Mar 29, 2024  
Catalogue 2018-2019 
    
Catalogue 2018-2019 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

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HISP 226 - Medieval and Early Modern Spain

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)


Studies in Spanish literary and cultural production from the time of the Reconquest to the end of the Hapsburg Empire.

Topic for 2018/19a: Jews, Muslims and Christians in Medieval Spain.Power homogenizes, and absolute power homogenizes absolutely. Such has been the keynote of cultural politics in Spain from the reign of the Reyes Católicos to the Franco dictatorship. But against the discourse of power stands the lived reality of cultural heterogeneity in the Iberian Peninsula. The great theoretical voice speaking for that heterogeneity has been Américo Castro, who opposed the centuries-old conflation of Catholicism and nationalism by insisting upon what we would now call the multicultural base of Spanish identity, namely the coexistence of Jews, Muslims and Christians in the medieval period. This course takes Castro’s theoretical position as the point of departure for the investigation of the tri-partite convivencia, considering both its moments of harmony and of confrontation. The selection of texts and their study are interdisciplinary in nature, including the fields of literature, history, religion and architecture. While concentrating on the period 711-1492, attention is also devoted to the medieval legacy in such later writers as Cervantes. Please note that although the original language of some of the texts is Hebrew or Arabic, Galician-Portuguese or Catalan, readings, class discussion and writing assignments are in Castilian Spanish. Andrew Bush.

Two 75-minute periods.



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