Languages, Literatures and Cultures

About the Department

The Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures is home to an exciting range of degree programmes including Modern Languages (French, German, Hispanic Studies, Italian), Comparative Literature and Culture, History of Art and Visual Culture, International Film, Liberal Arts, and Translation Studies.

Our scholars are active researchers and we foster a vibrant interdisciplinary intellectual culture that informs and shapes our teaching. Most of all, we form part of a diverse, friendly, international and supportive community that can provide a launch-pad to the world. Come join us!

Useful links

LLC Facebook page Professor Sarah Wright, Head of the LLC Facebook video playlist Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures

Welcome! We can’t be together in person but I am pleased to be able to welcome you to this virtual event on campus to give you a taster of what life is like as a student in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures! This handout accompanies the Facebook Live event which is an introduction to the department followed by a Taster sample lecture. I’m going to be speaking about the Carmen myth, its appropriation and adoption through cultures and the way it raises interesting questions about gender and ethnicity. There will be a chance to ask me questions at the event either about the lecture, or about the department. I’m looking forward to seeing you there!

, Travelling Texts and Cultures in Translation: Spanishness and the Carmen Myth

Laura del Sol in Carlos Saura’s Carmen (1983) Versions of the Carmen myth:

 Prosper Mérimée’s short novella Carmen (1845)  Bizet’s opera, Carmen, Opera Comique, Paris (1875) with illustrations by Gustave Doré  Charlie Chaplin’s film Burlesque on Carmen (1915)

 Cecil B. DeMille’s silent film Carmen (1915) Beyoncé as Carmen Jones in MTV’s Carmen: A Hip Hopera (2001)  Spanish/German double-

versions Spanish co-production with Nazi Germany under supervision of Goebbels, Florián Rey’s Carmen, la de Triana and Herbert Maisch’s Andalusische Nächte (both 1938)

 Otto Preminger’s film Carmen

Jones (1955)

 Carlos Saura’s flamenco dance- film Carmen (1983)

 Robert Townsend’s Carmen: A

Hip Hopera (2001)

Exotic Travels The Oriental Woman by Léon François Comerre (undated)

Postcard from Spain from the 1950s

Some further reading:

José Colmeiro, ‘Exorcising Exoticism: Poster for Bizet’s opera 1875 Carmen and the Construction of Oriental Spain’, Comparative LiteratureVol. 54, No. 2 (Spring, 2002), pp. 127-144

Chris Perriam, Ann Davies, Carmen: From Silent Film to MTV, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005.