I say this every November and April, but I can’t believe that it is already the end of the semester! I learned a lot in this course – I have never done a “just theory” course and my favourite part was to learn about how theorists interact with each other; a lot of their work establishes a dialogue between each of their separate arguments, either by the way some expand on other’s work and include other perspectives, to moments of complete disagreement. The most interesting – and difficult – part for me was to develop my own critical stance as I read these discussions, either for the purposes of writing the two assignments of the course or when reading each week’s readings and trying to synthesize them in my notes or simply trying to state my own argument of the week’s theme in my own words. I think this is something that will always be the hardest part for me, and something to work on especially as I work on my thesis.
My favourite weeks were the ones that discusses film studies and cultural studies – I can’t tell for sure if I liked these most because they are the ones that are on my mind a lot as I’m writing my thesis (and these topics are very relevant for that purpose) or because it is that I find film and culture studies interesting that I chose to do my thesis in that area; this is a the-chicken-or-the-egg problem that I’m not too concerned about because at the end of the day it has led to me having more readings and perspectives to consider as I’m writing my thesis and in my books, that is a great thing. My research project analyzes the representation of the figure of the child and/or adolescent in works of literature and film that are set during the time of the Spanish Civil War literature but published or released between 1992 and 2013. I chose this time period as there are some very interesting discourses coming out of Spain in regards to how the Civil War should be examined and seen especially during and after the financial crisis of 2008 and I am very interested in these discussions. Thus, film studies as well as cultural studies represent an integral part of my project and I am very happy and grateful that I got the chance to deepen my knowledge of these topics, as well as many others of course, in this course. It was great to meet with you all every week and go on this journey of exploring theoretical concepts together, and my thanks to all of you for the wonderful and stimulating discussions and to Prof. Beasley-Murray and Prof. Freilick for leading us through it all. A special thank-you to Prof. Beasley-Murray for the week on film, so interesting and useful!
