EWL 305 The Spanish Inquisition in Literature and Film
In this course, students will examine representations of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions in Film and Literature. We shall study film and literature in the context of the history of the Sephardim (the Spanish and Portuguese Jews) in the Iberian Peninsula; the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497; the persecution of Conversos and Crypto-Judaizers in Spain and Portugal; the Sephardic diaspora and the Portuguese Jewish diaspora; and the application of the mechanisms of the Inquisitions to perceived heresies in the Iberian Peninsula: Islam, Erasmism, Illuminism, Lutheranism, and Jesuitism. We shall read contemporary and later works that comment on the Inquisition (La Celestina, Inês Pereira, Don Quixote, Candide, et al.); historical texts that contextualize the Inquisition (The Origins of the Inquistion; the Spanish Inquisition; Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation, et al.); and films that respond to the Inquisition either overtly (The Mission, The Jew, The Last Sephardi, et al.) or obliquely (Blade Runner; Invasion of the Body Snatchers, et al.).