HISP-S 498 Readings for Honors  (3 credits)		Literature
Variable Title:   Federico García Lorca
Prerequisite:  Two courses from: S328, S331, S332, S333

This course is for majors who are doing Honors in Spanish.  This
HISP-S 498, #3824 meets with HISP-S 495 Hispanic Colloquium,
variable title: Federico García Lorca.  If you are leaning toward
Literature for your background on your honors thesis, you may want
to consider taking this HISP-S 498 course.

Contact Karla Allgood in BH 844 for permission or e-mail
kallgood@indiana.edu.

Description for S495 follows:

Federico García Lorca

Political poster child, cultural icon, artistic genius, defender of
the marginal, Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) enjoys an almost
mythic presence today in Spain's cultural identity and is widely
considered perhaps the most important modern Spanish writer.
Indeed, Lorca’s reach and popularity grew rapidly during his
lifetime, but he is one of the few Spanish writers that continues to
have an enduring presence in dialogues on contemporary Spanish and
Hispanic culture.  This course will study the multifaceted artistic
corpus that Lorca created during the 1920s and 30s in order to
understand his work, the rapid transformations taking place in
Europe and beyond in the 1920s and 30s, and Lorca’s continued
presence in contemporary dialogues.  This class is a course that
teaches advanced students not only about this major literary figure,
but about issues, debates, and changes that defined Spanish culture
in the early 20th century.

The social, cultural, aesthetic, and political projects of pre-Civil
War Spain will frame our discussions of texts such as SUITES,
CANCIONES, ROMANCERO GITANO, POETA EN NUEVA YORK, YERMA, and the
SONETOS DEL AMOR OSCURO.  We will also study visual art, written
texts, and movies by other artists/writers (e.g. Dali, Picasso,
Fritz Lang, Breton, Neruda) in order to make sense of Lorca’s work
in a broader context.  Our explorations of Lorca will focus on
notions of gender, sexuality, desire, modernity, power, and
aesthetic experience.  Some of the questions we will discuss
include:  What are the philosophical and aesthetic premises of
Lorca’s work and how does it dialogue with particular avant-garde
movements (e.g. Futurism, Creationism, Dada, Surrealism)?  How does
Lorca’s discourse on gender and sexuality respond to women’s
movements and gender/sex politics of 1920s and 1930s Spain?  How
does Lorca engage notions of race and ethnicity, particularly with
regard to his representation of gypsy culture?  In what ways does
Lorca respond to modernization, mechanization, and modernity in
Spain and beyond?

Course evaluation will likely include at least one oral
presentation, active in-class participation, question guides, and
analytical essays.

This course (S495) is jointly offered with HISP-S 498 Readings for
Honors.  All class discussion and written assignments are in Spanish.