SPAN 80.23 Bullets and Letters: Basque Terrorism and the Arts
This course will focus on Basque culture produced in response to ETA terrorism. We will study the ideology that governs nationalist discourses, understand the relation between identity and violence, gender and power, and find in the arts (literature, film, painting, photography, and sculpture) a reason to make the humanities one of the legs upon which peace and reconciliation rest. Documents include interviews and writings by former ETA militants and understanding the final dissolution of the organization in 2018.
Globalization has caused an important paradigmatic shift in how "small" cultures are studied and addressed. Small in number but not in significance in current European discussions on democracy and terrorism, the Basque context is proof that the postnationalist turn that tends to govern how we think about ourselves in an ever more interconnected world actually clashes with how we experience our lives on the smaller scale of the everyday. The persistence of ETA terrorism (1959-2009), its death toll of nearly 1000 lives, and a very special turn to reconciliation and memory by many political and cultural actors makes this a timely course give how cultural productions and their textual strategies are contributing in new and exciting ways to processes geared towards peace and reconciliation.
Special emphasis will be placed on the Nanclares de Oca Prison Project and its reconciliation process and interviews by former ETA militants and victims of terrorism. Students will have the opportunity of meeting peace makers, the lead mediator, and possibly speak with victims of ETA violence firsthand at the "Unspeakable Truths" conference that will be held in Spring 2022.