Spanish 24, Section 1
Hispanic Cultures in the Bancroft: from Sor Juana and the Mexican Inquisition to Spanish Civil War Posters and Handmade Books in Cuba (1 unit, TBA)
Professor Emilie Bergmann
Tuesday 11:00-12:00, 214 Haviland Hall, CCN: 86172

This seminar will introduce students to the treasure trove of the Bancroft Library, rich in manuscripts and printed books on Spanish and Spanish-American colonial and contemporary literary and political history. This newly reopened collection is one of North America's richest repositories of documents on the long history of the Hispanic presence in California. Among its unique items are a chivalric romance, the kind of book that inspired Don Quixote; manuscript transcriptions of Mexican Inquisitorial trials; seventeenth-century illustrated scientific studies by Athanasius Kircher, an inspiration to Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz; letters, photographs, poetry, and posters from the Spanish Civil War (1936-39); rare copies of twentieth-century Spanish American and U.S. Latina/o poetry, novels, and short story collections; and books created as unique artworks by Editorial Vigia in Havana. This is a Beyond the Classroom Theme seminar.

Professor Emilie L. Bergmann is Professor of Spanish and co-editor of Mirrors and Echoes: Twentieth-century Spanish Women's Writing, and Approaches to Teaching Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (MLA 2007), as well as numerous articles on Sor Juana. Her teaching and research interests are focused on gender and visual culture in the historical watershed of early modern Spain and colonial Spanish America, and contemporary Spanish, Spanish American, and U.S. Latin women's writing.