Spanish 430:
Memory and Identity through the Experience of Exile
Memory and Identity through the Experience of Exile
From Spain to Chile... and Beyond
This course will study the experience of exile through the generation of writers and artists who left Spain after the Civil War of 1936-39 when Francisco Franco came into power and imposed a repressive dictatorship that lasted forty years until 1975. We will take the same journey they took to different countries in Europe, Latin America and the United States and examine the physical hardships, social and cultural differences, and inner conflicts they had to face in their new destinations. Through the works of Max Aub, Francisco Ayala, María Zambrano, Rosa Chacel, Ramón J. Sender, Luís Cernuda, Rafael Alberti, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Remedios Varo, we will see how the exiles were caught between the conflict of keeping alive the memories of what had happened and who they were, while creating a new identity far away from Spain. For Catalan writers, such as Mercè Rodoreda, Josep Carner and Francesc Trabal, the notion of preserving their cultural identity will be even more important since their language was forbidden during Franco’s dictatorship, and it is in exile that they published.
An ideal course for students who have been in study abroad in Spain or Chile, our appoach will be comparative following the connections that the authors made with other European and Latin American writers--for example, on Pablo Neruda’s role in helping with Spanish writers during the Spanish Civil War and their exile to Chile.
