ILAC 107N: History in Images: Scenes from the Franco Dictatorship in Spanish Cinema
General Education Requirements
Not currently certified for a requirement. Courses are typically considered for Ways certification a quarter in advance.
Please note: Spanish comprehension is necessary for the required class films.
Course Description
A retrospective of films from the 1950s to the early 21st century dealing with the troubled representation of the Spanish Civil War and the postwar "iron years". The seminar will analyze the distortion of the past through both censorship and individual recollection under conditions of personal and collective trauma, while exploring the relation between history and film. We will also discuss the ways in which objective images can be used to explore subjectivity. Outstanding films by Luis García Berlanga, Luis Buñuel, Carlos Saura, Víctor Erice, Pilar Miró, Julio Medem, Pedro Almodóvar, Guillermo del Toro, Agustí Villaronga and Alejandro Amenábar.
Meet the Instructor: Joan Ramon Resina
“I was born in Barcelona, Catalonia, a region of Spain, and grew up under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. When I was 17, I traveled to the United States and, after a couple of indecisive moves back and forth, settled in this country. After spending one year working and studying at Deep Springs, a school-ranch in California, I completed a BA in English at Brandeis University. Subsequently I finished a degree in Philology at the University of Barcelona and a couple of years later a MA and the PhD in Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley. My teaching career has unfolded in some of the most select schools of the US: Williams, Northwestern, Stony Brook, Cornell and, since 2006, Stanford, where I teach for the ILAC and Comp. Lit. departments. I have also taught for brief periods as visiting professor at various places in Europe and North America. My publications show a wide range of interests, but the topic of the historical memory is one to which I return again and again, because, as the old cliché would have it, those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. The phrase is no less true for having become commonplace.”
