MA Modern Languages and Cultures / Course details

This course focuses on contemporary literary and visual cultural texts from Spain and their approach to memories of the dictatorship of General Franco and the post-Franco years (commonly known as the Spanish transition to democracy).These cultural artefacts will be put in dialogue with a select number of critical texts about the Spanish transition and with a selection of theoretical readings about memory. As a result students will become familiar with current issues in Spanish cultural studies and with wider academic and social debates about the unresolved legacy of Francoism in contemporary Spain. Students will analyse and compare different cultural forms, particularly literature and film but also photography and embodied  performance, in order to evaluate how these media are relevant ways to express and reflect on personal and collective memories in post-Franco Spain. The course will be taught and assessed in English; primary sources and some secondary sources will be read in Spanish.

Available on which programme(s)?: SPLAS

Available as Free Choice (UG) or to other programmes (PG)?: Yes, subject to Spanish language requirements.

Available to students on an Erasmus programme: Yes

Medium of language: English, though primary sources and some secondary sources will be in English.

By the end of this course students will be able to

• Understand and compare a relevant selection of cultural artefacts and theoretical texts related to memory in post-Franco Spain;
• Apply a number of relevant concepts from cultural studies and memory studies to inform their analysis of a series of contemporary Spanish literary and audiovisual works
• Formulate informed opinions about the relations between cultural texts and wider debates about the unresolved legacy and memory of Francoism in contemporary Spain.

By the end of this course students will be familiar with:

• Key episodes and events from the dictatorship of Franco and the Spanish transition to democracy;
• Alternative and conflicting historical accounts of the dictatorship of Franco and the Spanish transition;
• Ongoing debates in Spanish society, politics and media about the legacy and memories of Francoism;
• A selection of relevant Spanish literary works and films;
• Relevant concepts of cultural studies, especially in relation to memory.

By the end of this course students will have enhanced their ability to:

• Draw out an informed analysis of literary works and films, based on relevant theoretical and methodological tools;
• Understand and apply concepts and theories in the field of Spanish cultural studies;
• Understand complex historical processes and conflicting accounts of the latter;
• Evaluate the relevance of history and memory in contemporary society;
• Evaluate the possible roles of literature and film in wider debates and struggles over memory.

By the end of this course students will have enhanced their ability to:

• Draw out textual and visual analysis that are informed by relevant theoretical concepts;
• Clearly structure their arguments about literature, film, memory and related issues;
• Participate productively in class debates;
• Independently conduct a small-scale research project about literature and/or film.

By the end of this course students will have improved the following skills and qualities:

• Debate and write with clarity about complex ideas;
• Empathise with struggles and debates over violent pasts;
• Intercultural awareness.

General readings on memory in post-Franco Spain: 

Cardús i Ros, Salvador. “Politics and the Invention of Memory. For a Sociology of the Transition to Democracy in Spain.” Disremembering the Dictatorship. The Politics of Memory in the Spanish Transition to Democracy. Ed. Joan Ramon Resina. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi, 2000. 17-28.  

Labanyi, Jo. “Memory and Modernity in Democratic Spain: The Difficulty of Coming to Terms with the Spanish Civil War.” Poetics Today 28.1 (2007): 89-116. 

Theories and methodologies of literature and film in relation to memory: 

Faber, Sebastiaan. Memory Battles of the Spanish Civil War: History, Fiction, Photography. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2018. (selected fragments) 

Labanyi, Jo. “History and Hauntology; or, What Does One Do with the Ghosts of the Past? Reflections on Spanish Film and Fiction of the Post-Franco Period.” Disremembering the Dictatorship. The Politics of Memory in the Spanish Transition to Democracy. Ed. Joan Ramon Resina. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi, 2000. 65-82. 

Studies related to primary sources: 

Ribeiro de Menezes, Alison. “¿Una agonía esperpéntica? Shifting Memory Horizons and Carnivalesque Representations of the Spanish Civil War and Franco Dictatorship”. Bulletin of Spanish Studies 91 (1-2, 2014): 239-253. 

Santana, Mario. “Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s Los mares del Sur and the Incrimination of the Spanish Transition.” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 34 (2000): 535-559. 

Whittaker, Tom. “Crime, Knowledge and the Photographic Object in La isla mínima.” Hispanic Research Journal 19.1 (2018): 41-54. 

Radcliff, Pamela Beth. “Imagining Female Citizenship in the ‘New Spain’: Gendering the Democratic Transition, 1975–1978.” Gender & History 13.3 (2001): 498-523.