Memory, Mobility, and Space in Contemporary Spain

3 units

From the mythical medieval convivencia to the nineteenth-century notion that Africa begins at the Pyrenees, from the two Spains, to Spain is Different, from the Pacto del Olvido to the recuperation of historical memory, from Una, Grande, y Libre to Catalonia is not Spain, from en España se vive bien to the predicaments of the Generación Noqueada, discourses over identity and belonging in contemporary Spain have been fraught with conflicts and contradictions. Recent theoretical approaches to memory, mobility, and space provide productive perspectives that make it possible to examine these conflicts and contradictions. Thus, in addition to examining the key debates within Spanish Cultural Studies from the 1990s to the present, the course provides students with theoretical and methodological tools, stemming from such fields as Memory Studies, Migration Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Spatial Humanities, and Transatlantic Studies. Readings include works by Aleida Assmann, Max Aub, Américo Castro, Javier Cercas, Tim Creswell, Helen Graham, David Harvey, Anne Knowles, Federico García Lorca, Paul Gilroy, Juan Goytisolo, Susan Martin Márquez, María Rosa Menocal, Antonio Muñoz Molina, Michael Rothberg, and Edward Said. We will also watch films by Iciar Bollaín and Fernando León de Aranoa, Emilio Martínez Lázaro, and Julio Medem. Prereq: Graduate Standing. In Spanish.