War and Martial Arts in the Hispanic World

Catalog description

Is war simply destruction or is it also culture? Why do films, novels, and video games so often celebrate combat, turning it into spectacle, discipline, and even art? Can violence be "just"? What role does war play in modern society, and why? This course examines how war and martial arts shaped the Hispanic world early modernity. Through literary texts, visual culture, and performance, we explore how swordplay, dueling, and military training became aesthetic and ideological expressions of class, gender, religious, and racial identities. From Spanish Golden Age plays and poems to fencing manuals and colonial chronicles, students will trace how martial practices transformed identities across the early modern Atlantic. Conducted in Spanish.