Film and the visual arts in Spain, Latin America, and/or the US will be studied under different approaches in order to: understand the historical evolution of film making within these contexts; examine the different film genres (surrealism, neorealism, melodrama, film noir, Hollywood realism, animation, documentary, etc.) in their Hispanic contexts; study the body of work of renowned Latino, Spanish, and Latin American filmmakers and visual artists; analyze important cultural or historical events through their visual representations (the Mexican Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, the Cuban Revolution, end of Francoism, etc.); etc. Students will become familiar with relevant concepts in film analysis, film theory, and cultural studies and learn how issues of representation in the visual arts are linked to their literary counterparts. Spanish courses numbered 40 and above may be repeated for credit when offered as different topics. Prerequisite: SPAN 20.
Winter 2023: Spanish 63.12: Got Las Meninas? Spanish Visual Culture and Baroque Imaginaries.
Created in 1656 by the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez, 'Las meninas' is one of the greatest European paintings of all times, and by far one of the most analyzed, theorized, and adapted works of art in Modern history. Like many Spanish Baroque artifacts, 'Las Meninas' resembles a puzzle that calls for more than one strategy to assemble its pieces together. In this course students will approach El Prado Museum's most visited work using various strategies vis-à-vis literary classics from Baroque Spain and 20th/21st century scholarship on the Empire and Power, Domesticity, Gender and Sexuality, Court Life, Material Culture and Baroque art. We will also study textual and visual adaptations that rework some of Velázquez's obsessions. Our goal is to study political, cultural and practical contexts that shed light onto Velázquez's time and our own ways of interpreting it. Dist.: ART; WCult.: W. Professor Noelia Cirnigliaro.
Spring 2023: Spanish 63.01: Latin American Film.
In this survey of Latin American film we will study the Mexican Golden Age of film (1936-1969), Cuba's revolutionary film (Lucia) as well as other radical films of the 60s (Sangre del condor), and women's films. We will end looking at the most important production coming out of Latin America today such as the films of Francisco Lombardi, Claudia Llosa, Lucrecia Martel and others. We will also study important film manifestos. Dist.: ART; WCult.: NW. Professor Silvia Spitta.