OVERVIEW

The course (36 hours of lectures, 6 ECTS credits) is intended for first-year students in the Bachelor’s Degree Program in Languages and Intercultural Communication for Institutions and Businesses.

The central theme of the course will be the city of Madrid, examined through its historical, artistic, and literary development.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course aims to study in depth some salient aspects of Spanish cultural and social history between the 19th and 21st centuries. Supplementary didactic activities are planned - seminar-led - consisting of guided readings, analysis of pictorial texts, commented viewings of films, etc.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of the course, the knowledge acquired will enable students to understand the historical, artistic, and literary dynamics that have made Madrid not only the administrative capital of Spain, but also the country’s most important center of cultural influence. Students will be able to identify the city’s major cultural institutions and museums, as well as to analyze, from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective, the principal literary and artistic works devoted to it.

PREREQUISITES

The course, bibliography and examination will be entirely in Spanish. A good knowledge of Spanish is therefore required.

TEACHING METHODS

36 hours of lectures in Spanish with the use of multimedia tools.

Attendance is not compulsory but strongly recommended.

Attending students will be given the opportunity to carry out individual work (optional), the result of which will be presented to the class by the student.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The course aims to explore the historical, artistic, and literary development of Madrid, focusing on specific aspects such as its cultural and museum offerings, its photographic and pictorial representation (also through the use of important sources available on social media), and the narrative portrayals proposed by some of the most significant voices in Spain’s literature between the 19th and 21st centuries.

Some of the topics explored during the course will include:

• The history and organization of Museo del Prado, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, and Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, the principal museums of Madrid;
• The artistic representations dedicated to the Spanish capital and preserved in its museums;
• The Madrid portrayed by the great photographers of the twentieth century, including Santos Yubero and Francesc Català-Roca, among others;
• The novel as a form of expression and analysis of Madrid’s urban space from the late nineteenth century to the present day.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Attending students:

-course notes

-course materials provided in class or uploaded to aulaweb

Non-attending students:

Required texts:

• Historia breve de Madrid, Fidel Revilla and Rosalía Ramos, Ediciones La Librería, 2007.
• Madrid en el Prado, Sonia Taravilla, Editorial Espasa, 2026.
• Two novels in Spanish, chosen from the following list (students are expected to independently study the authors’ biographies and bibliographies):

1. El diario de Hamlet García by Paulino Masip
2. Romanticismo by Manuel Longares
3. La caída de Madrid by Rafael Chirbes
4. El maestro de esgrima by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
5. Las máscaras del héroe by Juan Manuel de Prada

Any available edition in Spanish is acceptable for all of these works.

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

LESSONS

LESSONS START

October 2026

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

Oral examination at the end of the course.

Attending students who choose to do the writing and presentation work proposed by the lecturer will be recognised as part of the examination. Further information will be provided in the classroom.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

The student will have to demonstrate that he/she is familiar with the bibliography in the syllabus, that he/she has acquired the critical tools covered in the course and that he/she has developed adequate skills in analysing and contextualising the works and literary texts proposed.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Students are reminded that Aulaweb will be the platform used to communicate detailed information during the lessons and to share some of the study material included in the programme.

Students who have regularly filed a certification of disability, DSA or other special educational needs are advised to contact both the contact person Prof.ssa Sara Dickinson (sara.dickinson@unige.it) and the lecturer at the beginning of the course, in order to agree on teaching and examination methods that, while respecting the teaching objectives, take into account individual learning methods and provide suitable compensatory tools.