Spanish Bombs: The Art of Propaganda in the Spanish Civil War
Taught by Nick Reynolds
Nick is a PhD candidate studying political theory at CUNY, with a BA and an MA in European history and Holocaust & Genocide Studies (he’s lots of fun at parties). An incorrigible nerd and bookworm, he’s interested in just about everything.
The Spanish Civil War was the quintessential 20th century conflict, pitting democracy against dictatorship, communism against fascism, and liberty against tyranny. For three years Spain was the heart of the world, the scene of a desperate struggle that drew in thousands of foreign volunteers eager to fight for a better world, only to see their hopes drowned in blood.
Spanish Bombs explores the civil war through the exceptional propaganda and art it produced. We’ll examine the strikingly modernist wartime propaganda that inundated the country, as well as photography and journalism by the likes of Robert Capa, George Orwell, and Ernest Hemingway. We’ll explore the politics of the war, the revolutionary violence behind the lines, and the war’s complex visual legacy, from The Valley of the Fallen to Pan’s Labyrinth.
