CORE 191 Spain (Fall '17)

Covers diverse aspects of “Spanish” society, history, and culture, past and present. Tracing Spain’s cultural self-image and national identities through its encounters with war, fascism, democracy, and societal transformations during our global era, students explore its place in the world, its collective struggles, its encounters and negotiations of diversity, and how these have been understood and contested by “Spaniards” themselves. Drawing on fictional works, art, music, and ethnographic texts, a significant portion of the course examines peoples’ everyday lives in contexts of violence, war, and socio-cultural change. In sum, students grapple with an inherent paradox in the study of “Spain”: the failure to create a homogenous national identity and a coherent, commonly shared historical memory.