Unit name | Modern Culture & the Reworking of the Past |
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Unit code | HISP31029 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | H/6 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
Unit director | Professor. Ginger |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
None |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Department of Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
The twenty-first century so far has been marked by an obsession with the past. Politicians, cultural figures, and (in Latin America) revolutionaries have returned to supposed founding moments of the modern world in search of inspiration for the present. At the same time, there is an increased awareness of how much a consciousness of history shaped the modern period of culture continuously from its very beginnings. This has changed our understanding of what it means to be ‘modern’. This module explores how this experience of the past has shaped visions of Spain and Latin America through the development of visual culture, including cinema, from the revolutions of 1808 through to the present day. We will study four films and a selection of other images.
Aims:
Successful students will:
Two seminar hours per week across one teaching block (22 contact hours)
5000 word essay (100%)
Bolívar soy yo (2001), dir. Jorge Alí Triana
Selected paintings and photographs: Manet, Lucas, Laurent, Clifford, Picasso, Kahlo (details to be supplied in course documentation)
¡Que viva México! (1931), dir. Sergei Eisenstein
Frida (2002), dir Julie Taymoor
Como agua para chocolate (1992), dir. Alfonso Arau
Additional prescribed readings for seminar topics in coursebook