Remembering the Spanish Civil War Through Contemporary Literature and Film

Catalog description

This course examines the recent investigative and cultural expression of events of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), Franco Dictatorship (1939-75), and Transition to Democracy (1975-82). This cultural production parallels a push to physically excavate hundreds of Civil-War mass graves. Much like the demands to recover family members' bodies from these graves, an explicit social justice agenda is motivating novelists, playwrights, and filmmakers while they excavate the memory of these events. Through the study of contemporary Spanish literature and film, we examine the complex relationships between politics, social justice, cultural production, and the push to "recover" Spain’s historical memory.