Literature and cinema in contemporary Spain

Language

Spanish

Prerequisites

Consolidated B2 level in Spanish. 

Main themes

We shall study a part of the Spanish contemporary literature and cinema from a particular perspective: the representation in relation to dominant cultural and literary currents and specific social, political, economic and ecological circumstances in contemporary Spain. 

Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :
1	identify the main historical and social stages of demographic movements between town and country in literary texts and films from 20th and 21st century Spain; be able to establish links between these developments and the environmental situation in contemporary Spain;
2	characterise the literary and cinematographic representation of rurality in relation to specific literary and cultural trends (social realism in the 1950s, neo-gothic in the 21st century, etc.);
3	produce an analysis of the representation of rurality that builds bridges between the cultural or literary tradition in which the work is set and given socio-economic, political and ecological circumstances.
This learning unit contributes to the development and command of the following skills and learning outcomes of the ELAL programmes (ELAL learning outcomes): 2.7, 3.2,3.5, 4.1, 4.2, 4.4

Content

The course will begin by defining the notion of rurality, on geographical and demographic bases, before analysing its representation in two ways. The first will be historical, highlighting the evolution of literary and cinematographic representations of rurality in relation to political and socio-economic developments in Spain in the 20th century. The authors covered will be : Antonio Machado, Luis Buñuel, Federico García Lorca, Ana María Matute and Miguel Delibes. The second part of the course will focus on the Spanish neo-rural narrative, typical of the last decade (2013-2023). Several case studies will be analysed within an interdisciplinary framework, where filmic and literary analysis will be conducted within the interdisciplinary framework of environmental studies. Some more specific issues will be addressed, such as community, the return of the gothic genre, contradictory models of ecological transition, etc. 

Teaching methods

The course will alternate between lectures, discussions of articles presented by small groups of students and literary or film analyses. 

Evaluation methods

Participation in the course will be subject to continuous assessment (20%). The examination will be oral and will include the defense of an essay done by pairs (40%) and a question on the course (40%). At the September session, only the oral examination will be taken into account, each part of which will be worth 50%. 

Other information

Compulsory reading novels can be borrowed from the library. 

Online resources

Articles and texts available on Moodle.

Bibliography

Champeau, Geneviève. (2019) “La novela neorrural actual entre distopía y retro-utopía”. La España vacía, X. Escudero (ed.), HispanismeS 11. 16-34. 
Diez Cobo, Rosa María (2017). “Páramos humanos: retóricas del espacio vacío en La lluvia amarilla de Julio Llamazares y en la novela neorrural española”. Siglo XXI. Literatura y Cultura Españolas, 15, 13-25.  
 Domene, Pedro M. (ed.) (2018) Neorrurales. Antología de poetas de campo. Córdoba : Berenice. 
 Entrena-Durán, Francisco. (2020)  “La ruralidad en España: de la mitificación conservadora al neorruralismo”. Cuadernos de desarrollo rural, 9. (69). 39-65. 
Molino, Sergio del. (2016) La España vacía. Viaje por un país que nunca fue. Madrid : Turner. 
Mora, Vicente Luis. (2018) “Líneas de fuga neorrurales de la literatura española contemporánea”. Tropelías. Revista de Teoría de la Literatura y Literatura Comparada, número extraordinario 4. 198-221. 
Prádanos, Luis I. (ed.). Dossier especial: “Ecocrítica ibérica contemporánea y nuevos materialismos”.  Letras Hispanas. Volume 13, 2017. 155-285. 
Prádanos, Luis I. Postgrowth imaginaries : new ecologies and counterhegemonic culture in post-2008 Spain. Liverpool : Liverpool university press, 2018. 
Williams, Raymond. The Country and the City. London, Chatto & Windus, 1973. 
ETC. 

Teaching materials

• LESP2840. Anthologie. Textes de référence.

Faculty or entity

> ELAL