The Spanish Civil War in Text Designed by Sarah Glenski
THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR IN TEXT DESIGNED BY SARAH GLENSKI COURSE DESCRIPTION & OBJECTIVES Political strife is something that has pervaded modern Spain. During the nineteenth century, the nation was plagued by a series of internal conflicts, the Carlist wars, in which vying factions fought for the right to the throne. A polarization of ideologies continued into the twentieth century. In 1931, the Second Republic, a liberal, democratically-elected government, came to power, yet the Nationalists, a group of right-wing rebels led by Francisco Franco, challenged and ultimately defeated the Republic during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). In many ways, Spain’s war prefigured World War II (1939-1945), yet fascism was not defeated in Spain. After the war, Franco implemented a fascist dictatorship that lasted until his death in 1975. The war left its mark on the nation in the decades that followed and continues to plague national consciousness to this day. In this course, students will come to understand the political and historical context of the Spanish Civil War and Postwar through a close analysis of a wide array of texts, such as photography, art, narrative, film, and graphic novel. Just as the texts are of various genres, they are of differing political ideologies, points of view, and publication dates, which allow us to approach the war from many angles. Besides analyzing the texts for content, we will contemplate how the texts, which are organized thematically, dialogue with each other both within and beyond their thematic groupings. At the heart of our analyses, we will question what a civil war means for a nation, by considering the diversity of portrayed experiences of Spain’s war and the role of memory.
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