Learning Outcomes:
• Discuss how architecture intersects with science, philosophy, religion, history, and politics to inform early modern Hispanic notions of human nature, reason, and social relations.
• Discuss how early modern Hispanic writers appropriate architectural discourse to articulate changing worldviews in an era of scientific discovery and aesthetic innovation.
• Analyse the symbolic implications of architecture as an embodiment of the self, the state, and/or the passage of historical time.
• Consider the invocation of architectural space as a justification of or challenge to political and social phenomena, including the colonisation of the Americas and the establishment of gender hierarchies.
• Conduct interdisciplinary research in Hispanic literary and cultural studies and refine writing and presentational skills.
Indicative Module Content:
The key thematic units and authors studied in the module are as follows:
1. The Architecture of the Self (Diego de San Pedro, Miguel de Cervantes, Santa Teresa de Jesús, María de Zayas) - architecture as a representation of individual identities, emotions, and experiences
2. The Architecture of Empire (Hernán Cortés, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Bernardo de Balbuena and/or Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz) - architecture as a reinforcement of or challenge to the imposition of Spanish rule in the Americas
3. The (Anti-)Architecture of Ruins (Francisco de Quevedo, Rodrigo Caro, Miguel de Cervantes, etc.) - architecture in ruins as a symbol of time, historical memory, death, etc.
4. The Afterlives of Renaissance Architecture: 20th-Century Poetry and Short Stories (Luis Cernuda, Octavio Paz, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar) - later uses of architecture as a literary tool