I must also post to the reading class website, instructions for their assignment. They know the assignment but they will need very specific instructions. For Valentine’s Day they are each presenting on a love song, and identifying rhetorical situations and techniques in love songs. But they must have step by step instructions or they will never be able to do it.
Who is speaking? To or of whom are they speaking? Where is the beloved located relative to them in space and time? What is the emotional situation? What verbs, nouns, and adjectives are there? What are the connotations of the words? What is the music like, and how does it interact with the words to create an atmosphere or effect? Things along these lines.
Meanwhile nation, space, and race are everywhere, and they are interconnected.
1. Before the creation of Al-Andalus Spain was a geographical designation, not a kingdom or nation. Spain the nation created itself through the so-called “Reconquista.” (This is difficult for the students to understand.)
2. The Kingdom of Spain, however, was not created until 1812; before this it was actually a group of kingdoms. I need a historian or to read my more serious history book. People talk about the “unification” of Spain in the 16th century but it was not a kingdom in the same way France had been since 1190; it was a union through the crowns. (I understand this but it appears to be hard to intuit from a contemporary point of view, where “countries” seem self-evident. And I want to read more about the administration of it.)
3. The Constitution of 1812 and the Cortes de Cádiz were a major event and there was a lot of discussion about race. This constitution was hardly ever en vigor but it was used as a model in very many places. It is to be contrasted to the Constitutions of the French Revolution (e.g. 1791, 1792) and I am starting to really like France. (I really with I knew more about these things, that is, I must teach myself more about these things.)
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 