Introduction to Contemporary Catalonia

Undergraduate / Graduate

This course provides an interdisciplinary survey of contemporary Catalonia. We study a wide range of its cultural manifestations (architecture, paintings, music, arts of the body, literature, the folkloric calendar, cinema, gastronomy) as well as its current political situation and the role that emigration and immigration play in the constitution of the Catalan identity. Attention is also paid to some sociolinguistic issues, such as the coexistence of Catalan and Spanish, and the standarization of Catalan. A couple of sessions will be devoted to acquiring a "survival Catalan."