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Reviewed by:
  • Teaching Representations of the Spanish Civil War
  • Kalen R. Oswald
Teaching Representations of the Spanish Civil War The Modern Languages Association of America, 2007 Edited by Noël Valis

This collection of essays and materials—organized and edited by Noël Valis—incorporates the contributions of 39 different specialists, including many of the most renowned experts on the Spanish Civil War and 20th-century Spanish

Cultural Studies. One of the most unique aspects of the anthology is the attention given to pedagogical matters regarding courses on the Spanish Civil War, addressing the editors desire to achieve "a delicate balance between theoretical issues and practical concerns" (16). The result is a critical work that addresses the need for a resource that responds to the more broad Cultural Studies approach that Spanish professors assume in such courses and that also takes into account the contemporary sensibilities of North American university students. While this book clearly falls in line with its expressed pedagogical purpose, I also find the articles to be extremely informative and insightful as critical references for scholarly endeavors.

Valis divides her extensive volume into seven sections. "Part I: Representations of Historical Contexts" consists of five essays that range from broad perspectives focusing on the causes and effects of the war (like Francoist historiography and political and geographical histories that underlay the war), all the way down to very specific historical issues like religion, nationalism and regionalism. The second part, "Rhetoric, Ideology, and the War," comprises six essays, many of which give helpful suggestions and examples to instructors who still might not feel completely confident or comfortable with introducing in their courses disciplines and types of cultural production—such as magazines, political symbols, documentary film—that lie outside of their formal literary training. This section also has essays that address issues of race, class, gender and the usefulness of recognizing fascist and Francoist aesthetics in cultural production. Many of the ten essays in the third section, "Writing the War," deal with the international dimensions of the war and the perceptions of foreigners regarding the conflict. These pieces examine some of the works of pro- and anti Francoist, writers from North America, England, Ireland, France and Germany, and point out some of the dynamics that caused and were caused by their participation in the war (whether it was discursive and/or military). Other studies in Part III deal with civil war literature written by Spaniards in Spain during and after the war. [End Page 210] They focus on dissent to Francoism expressed covertly through allegory and demythologization, the usefulness of and approximation to Spanish poetry of the civil war, and strategies to effectively teach Spanish Civil War works in English translations.

The six essays of "Part IV: The Arts and the War" provide specific examples of and ideas for directing classroom examination of important works of art that concern the Spanish Civil War. These studies examine feature films (eg. Raza, Espíritu de una raza, A mí la legión, La fiel infantería, Pascual Duarte, Dulces horas, Vacas, Amantes del círculo polar), republican and nationalist documentary films, wartime posters, photographs, photomurals, and paintings (including Guernica by Pablo Picasso). This section of the anthology also discusses the question of whether or not artistic value can or should be determined or undermined by political commitment and urges teachers to examine the context and processes from which these works originate. "Part V: Memory, Displacement, and the War" pays special attention to the experience of republican exiles and refugees after the war and demonstrates the usefulness in a course on the Spanish Civil War of personal narratives and memory texts (autobiographies, oral histories, memoirs, anecdotal accounts, testimonials), television documentaries, and monuments from the war like the Valle de los Caídos. The essays in this section all seem to share a concern for enabling students to understand why they should "engage with the past" (436) and helping them feel more connected to an experience otherwise considered by many students as distant, forgotten and largely inconsequential.

"Part VI: Resources" consists of a useful introduction to and an extensive annotated bibliography of primary and secondary sources on the Spanish civil war. These materials...

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