Module Code: HP309
Module Name: From Dictatorship to Democracy: Comparative Perspectives on Contemporary Spain and Portugal
Module Tutor: Dr. João Pedro Vicente Faustino
Term 1
Module Credits: 15

Module Description

How does a country move from a long dictatorship to a democracy? What legacies does this leave behind for later generations? In this module we will explore briefly the historical and political context of Spain and Portugal under dictatorship, and then concentrate on how writers and film directors responded to the repressive Franco and Salazar regimes. Finally, we will discuss how artists in each country and in different historical moments envisaged democracy.

Spain and Portugal endured the two longest lasting dictatorships in Western Europe in the 20^th century. Since the mid-1970’s, they likewise engaged in parallel processes of transition to and consolidation of democracies. This module takes a comparative approach to literary and film texts, reading them in their socio-political context. It examines artistic resistance and subversion under the later years of the Franco and Salazar dictatorships, followed by contemporary literary responses to the establishment and consolidation of democracy. Our focus will be on narrative modes of representing history and of subverting socio-political realities. We shall discuss how the texts explore subjects such as memory, gender, war/violence, notions of justice and reckoning, and processes of social inclusion and exclusion, in relation to both dictatorial and democratic regimes. Students will gain a solid understanding of modern Spain and Portugal, and of key developments in these nations' narrative and artistic traditions, drawing on complementary cinematic sources to broaden the range of cultural reference. Students will be encouraged to engage in close textual readings in order to understand how fictional and historical narratives may intersect in different media, and how cultural and intertextual echoes may function as strategies for subverting prevailing socio-political norms.

Primary Texts:

Films (provided in Moodle):

Carlos Saura, La caza/The Hunt

Paulo Rocha, Os Verdes Anos/The Green Years

Novels:

Carmen Martín Gaite, El cuarto de atrás/The Back Room

Lídia Jorge, A Costa dos Murmúrios/The Murmuring Coast

Javier Marías, Corazón tan blanco/A Heart So White

José Saramago, Ensaio Sobre a Cegueira/Blindness

Assessment Method: