Religion in Modern Spanish Lit

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

During the 19th and 20th centuries many European intellectuals attempted to explain and define “religion” often in an effort to explain it away. Friedrich Nietzsche’s madman famously declared that God was dead and Sigmund Freud maintained that religion was nothing more than an illusion. Others assured that religion was soon to disappear and that science and art would occupy the space that it once held. In this course we will examine how several 19th- and 20th-century Spanish writers attempted to represent the changing definitions of religion, challenges to them, and religion’s supposed disappearance. Through an exploration of the fictional worlds these authors create, we will grapple with the questions these writers so desperately tried to answer: Was religion disappearing? Was it being replaced? Was it transforming? If so, what did this mean for Spain during this time? What would it mean for Spain’s future?