SELCS

The Battle for Memory in the Contemporary Spanish Novel (term 2)

Course code: SPAN4409
Course unit value: 0.5

This course will examine the changing ways in which the Spanish Civil War and subsequent dictatorship have been represented in the contemporary Spanish novel. Although Spain’s transition from Franco’s thirty-six year dictatorship to democracy has been considered a success-story, underlying tension and resentment between the opposing sides of the country’s political divide remain. A country in which the defeated of the war were treated as second-class citizens and their dead comrades excluded from official commemoration of the victims clearly has some catching up to do when it comes to national reconciliation. Spain's novelists have reflected this situation through their works, questioning the national silence over the uncomfortable past during the transition to democracy and, in more recent times, joining the national debate on how best to acknowledge both sides of the fratricidal conflict. 

This half-course unit will take in the period after the year 2000, a moment when cultural, political, and social factors combined to reopen the debate on how to discuss and remember the recent past. While some have attributed this to the maturity of Spanish democracy, others would argue that people in Spain have become conscious of the need to commemorate adequately the victims of the Civil War before their immediate family members die of old age. We shall bear these theories in mind as we assess a group of four novels that range from the false memoir to the postmodern novel and in which the emphasis often falls on the once silenced suffering of the Republicans.

Students who participate in this course will gain an insight into Spain's twentieth century history, the factors that determine its past and present political make-up, and how those have shaped debates that are continuing as we speak.

More importantly, they will also read and enjoy four thought-provoking and engaging novels from the last decade by some of the best writers of that period.

Assessment: One coursework essay (3,000 words) and one two hour exam
Tutor: Dr Gareth Wood

The secondary phase: Democracy consolidated (0.5 CU)

Primary texts

Javier Cercas, Soldados de Salamina (2001)

Isaac Rosa, El vano ayer (2004)

Alberto Méndez, Los girasoles ciegos (2004)

Film: David Trueba, Soldados de Salamina (2003)

Film: José Luis Cuerda, Los girasoles ciegos (2008)


A secondary bibliography would include:

A New History of Spanish Writing 1939 to the 1990s, ed. by Chris Perriam and others (Oxford: OUP, 2000), pp. 1-24.

Paloma Aguilar, Memory and Amnesia: The Role of the Spanish Civil War in the Transition to Democracy, trans. by Mark Gordon Oakley (London: Berghahn Books, 2000).

Raymond Carr, Spain 1808-1975, 2nd edn. (Oxford: OUP, 1982), pp. 695-770.

Helen Graham, The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: OUP, 2005)

Alexis Grohmann, Coming into one’s own: the novelistic development of Javier Marías (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001).

Jo Labanyi, ‘The language of silence: historical memory, generational transmission and witnessing in contemporary Spain’, Journal of Romance Studies, 9 (2009), 23-35.

Alicia Satorras Pons, ‘Soldados de Salamina de Javier Cercas, reflexiones sobre los héroes’, Revista Hispánica Moderna, 56 (2003), 227-45.

Robert C. Spires, Beyond the Metafictional Mode – Directions in the Modern Spanish Novel (Lexington: Kentucky University Press, 1984).

Jeremy Treglown, ‘“A heartless craft”: Spain’s memory wars’, The Dublin Review, 28 (2007),34-56.