HISTORY OF CATALAN CULTURE

“History of Catalan Culture/Catalan Literature 2 mod. 2” is a core course for students enrolled in any of the three curricula (Literatures and Cultures; Linguistics, Philology and Language Teaching Research; International Politics) of the Bachelor's Degree Programme in Languages, Civilisation and the Science of Language, who have chosen to study Catalan Language and Literature (as language A or language B). The course can also be included in the study plan as a “relative/additional” or “chosen by the student” educational activity. In accordance with the learning outcomes of the Bachelor’s Degree Programme in Languages, Civilisation and the Science of Language, the course will enable students to: deepen their knowledge of contemporary Catalan culture; develop skills in the analysis of films, and understand how they relate to their own context.

Regular and active participation in the teaching activities offered by the course (lectures, discussions and, possibly, thematic research seminars) and in independent research activities will enable students to:

- gain a wider knowledge of Barcelona and its history, as well as of the cinema surrounding it, from the 60s to the present;
- acquire a basic knowledge of the history of the contemporary city;
- become acquainted with the key elements of film language;
- use cinema as tools for studying and interpreting the city;
- critically discuss, with appropriate language and argumentative rigour, the main issues related to the cinematic representation of Barcelona;
- develop the ability to independently analyse and interpret films.

No previous knowledge is required. All lessons will be held in Italian.

The course aims to explore the cinematic representation of Barcelona in two key stages of its urban development: the era of Francoist desarrollismo, which coincides with Porcioles’s municipal government (1957-1973), and the period that runs from the restoration of democracy until today. Through the comparative analysis of a corpus of films made by an international group of filmmakers that have portrayed the Catalan capital in the chosen periods, we will study how the image of Barcelona has evolved in relation to the deep urban, cultural and socio-economic changes experienced by the city over time. We will also highlight how cinema has participated in the construction and dissemination of the new image of post-Olympic Barcelona, thus contributing to relaunch the city as a tourist destination.

Topics
1. Cinema and the city
2. The Barcelona of desarrollismo: a “vampirised” city
3. From Cinderella to top model: the transformation of Barcelona
4. Post-olimpic Barcelona in cinema

For students attending classes, the study material is limited to the notes taken in class and to the slides that will be made available on the University Moodle platform. Non-attending students are kindly invited to contact the Teacher to agree upon appropriate adaptations of the final exam program.

a) Film
Los Tarantos (Francesc Rovira Beleta, 1963)
Umbracle (Pere Portabella, 1972)
Ocaña, retrat intermitent (Ventura Pons, 1978)
Todo sobre mi madre (Pedro Almodóvar, 1999)
En construcción (José Luis Guerín, 2001)
L’appartamento spagnolo (Cédric Klapisch, 2002)
Salvador (Manuel Huerga, 2006)
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Woody Allen, 2008)
Barcelona era una festa underground (Morrosko Vila-San-Juan, 2010)
Biutiful (Alejandro González Iñarritu, 2010)

The films will be screened during lessons in original version with subtitles.

b) Texts (optional)

Aertsen, V. U. “El cine como inductor del turismo. La experiencia turística en Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona”. Razón y palabra, n° 77, 2011. [article]
Balibrea, M.P. "Urbanism, culture and the post-industrial city: challenging the Barcelona model", in in Marshall, T. (ed.) Transforming Barcelona, Routledge, 2004, pp. 205-225. [book chapter]
Calavita, N. & A. Ferrer. "Behing Barcelona's success story - citizen movements and planners' power", in Marshall, T. (ed.) Transforming Barcelona, Routledge, 2004, pp. 47-65. [book chapter]
Deleyto, C. e G. López. “Catalan beauty and the transnational beast: Barcelona on the screen”. Transnational Cinemas, vol. 3, n° 2, 2012. [article]
Delgado, M. La ciudad mentirosa. Fraude y miseria del Modelo Barcelona. Los libros de la Catarata, 2007, pp. 11-61. [book chapter]
Fanés, F. Pere Portabella: Avantguarda, cinema, política, I capitolo (versione spagnola). Pòrtic, 2008. [book chapter]
Fraser, B. “A Biutiful city: Iñárritu’s filmic critique of the Barcelona model’’. Studies in Hispanic Cinemas, vol. 9, n° 1, 2012. [article]
Granell, M. "París 68-Barcelona 77. Del mayo francés a la contracultura española: la evolución de la revista Ajoblanco en la Transición". Pasado y Memoria, 21, 2020, pp. 225-248 [book chapter]
Hermet, G. Storia della Spagna nel Novecento, VIII capitolo. Il Mulino, 2011. [book chapter]
Holte, J. C. Dracula in the dark. The Dracula film adaptations, II capitolo. Greenwood Press, 1997. [book chapter]
Vázquez Montalbán, M. "La ciudad ocupada", in Barcelonas. Empúries, 1987, pp. 230-297. [book chapter]

Evaluation will take place through an oral exam in Italian. The oral exam will evaluate:

- the candidate's ability to present the course contents clearly and consistently using a scientifically appropriate vocabulary;
- the candidate's ability to make connections

The evaluation will also take into account active participation in the lessons and cultural activities proposed by the teacher (only for attending students).

Conventional lectures during which students will be required to actively participate. The teacher make extensive use of multimedia materials.

Italian

Although not mandatory, class attendance is recommended.

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