SPAN W3815 - Forgetting the Spanish Civil War

Institution:

Columbia University in the City of New York

Subject:

Description:

On October 31st, 2007 a polemic Historical Memory Law was passed by the Spanish Congress. The legislative initiative was only the culmination of a social and cultural change visible since the end of the 80's: After decades when the building of a new democracy made the memory of the civil war an uncomfortable issue to be avoided by politicians and the general public, an attitude best exemplified be the Amnesty Law that followed Franco's death in 1977, the arrival of a new, younger generation who had not lived under Franco demanded new models of engagement with the past. Political moves were parallel to an explosion of demand and visibility of cultural products about the war. Memory became both a suddenly urgent political issue and a profitable business for a cultural industry that was to produce and endless catalogue of best-selling novels, nostalgic coffee-table books and blockbuster films. An introductory critical reflection on some of the most influential theories of cultural memory (Huyssen, Nora, Halbwachs, Ricoeur) will be the point of departure for the analysis of a wide variety of cultural productions (historiography, film, literature, comic) focused on the civil war. The works by writers Alberto Méndez, Isaac Rosa, Muñoz Molina, Julio Llamazares, film-makes such as Guillermo del Toro, Carlos Saura, Garcia Berlanga, Agustín Villaronga or historians like Beevor, Payne, Juliá, Pío Moa, Sánchez León will be the materials from which to consider the complex mechanisms of the representations of memory and their inter-action with their socio-political context.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.columbia.edu

Phone Number:

(212) 854-1754

Regional Accreditation:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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