First Year Seminar

Federico García Lorca is Spain’s most well-known and widely read poet and playwright. He is considered both quintessentially Spanish and profoundly cosmopolitan; his texts are untranslatable yet read in many languages; and his work, while often hermetically personal, continues to have a universal appeal. The purpose of this course is to study the production and reception of García Lorca’s poetry and drama. First, we will analyze Lorca’s work—ranging from the folkloristic Gypsy Ballads and stories about tortured Andalusian spinsters, to the dark and surrealist texts of Poet in New York—in the context of Spanish intellectual life and

politics in the turbulent years leading up to the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). We will especially focus on the Residencia de Estudiantes, where Lorca lived together with his friends Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. Second, the course will analyze the national and international reception of Lorca’s work before, but especially after, his assassination at the beginning of the Civil War in the summer of 1936—an event that is still shrouded in mystery and highly politicized, but which also served to propel the poet into martyrdom. What is the connection between Lorca’s work, his tragic death, and his astonishing posthumous fame?

404 Peters

tel. x58189

email: sebastiaan.faber@oberlin.edu

home page: www.oberlin.edu/faculty/sfaber

office hours: MW 10-11am or by appt

messages: The fastest and most efficient way to contact me is via email. You can also leave a message on my voicemail or with Blanche Villar at x55256, or stick a written note in my box in 301 Peters.

books to purchase

García Lorca, Federico. Collected Poems. Revised Bilingual Edition. Ed. Christopher Maurer. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. ISBN: 0374526915.
García Lorca, Federico. Plays: One. Ed. Gwynne Edwards. London: Methuen, 2003. ISBN: 0413157806.
García Lorca, Federico. Plays: Two. Ed. Gwynne Edwards. London: Methuen, 2003. ISBN: 0413622606.
García Lorca, Federico. Plays: Three. Ed. Gwynne Edwards. London: Methuen, 2003. ISBN: 0413652408.
Gibson, Ian. Federico García Lorca: A Life. New York: Randon House, 1997. ISBN: 0679774017.
Stainton, Leslie. Lorca: A Dream of Life. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999. ISBN: 064151428X.

course goals

As most first-year seminars, this course serves as an introduction to a specific subject area as well as to liberal arts learning in general. Correspondingly, it aims to achieve a varied set of pedagogical goals. In addition to studying the life and work of Federico García Lorca in its historical context, the course will provide an opportunity to reflect in more general terms on what it means to study literature and culture—particularly foreign literatures and cultures in translation—at an elite liberal arts college. The course will allow students to develop discipline-specific skills (e.g., analyzing poems and plays); but it will also provide ample opportunity to acquire and put into practice a series of more general intellectual skills and values. Of particular importance among these are issues of information literacy, the characteristics of the academic research process, and the conventions and ethics of scholarly communication.

course requirements and regulations

· Active class participation and group work based on readings and assignments.

· Students are expected to have read the assigned texts by the day indicated on the syllabus, hand in any assignments (type-written), and be prepared to participate in class discussion.

· In addition to a series of smaller 1- and 2-page assignments, there will be one mid-term project (4 pages) and one final project (8 pages). The final project will be presented to the group in the last week of classes and handed in during Finals week.

· Since a great part of the class time will be taken up by presentations and group discussions, attendance to all class sessions is mandatory. Any absence over 3 will lower the final class grade with 1 %.

· Students are expected to be on time and to remain for the entire class. Unexcused tardiness or early departure will be regarded as an absence. The student who misses any part of the class is responsible for acquiring the information missed.

· No late homework will be accepted.

· Email and Blackboard will be the preferred media for announcements, questions, and assignments; students are expected to check their mail and Blackboard page every day.

evaluation

Attendance and participation: 25%

· Small assignments: 30%

· Midterm project (4 pages): 15%

· Final project (8 pages) and presentation: 30%

honor code

This course and all its assignments are covered by the Oberlin College honor code. This means, most importantly, that—unless otherwise indicated—you are to produce your own work and honor the rules and conventions of quotation, attribution, and citation. While you are allowed to ask advice and help from librarians and official writing tutors, you are, in the end, to submit work produced by you. Some assignements are collaborative in nature and those will be clearly identified as such. Any case of (suspected) plagiarism will be reported to the Honors Committee. For more details, see www.oberlin.edu/students/student_pages/honor_code.html