Introductory description

HP210-15 Memory and the Spanish Civil War: Virtual Approaches to a Contested Past

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Week

Introduction: Public History and Memory
Online documents and digital communication
War as Propaganda and Media Event: Visual sources
How Should We Remember Atrocities? Arguments about numbers and language
What to do About Monuments and Memorials?
Reading Week
How to Analyse War Memories on Screen: La vaquilla (Berlanga)
How to Analyse War Memories in Narrative: El lápiz del carpintero (Rivas)
How to Analyse Exhumation Photography: The After-Lives of the Dead
Conclusion and essay consultation

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Discuss the key memory debates that relate to the Spanish Civil War
• Gain experience working with and evaluating primary sources, and assess existing digital resources
• Engage in independent research with a range of primary sources and communicate effectively in digital form the results of their research
• Understand the relevance of the past for the present and the role of public history in providing guidance for action in the present
• Evaluate literary and film texts (both individually and in a group) and be able to present in either oral or written form an essay that examines the context, content, and significance of a narrative work
• Understand and explain the relation between late twentieth- and twenty-first-century fiction and film and their historical and political contexts, evaluate contemporary theories of memory and identify the problematic issues they raise with respect to commemoration

Research element

The premise is the construction of a Virtual Museum of the Spanish Civil War, and students will work on the memory section. They will identify, research, and write an exhibition entry for an object/document/image or film clip that reveals significant elements of the memory debates surrounding the Spanish Civil War today. Students will have to engage with the possibilities of digital and virtual presentation.

Interdisciplinary

Students will engage with the possibilities of digital and virtual presentation formats as a means of foregrounding contentious historical debates and reaching a wider public than academic writing.

International

All modules delivered in SMLC are necessarily international. Students engage with themes and ideas from a culture other than that of the UK and employ their linguistic skills in the analysis of primary materials from a non-Anglophone context. Students will also be encouraged to draw on the experiences of visiting exchange students in the classroom and will frequently engage with theoretical and critical frameworks from across the world.

Subject specific skills

This module will develop students’ linguistic skills through engaging with primary materials in the target language. It will build students’ capacity to engage with aspects of Hispanic culture through analysis of this primary material and through seminar discussion aimed at deeper critical thinking. In particular, students’ awareness of contemporary Spain will be enhanced through lectures and seminars which engage in scholarship in the field. Students will also gain an understanding of the potential of digital resources in memory work, and in interpreting and explaining primary sources.

Transferable skills

All SMLC culture modules demand critical and analytical engagement with artefacts from target-language cultures. In the course of independent study, class work and assessment students will develop the following skills: written and oral communication, creative and critical thinking, problem solving and analysis, time management and organisation, independent research in both English and their target language(s), intercultural understanding and the ability to mediate between languages and cultures, ICT literacy in both English and the target language(s), personal responsibility and the exercise of initiative.