The Classics in Contemporary Culture
Code: 103563 ECTS Credits: 6| Degree | Type | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Humanities | OT | 3 |
| Humanities | OT | 4 |
| English and Classics Studies | OT | 3 |
| English and Classics Studies | OT | 4 |
Contact
- Name:
- Oscar Luis de la Cruz Palma
- Email:
- oscar.delacruz@uab.cat
Teaching groups languages
You can view this information at the end of this document.
Prerequisites
The English version of this teaching guide has been developed with the Google-translator.
The contents will go to theoretical knowledge about the history of culture that students have acquired in other subjects, especially referred to the period of the XVIII-XXI centuries. A level of writing that includes how to scientifically cite the writing of works is also considered acquired.
Objectives and Contextualisation
The English version of this teaching guide has been developed with the Google-translator.
Study of the cultural events that have taken place and that take place in contemporary times, for the comprehension and the analysis of which we will have to make reference to their antecedents in the classical world.
For an understanding of the history of contemporary culture, it is essential to realize that significant innovations have not been able to develop without taking into account traditions that often start from the classical world. The new transcendental cultural events have not prescidido of it, updating the classic references for reasons on which it is necessary to reflect.
The subject works on this general idea and will try to demonstrate its application taking into account the following objectives:
- To concede the weight of the classical tradition in the panorama of contemporary culture.
- To detect cultural elements of classical tradition, current in the history of recent culture.
- To locate new phenomena that depend on the use or interpretation of classical themes or classical culture.
- To evaluate and assess the weight of classical culture in the current cultural landscape.
Competences
- Humanities
- Developing critical thinking and reasoning and communicating them effectively both in your own and other languages.
- Identifying the historical processes of contemporary culture.
- English and Classics Studies
- Interpret written texts in Latin and Greek to learn about classical history and civilizations.
- Interrelate linguistic and historical knowledge of the ancient world with knowledge of other fields of the humanities, mainly literature and archaeology.
- Make changes to methods and processes in the area of knowledge in order to provide innovative responses to society's needs and demands.
- Recognize the most significant periods, traditions, trends, authors and works of Greek, Latin and English literatures in their historical and social context.
Learning Outcomes
- Analysing the recycling of classical motifs in new contexts.
- Applying the historical, institutional, cultural and literary knowledge to the commentary of texts.
- Assessing the reception in the West of the thought and history of the classical world.
- Be aware of and give value to the reception of the thought and history of the classical world in the West.
- Criticising the film adaptations of the classical mythological legends.
- Enumerating concepts of classic culture that have survived to the present society.
- Identifying the Greco-Roman sources that have inspired artists and literary people through history.
- Identifying the results of the projection of the classical world to the Western culture on various levels and in several eras and territories.
- Interpreting the material and cultural context of transmission of ancient texts.
- Recognise in contemporary thought the most relevant contributions of Greco-Roman thought and civilisation.
- Relate contemporary myths to classical antiquity.
- Relating the contemporary myths with the classical antiquity.
Content
The English version of this teaching guide has been developed with the Google-translator.
Introduction: Background of the panorama of contemporary culture (ss. XIX-XXI)
0.1. Identification of culture as "high culture".
0.2. Auctoritas as a transmission system in high culture.
0.3 Definitions and considerations on the concept of "classical tradition".
0.4. Methodology of studies on classical tradition: clarification of the concepts of influence, transmission, parallel, copy, version, adaptation, etc.
Development: The classics in the great cultural innovations of the contemporary world.
1. The cultural impact of colonialism: rupture of the concept of “high culture”.
2. Cultural impact of scientific advances: the appearance of science fiction.
3. Romanticism and the classics. The appearance of women in the intellectual sphere.
4. Interest in the irrational: ghosts, visions and theosophy.
5. The cultural crisis of Existentialism. The presence of the classics in Existentialism.
6. The search for new artistic techniques: the Vanguards and the classics.
7. The aestheticism of the dandies and femme fatale.
8. The classics as an image of fascism.
9. The concept of culture in Postmodernity: the function of the classics.
10. Postmodern relativistic revisionism: imagology and other critical analyses.
11. Current trend towards Neohumanism.
12. Confirmation of the use of classical references today.
Activities and Methodology
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Methodological introduction | 8 | 0.32 | |
| theoretical exposition about the 1-4 topics | 12 | 0.48 | |
| theoretical exposition about the 5-8 topics | 9 | 0.36 | |
| theoretical exposition about the 9-12 topics | 12 | 0.48 | |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| Specialized indications for writing ot the 3 reviews | 6 | 0.24 | |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| Reading of bibliography for each of the contents | 75 | 3 | |
| Writing of conclusions and preparation of partial exams | 12 | 0.48 | |
| Writing 3 reviews | 12 | 0.48 |
The English version of this teaching guide has been developed with the Google-translator.
As a complement to the professor's theoretical explanations, the students must submit three essays during the course, with a maximum length of 4 pages. The objective of these exercises will be to illustrate with some specific example the survival or influence of the classical tradition in relation to the topics of the program. The teacher will give writing criteria that must be compulsorily applied.
The first essay will deal with a case related to topics 1-4. The second draft, on topics 5-8. The third on topics 9-12.
The teacher will detail a delivery schedule for these assessable activities at the beginning of the course.
Proportional time will be provided so that the students can present in class the reflections that they have offered in their essays.
15 minutes of a class will be reserved, within the calendar established by the center/degree, for the completion by the students of the surveys to evaluate the teacher's performance and the evaluation of the subject.
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Assessment
Continous Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delivery of 1 review related to the contents of the subject | 20% | 0.34 | 0.01 | 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 7, 9, 10, 12, 11, 3, 4 |
| Delivery of 1 review related to the contents of the subject | 20% | 0.33 | 0.01 | 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 7, 9, 10, 12, 11, 3, 4 |
| Delivery of 1 review related to the contents of the subject | 20% | 0.33 | 0.01 | 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 7, 9, 10, 12, 11, 4, 3 |
| 1 | 20% | 1.5 | 0.06 | 1, 2, 6, 8, 7, 9, 10, 12, 11, 3, 4 |
| 1 written test | 20% | 1.5 | 0.06 | 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 7, 9, 10, 12, 11, 4, 3 |
On carrying out each evaluation activity, lecturers will inform students (on Moodle) of the procedures to be followed for reviewing all grades awarded, and the date on which such a review will take place.
In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.
On carrying out each evaluation activity, lecturers will inform students (on Moodle) of the procedures to be followed for reviewing all grades awarded, and the date on which such a review will take place.
Single evaluation:
The only evaluation will be a written test (exam) with a value of 40% of the mark, in a single test and at the end of the course (to be determined). The students who take advantage of the single evaluation are equally obliged and obliged to deliver the three written exercises(60% of the grade), on the same date set for the final exam. The conditions of the re-evaluation will be the same as for the continuous evaluation.
Reassessment:
To participate in the recovery, the student must have been previously assessed in a set of activities with a weight equivalent to a minimum of 2/3 of the total grade (CONTINUOUS EVALUATION) or have submitted all the scheduled tests (SINGLE EVALUATION).
Those students who have not passed and take the re-assessment, have the option of only passing (5 points) as a maximum grade.
Bibliography
In addition to the suggestion of various literary works, in support of the set of theoretical aspects that the subject deals with, the following references are useful:
Canfora, Luciano, Ideologías de los estudios clásicos, 1980, trad. cast. M. Llinares García, Madrid, 1991.
Fullat, Octavi, El siglo postmoderno (1900-2001), Barcelona, 2001.
Gubern, Roman, Máscaras de ficción, Barcelona, 2002.
Hernández de la Fuente, David, El hilo de oro: los clásicos en el laberinto de hoy, Barcelona, 2021.
Lyotard, Jean-François, La condición postmoderna, Madrid, 1994.
Ordine, Nucio, La utilidad de lo inútil, Madrid, 2013.
Picó, Josep, Cultura y modernidad, Madrid, 1999.
Said, Edward, Humanisme et démocratie, Paris, 2005
Said, Edward, Orientalismo, Barcelona, 2002.
Sala Rose, Rosa, Diccionario crítico de mitos y símbolos del nazismo, Barcelona, 2003.
Sartre, Jean Paul, El existencialismo es un humanismo, Buenos Aires, 1972.
Settis, Salvatore, El futuro de lo clásico, Madrid, 2005.
Todorov, Tzetzan, El jardín imperfecto, Barcelona, 1999 (trad. franc. 19981).
Vallejo, Irene, El infinito en un junco, Barcelona, 2020.
Software
pdf - Power-Point - Word
Groups and Languages
Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2025. You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject.
| Name | Group | Language | Semester | Turn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (PAUL) Classroom practices | 1 | Catalan | second semester | morning-mixed |
| (TE) Theory | 1 | Catalan | second semester | morning-mixed |