EU0385: Women's Voices in Contemporary Spain

School null
Department Code null
Module Code EU0385
External Subject Code R430
Number of Credits 20
Level L6
Language of Delivery English
Module Leader Dr Montserrat Lunati
Semester Autumn Semester
Academic Year 2013/4

Outline Description of Module

This module deals with literary (novels and short stories) and visual (films) texts produced by women in Spain in the last thirty years. The module has an historical, interdisciplinary and intertextual approach that facilitates interconnected readings of the texts selected for in-depth analysis. The core texts are representative of women writers and filmmakers from different parts of Spain in order to include a rich cultural variety. Questions central to the module may include: identity and representation; textual construction of gender; female development; authorship and authority; cultural agency; female ‘alterity’ as a space for change and transformation; mother-daughter relationships and mothers as (a)historical subjects; critical dialogues with literary and cinematic traditions; gender/domestic violence; gender and trauma; silence as a strategy to disrupt hegemonic discourses; representation of illness and the medicalisation of women’s bodies; irony as a catalyst in ’disobedient’ discourses; and the recuperation of the historical memory of Republican women.

Knowledge of a selection of key theoretical approaches to narratology, feminism, social and cultural history, psychoanalysis, poststructuralism and postmodernism are also part of the module in order to enable students to engage with the texts under study in an informed and scholarly manner.

On completion of the module a student should be able to

  • Show perception of women’s authorial production in the fields of cinema and literature produced in the different cultures of post-totalitarian Spain and relate it to its historical, social and cultural context
  • Demonstrate a high level of awareness, and the ability to argue and rebut a case, justifying their own viewpoint, as appropriate to the module
  • Show ability to present arguments in a structured, logical and coherent manner, and the capacity for analysing complex verbal and visual texts
  • Show ability to articulate close textual readings of significant passages/ sequences/ instances of the texts studied in class, both verbal and visual
  • Demonstrate basic word-processing skills

How the module will be delivered

This module is organised around 20 lectures and all students will also attend at least 8 seminars. Two weekly classes normally take the form of a lecture and one weekly class that of a seminar (for 8 weeks of the semester). Preparation for and participation in seminars is essential: students have the opportunity to make presentations or participate in group discussions of topics related to the module content. Seminars provide the opportunity for detailed exploration of selected aspects and themes of the texts under study. Lectures provide the knowledge students are expected to acquire together with guidance for independent reading and advice on how to deliver the assessed work required to pass the module successfully.

Skills that will be practised and developed

1.    Intellectual Skills

·         Analyse verbal and visual texts independently, using a range of theoretical framework appropriate for undergraduate level

·         Engage critically with major intellectual debates within the field of historical, social, cultural, literary and visual studies and put them to productive use

·         Relate the texts under study to the historical and political context in which they have been produced

2.    Discipline-specific Skills

·         Understand women’s verbal and visual production in contemporary Spain as it has emerged and appreciate the processes through which its manifestations have come into being with reference to social and cultural change

·         Analyse and discuss verbal and visual texts produced by women in contemporary Spain by establishing the theoretical and thematic connections necessary for an informed interdisciplinary and intertextual approach

3.    Transferable Skills

·         Learn to process information through lectures and seminars, note-taking and interactive discussion

·         Learn to apply lecture and reading material independently and present it in academically-sophisticated essay form

·         Demonstrate an appropriate level of communication skills in written and oral contexts

How the module will be assessed

Type of assessment

 

%

Contribution

Title

Duration
(if applicable)

Approx. date of Assessment

Assessed Essay

30%

 

2,000 words

End of Semester

Examination

70%

 

2 hours

Exam period at the end of the Semester

Assessment Breakdown

Type % Title Duration(hrs)
Exam - Autumn Semester 70 Women'S Voices In Contemporary Spain 2
Written Assessment 30 Women'S Voices In Contemporary Spain N/A

Syllabus content

Introduction 

·         Historical introduction to the period in which the texts under study were produced

·         Survey of the twentieth-century cultural background from which the texts under study have emerged

·         Introduction to key concepts of narratology, as well as other related concepts necessary for the critical and analytical work required to pass the module. A Glossary of Theoretical Terms is provided and discussed.

Core Texts

·         Novel

Dulce Chacón, La voz dormida (2002)   

·         Short Stories

Lourdes Ortiz, ‘Penélope’ (1988)

Cristina Fernández Cubas, ‘Ausencia’ (1994)

Imma Monsó, ‘Mejor que no me lo expliques’ (2003)

·         Films

Isabel Coixet, Mi vida sin mí (2003)

Belén Macías, El puzzle (2001)

Icíar Bollaín, Te doy mis ojos (2003)

All texts will be aesthetically, socially and historically contextualised. Secondary reading will be required from the students in order to achieve it successfully.

[Core texts may vary from one year to the next, but the amount of texts to read / view will always be similar.]

Key aspects of specific theorists are also part of the module to enable students to study the creative texts in depth. Amongst others they may include: Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan on Psychoanalysis; Michel Foucault on social and cultural history; Roland Barthes on Poststructuralism; Luce Irigaray and Hélène Cixous on Feminism; Maurice Hallbwachs on collective memory; Pierre Nora on lieux de mémoire; Linda Hutcheon on Irony, Parody and Postmodernism; Rosi Braidotti, Elizabeth Grosz and Chris Weedon on poststructuralist feminism; and Marianne Hirsch on Postmemory.

Essential Reading and Resource List

Abbot, H. Porter (2002). The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.

Ballesteros, Isolina (2001). Cine (ins)urgente: Textos fílmicos y contextos culturales de la España posfranquista. Madrid: Fundamentos.

Barthes, Roland (1977). Image-Music-Text. Trans. by S. Heath. London: Fontana.                                    

Belsey, Catherine & Jane Moore (eds) (1989). The Feminist Reader: Essays in Gender and the Politics of Literary Criticism. London: Macmillan.

Brooksbank-Jones, Anny (1997). Women in Contemporary Spain. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.

Brown, Joan L. (ed.) (1991). Women Writers of Contemporary Spain: Exiles in Homeland. Newark: University of Delaware & London: and Toronto: Associated University Presses.

Butler, Judith (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London & New York: Routledge.

Ciplijauskaité, Biruté (1994). La novela femenina contemporánea (1970-1985): Hacia una tipología de la narración en primera persona. Barcelona: Anthropos.

Davies, Catherine (1991) “Feminist Writers in Spain since 1900: From Political Strategy to Personal Inquiry”, in Textual Liberation: European Feminist Writing in the Twentieth Century. Edited by Helena Forsas-Scott. London and New York: Routledge, pp.192-226.

——— (1998) Spanish Women’s Writing 1849-1996. London and Atlantic Highlands, NJ: The Atholone Press.

De Ros, Xon and Geraldine Hazbun (eds) (2011). A Companion to Spanish Women’s Studies. London: Tamesis.

Erens, Patricia (ed.) (1990). Issues in Feminist Film criticism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.


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