Spanish Culture I

Course title: From 'Me duele España' to 'national emotions' in the political space of the current crisis.

Unit 1:
Spanish twentieth century history: an overview.
A historical overview of 20th up to the 21st century Spain will be covered, with specific insights into the end of the colonial empire, the Second Republic, the Civil War and the subsequent Franco dictatorship, the Democratic Transition up to the current scenario.

Unit 2:
Spain's cultural production between the 20th and 21st centuries.
Some important cultural productions belonging to various disciplines will be analysed (especially cinema and art), contextualising them not only within a necessary historical profile, but also introducing them to the field of cultural studies and providing insights into the theoretical foundations of mediation that outline old and new areas for future mediators, emphasising the openness towards other cultures and the potential for disciplinary hybridisation that mediation can offer.

Unit 3:
Literary products in the evolution of cultural studies: from "Me duele España" to "national emotions" in the political space of the current crisis.
How do individuals construct a cultural identity and a political positioning and what relations do they establish with the public space? What does it mean to approach historical and social phenomena "from" culture? In this last section of the course, the reading of three novels corresponding to three key moments of the Spanish democratic era will be proposed; through these readings and through a path chosen by the student, an interpretative trajectory of the historical and social phenomena that characterise contemporary and current Spain can be outlined, from the literary sphere of the black novel, through collective memory and up to the Affect Theory of cultural studies.