Spanish 340 - Topic: Memory of War

The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the repressive, right-wing military regime of Francisco Franco (1939-1975) have shaped contemporary thought and cultural production in Spain. Cinema in particular shows a persistent concern with war and memory. The films studied in this course raise a number of philosophical and political questions to this effect. How does the devastation of war register through the medium of film? How do censorship and propaganda condition memory, and how does the past return in a postdictatorship? What and why do people choose to remember or to forget? Films to be studied include both mainstream commercial features and experimental works, and range in genre.

Prereq: Two courses in Spanish beyond Span-212