Between Local and Global: Contemporary Iberian Cultures and Identities
SPAN 262
Fall 2012 not offered
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| Crosslisting:
IBST 262, COL 277 |
How do artists respond locally to global culture during times of profound social change? This question will guide us in our analysis of Spanish film, fiction, theater, art, and music of the past four decades (1977 to the present). The dominant trends of this period--economic development, immigration, informational technology, and the consolidation of democracy--have given rise to a multilingual and transcultural society whose tensions it shares broadly with other European and American societies. As elsewhere, the close proximity and regular intermingling of peoples from different linguistic, cultural, and national backgrounds raise new questions concerning identity, both individual and collective, concerning, that is, the means by which individuals construct their sense of community and the rules and assumptions by which they interact. Our objective in this course is to analyze the particular way in which Spanish filmmakers, novelists, and playwrights, visual artists and musicians address these concerns as they represent--and thereby propagate--new understandings of identity within this fluid social framework. We will concentrate primarily on film (Pedro Almodóvar), theater, literature, art, music and dance (flamenco), and the media and on such issues as the popular versus the elite, the present and past (historical memory), gay and straight, native and foreign, and national and regional. We will also seek to relate these literary and artistic works to key events (exhibits, performances), to sites of special significance (urban, institutional, monumental), and to high-profile practices (cuisine) to bring into focus the network of hidden correlations and ideologies that define Spanish culture today. In doing so, we will pay special attention to how Spaniards defend local cultural formulations against the homogenizing dominance of global systems. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA RLAN |
| Course Format: Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (RMST) |
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