Tutorials

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In Week 1 the Friday tutorial hour will be a lecture hour. Tutorial presentations will not begin until Week 2. Topics for the tutorials are given on pages 4-5 of this handout. Please sign up with a partner for a topic and date on the lists on the main Spanish noticeboard (Floor 7, Arts 1 Building). You should aim for a presentation of some 20-25 minutes in all. This tutorial is worth 10% of your final mark and you will be evaluated on the content of your tutorial, as well as on your ability to stimulate discussion and answer questions. You are also expected to hand in, at the close of your tutorial presentation, your notes, in a legible and clearly set-out form, in order to assist evaluation. Although the presentations are in pairs, your mark will be based both on your individual work within the presentation and on how well it links in with your partner’s discussion. 

Note that, if you sign up for a tutorial and then do not "show," no further provision will be made for you to give one (excepting in the case of illness and with a doctor's certificate).

Do not hesitate to see your lecturers regarding bibliography or help with your chosen topic. Transparencies can be made from photographs if wished. Tutorials should be exciting and thought-provoking, and it is up to you to make them so.

Attendance at tutorials is highly recommended, given that material presented and discussed at these sessions will form part of the final written examination.

 

Tutorial Evaluation Criteria: 10%

(Each item is worth 1%)

1) Introduction/Overview.
2) Structure/Organisation of material.
3) Relevance of material to topic.
4) Evidence of wide reading.
5) Appropriate explanation of terms.
6) Use of examples/evidence to illustrate points.
7) Use of visual aids (if relevant).
8) Summary.
9) Ability to provoke debate and answer questions.
10) Length of presentation (too short/good/too long).

TUTORIAL TOPICS: WEEKS 1-7
(Chris Arkinstall)

 

Week 2:    12 March      

1.                   Life of Federico García Lorca.

2.                   Compare and contrast 2-3 scholarly studies/articles on La casa de Bernarda Alba and summarize findings, to then take up your own stance on the work.

Week 3:    19 March

3.                   Close analysis of Act II of La casa de Bernarda Alba, with reference to outstanding themes, symbolism, characterisation.

4.                   Close analysis of Act III of La casa de Bernarda Alba, with reference to outstanding themes, symbolism, characterisation.

Week 4:    26 March

5.                   Discuss the themes of dispossession and quest for selfhood with regard to Natalia in Rodoreda’s La plaza del Diamante.

6.                   Examine representations of gender in Rodoreda’s La plaza del Diamante.

Week 5:    2 April

7.                   Compare and contrast 2-3 scholarly studies/articles on Rodoreda’s La plaza del Diamante and summarise findings, to then take up your own stance on the work.

8.                   Choose your own topic, but confirm with me first.

Week 6:    Due to Easter Friday, this week’s tutorials will take place on Thursday, 8 April, in the normal class-time.

9.                   Close analysis of poems from Vencida por el ángel and/or Los días duros (pp. 3-5 of photocopied poetry).

10.               Close analysis of poems from Víspera de la vida (except “La sangre”) and/or El grito inútil (pp. 5-8 of photocopied poetry).

Week 7:    30 April

11.               Close analysis of poems from Belleza cruel (pp. 9-12 of handout), except “Canto rabioso de amor a España en su belleza.”

12.               Close analysis of poems from Toco la tierra. Letanías (pp. 13-15 of handout), except “Hijos, ya veis,” “Seguir” and “Salve a España.”

 

TUTORIAL TOPICS: WEEKS 8-12

(Wendy-Llyn Zaza)

 

Week 8:        7 May

13.                 Discuss the significance of 1992 for Spain with reference to Tony Morgan’s article “1992: Memories and Modernities”. How could your findings relate to texts dealing with a Polynesian tribe in the 1920s, the Bosnian war, and Hispano-Moroccan relations, immigration, racism and xenophobia?

14.                 To what extent does Paloma Pedrero’s La isla amarilla depart from Paloma Pedrero’s theatre, as summarised by Juan Antonio Hormigón?

Week 9:        14 May

15.                 Is La isla amarilla a postmodern and/or postcolonial play, in line with postmodernism and postcolonialism as defined by Patricia O’Connor, Jon Whitmore, M. H. Abrams and Camilla Stevens?

16.                 Discuss La isla amarilla from a New Zealand perspective.

Week 10:      21 May

17.                 Despite the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the imminent expansion of the European Union, the views expressed by Gorka Illarramendi in “España no pagará la factura del Este” appear to perpetuate the East/West division of Europe. Analyse the implications of this viewpoint with close reference to Los días perdidos.

18.                 Karen Schneider states that “[t]o read women’s stories of war as war stories . . . is not only to redefine the parameters of war literature as a genre but, more importantly, to ‘reconceptualize aspects of . . . war’s political history’” (Loving Arms. British Women Writing the Second World War, 6). Develop this view in relation to Los días perdidos, drawing on Margaret Higonnet’s article, “Women in the Forbidden Zone”.

Week 11:      28 May

19.                 Define your own topic with regard to Los días perdidos and develop critically with reference to other scholarly studies. Please consult with me for approval of your proposed topic.

20.                 Compare and contrast the treatment of war in Eva Hibernia’s Los días perdidos and “Morir lo más lejos posible” by Antonio Álamo with reference to James Knibb’s “Literary Strategies of War, Strategies of Literary War”, and Antonio Monegal’s “Aporias of the War Story.”

Week 12:      4 June

21.           Alain Touraine considers that “[i]mmigrants will never be fully integrated into the central countries if those countries believe that the only solution is to deny newcomers any ability to transform the environment they have entered” (Critique of Modernity, 320). Discuss this statement with reference to Rachid Nini’s “Diario de un emigrante clandestino”.

22.                 Define your own topic with regard to any of the short stories in Cuentos de las dos orillas and develop critically with reference to other scholarly studies. Please consult with me for approval of your proposed topic.