Hispanic Studies BA Hons

This module builds on A level Spanish to consolidate your understanding of grammar, and your ability to comprehend both structures and meanings in a variety of written and aural texts.

You will be guided in using a broader range of discursive strategies in both written and spoken Spanish, and trained in the comprehension of broadcast items, on current affairs and culture, from across the Spanish-speaking world.

This module is designed to take students from ab initio level (absolute beginners) to a level of written and aural comprehension, writing and speaking skills roughly commensurate with A-level. At the end of the course, students should be able to comprehend and respond to written and aural texts over a comprehensive range of current affairs, cultural and every day topics, and be able to engage in everyday social conversation.

This module uses the study of cinema, writing, and popular culture – music, sport, and TV – to provide students with a knowledge of modern cultural currents in Brazil, Portugal and Portuguese-speaking Asia and Africa.

It also aims to build an awareness of the main social and political contexts in which these cultures emerged, and an understanding of the complexities and challenges they face.

Students will develop skills in critical and comparative analysis, research methods, presentation and essay writing.

This module aims to introduce students to the main patterns of Latin American political, economic and social history, between independence in the 1820s and the end of the twentieth century.

Attention will be drawn to specific concepts, terminology, events and people, so as to develop an understanding of different perspectives and interpretations of the history in question. You will also gain an appreciation of the interaction between the:

• ‘political history’ of major events and protagonists in official positions of power
• ‘social history’ of populations who both contributed to, and were affected by, political change.

The overall aim of this module is to provide you with a solid understanding of the major issues and themes in recent Portuguese history and of the formation of the Portuguese society.

The module will begin with a consideration of the economic and political position of Portugal in Europe at the end of the 18th century. It will then proceed through the periods of absolutism, constitutionalism, republicanism, military rule, dictatorship, democracy and the European Union. While these themes will guide the study of Portuguese history, close attention will also be paid to the development of changes in Portuguese society.

This module is designed as a foundation for all later modules covering Spanish and Portuguese literatures.

Its main aims are to:

• give students a general introduction to literature and to the study of literature
• provide students with a partial overview of literary writing in the Spanish language
• introduce students to some of the key theoretical issues of literary study
• inculcate good reading and critical habits.

The main skills tested on this module are:

• close reading
• textual analysis
• seminar participation
• the ability to write cogent and convincing commentaries and essays.

This module builds on grammatical knowledge and communication skills developed in Spanish 1, and aims to prepare you to function effectively in a university or work situation in a Spanish-speaking country.

Written classes focus on developing essay writing skills in Spanish, using a range of texts from Spanish and Spanish American sources as stimuli. Special attention is given to developing complex sentence structures and rhetorical devices. Laboratory classes use a full range of contemporary audio-visual materials to develop aural comprehension and conversational ability in Spanish.

This module explores a cultural period in the Hispanic world characterised by profound social change and the emergence of major world-figures of modern art (e.g. Pablo Picasso). It is structured around key literary and artistic movements from Spain and Spanish America from the early nineteenth century to the late 20th century, such as Romanticism, Realism, Symbolism, the Avant-garde, and Modernism. The module focuses on reading literary and visual texts of the period in relation to the socio-economic and political context of Spain’s and Spanish America’s rapid, but hugely uneven, modernisation. Individual novels, plays, films, paintings or poems are used to exemplify and explore particular movements and historical moments. The module offers students skills in close analysis of complex texts, an understanding of some of the major directions of Spain and Spanish American literature in the twentieth century, and the ability to relate texts studied to historico-cultural contexts.

‘Metropolis and Empire’ provides an introduction to art and culture in early modern Spain, Portugal and their Empires. It looks at painting from the mid-fifteenth century, beginning in Portugal where voyages of ‘discovery’ were well under way, and ending in late eighteenth-century Mexico, a world made of the two parallel cultures, of the indigenous peoples and of the Spanish settlers. The module examines poetry in Spanish written across this period, in Spain and Spanish America. Taken together, poetry and painting will provide a panorama of how the cultures of the Iberian Peninsula and those of the colonies in Latin America, and trading posts elsewhere - notably in Japan - responded to one another in an age when first Portugal and then Spain were the most influential nations on the planet.

This module builds on knowledge acquired through year one modules on modern Brazilian, Portuguese and African societies, exploring the long history of contact and cultural exchange that began with Portugal’s seaborne explorations and expansion in the fifteenth century. The module balances historical study of key events and developments with readings of political writings, travelogues, literature, and visual culture so as to broaden students' understanding both of the history of political and cultural relations across the Portuguese-speaking world, and of the context of these in global geo-politics and the economy. Through a combination of seminars and directed research and reading, students will gain a detailed knowledge of a key chapter in world history, and further develop their skills in critical analysis, research methods, essay writing and presentation.

This module capitalises on the progress made in colloquial and informal language skills during your year abroad, and trains you in a more formal, sophisticated register of spoken and written Spanish.

It uses stimulus texts from a broad range of authentic sources to impart understanding of how texts are put together, and to build up your knowledge of, and confidence in, this register, thus enabling production of written and spoken Spanish of maximum clarity and strength of argumentation.

We examine the distinct Spanish economic, political, social and cultural context in which the Civil War (1936-1939) played out, but also encourage you to view this period of conflict within a wider European context.

Spain’s fratricidal conflict was merely one – albeit crucial – episode in the early twentieth century’s longer ‘European Civil War’. Spain’s struggle to adapt to modernity, and the emergence of competing ‘solutions’ to this problem, mirrored similar developments across Europe.

The second half of the module examines the recent politicisation of ‘memory’ of this period in Spanish history. You'll be asked to consider how:

• ‘the past’ was used to justify the long dictatorship of General Franco
• ‘forgetting’ the past was crucial to the restoration of democracy in Spain after his death
• competing memories of the past are still dividing Spanish politics, society and culture in the 21^st century.

This module assesses Cuba’s revolutionary change since 1959, through an examination of its evolving ideology. The module is structured both chronologically and thematically so as to review the critical factors – nationalism, dependency, radicalism and leadership – shaping developments from the original rebellion up to the present day. A particular focus is the role of education policies, and the ways in which a ‘cultural revolution’ was fundamental to the socialisation process of, and popular participation in (or dissent from) the Revolution. This study will inform conclusions about both the meaning of ‘ideology’ within the context of the Revolution, and the international geo-political significance of Cuba's self-definition and evolution. 

This module aims to provide students with an understanding of the centrality of the history of slavery in the study of Brazil, and of the significance of Brazilian slavery in both the transatlantic slave systems, and slave societies across the Americas. In the process, students will learn to recognise and use the different historical approaches, tools and skills employed in the historiography of slavery studies, and in social history in general, and to incorporate them into their own analyses of aspects of Brazilian slave society.