Debating Cultures:Redes/ Networks: Digital Cultures in 21st-Century Spain

3 units

This is a discussion-based course that examines from interdisciplinary and collaborative perspectives the new digital cultures emerging in Spain during the first two decades of the 21st century. Shaping and connecting an innovative series of creative, political, artistic, and social redes or networks, the emergence of new digital media has radically changed the cultural forms produced and circulated in Spain today. How do these different digital networks function, in what ways are these redes formed, and to what extent have they changed the material, ideological, and social ramifications of culture in the 21st century? The course explores a wide range of cultural materials specifically connected to particular redes or digital networks emerging in Spain in the last two decades. The materials studied will range from digital literatures--such as poetry (Alex Saum-Pascual), graphic novels (Fernandez Mallo), alternative forms of literary and cultural journalism--to music (Rosalia), visual arts (Varvara & Mar), cinema (Chus Gutierrez, digital shorts from notodofilmfest), as well as the generation of new forms of social activism (such as the #8M feminist movement) and alternative political communities (15-M). We will also examine in particular the role of new media platforms (YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook) in the contemporary production and circulation of digital culture. Students will have a strong, mandatory and graded oral component. Course taught in Spanish. Prior or concurrent enrollment in Spanish 303 is required. Students who have taken more than two Spanish culture or literature classes are not allowed in this course and must proceed to a Researching Cultures class.