voice,” Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History (1-9).
‘Experiments in Form’
Jacinto Esteva and Joaquín Jordà, Dante no es únicamente severo (1967)
Cecilia Bartolomé, Margarita y el lobo (1969)
José Luis Guerín, Tren de sombras (1997)
Iván Zulueta, Arrebato (1979)
Seminar reading:
Mary Anne Doane, “The Instant and the Archive,” The Emergence of Cinematic Time: Modernity, Contingency, the Archive (206-232).
LENT TERM 2025
‘Genealogical Fictions’
Primary texts:
Emilia Pardo Bazán, Los Pazos de Ulloa (1886)
Leopoldo Alas (“Clarín”), Su único hijo (1891)
Seminar Readings:
Excerpts: Pedro Felipe Monlau’s Higiene del matrimonio, o el libro de los casados (1865)
Excerpts: Ángel Pulido Fernández Bosquejos médico-sociales para la mujer (1874)
Edward Said, “Secular Criticism,” The World, the Text, and the Critic (1-30).
‘Spain in Crisis’
Primary texts:
Pere Portabella: Informe general sobre algunas cuestiones públicas de interés para una proyección pública (1976) / Pere Portabella: Informe general II. El nuevo rapto de Europa (2015)
Alejandro González Iñárritu, Biutiful (2010) / Fernando León de Aranoa, Amador (2010)
Carlos Vermut, Magical Girl (2014) / Belén Funes, La hija de un ladrón (2019)
Oliver Laxe, O que arde (2019) / Rodrigo Sorogoyen, As bestas (2022)
Seminar readings:
1. Lauren Berlant, “Cruel Optimism,” Cruel Optimism (23-49)
2. Excerpts: Manuel Castells, Rupture: The Crisis of Liberal Democracy
- Brenan, G. The Spanish Labyrinth (1950)
- Shubert, A. A Social History of Modern Spain (1990)
- Labanyi, Jo. Spanish Literature: a Very Short Introduction (2010)
- Triana Toribio, N. Spanish National Cinema (2004)
Teaching is provided through 16 lectures (4 hours on each topic) with an introductory seminar for each topic. The introductory seminars for both topics will take place in week one in order to allow and even encourage students to move between the topics. Students also receive 8 fortnightly supervisions (plus revision support in Easter term if offering the exam). You are expected to attend all lectures for the paper. In supervisions you should expect to look at all the topics. Each term students will write one supervision essay entirely in Spanish. Additionally, SP9 students will have the option to attend one supervision per term, which will be conducted entirely in Spanish. Students will have the option to write one revision essay in Spanish during Easter Term although the vast majority of the feedback will centre on content and not issues related to grammar, lexis, spelling, syntax, etc. NB there is no requirement to answer in Spanish in the examination, although candidates have the option to do so. Please see SP9's Moodle page. The enrolment password can be collected from the paper coordinator.
SP9 2025: The examination will consist of two parts:
1) Lent term Coursework Essay
Answer one question. You should make reference to two or more works in your answer.
You should write no more than 1,800 words.
Essays will be due for submission at the start of the Easter term (the precise date and time to be announced in due course.)
2) Easter Exam (3h timed online)
Answer two questions, no more than one from any section. Do not answer the questions from the section you have worked on in your Lent Coursework Essay. Each answer should be no longer than 1,500 words in length, not including the bibliography.
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 SP9.
Dr Bryan Cameron |
