Approaches to Teaching the Works of Miguel de Unamuno ed. by Luis Álvarez-Castro

Abstract

Reviewed by: Approaches to Teaching the Works of Miguel de Unamuno ed. by Luis Álvarez-Castro Linda Bartlett Álvarez-Castro, Luis, editor. Approaches to Teaching the Works of Miguel de Unamuno. The Modern Language Association of America, 2020, pp. 247. ISBN 978-1-60329-442-3. The articles contained in this book are diverse in scope, yet share a unifying purpose: that of providing practical pedagogical strategies for teaching the work of Miguel de Unamuno to undergraduates across various disciplines and course levels. Approaches to Teaching the Works of Miguel de Unamuno’s content and organization reflect both the breadth of its project and the range of its target audience. Professional Hispanists and other teachers and scholars deeply familiar with Unamuno’s work will find a great deal here that is useful, including the incisive analysis of specific texts and the succinct synthesis of relevant scholarly literature. Those less well-acquainted with the author and his vast body of work will appreciate the care that is given to contextualize Unamuno’s life and writings, as well as the general accessibility of the volume’s content (which includes English translations of all quotes and titles). The book’s first section, “Materials,” includes a variety of resources, such as a concise, yet thorough, summary of available editions of Unamuno’s work (including those in translation) and an extremely valuable review of the most prominent extant scholarship on his life and work. Wisely, the editor limits this survey to book-length treatments of Unamuno and his texts; the “Works Cited” in the back of the book is an excellent companion resource. The “Materials” section also includes a helpful segment on digital and audiovisual resources, including two recent films on Unamuno. “Approaches,” the second and most substantial part of the book, is organized according to four distinct instructional contexts: those emphasizing historical texts, those examining literary objects, those focusing on philosophical/religious inquiry, and the foreign language classroom. The brief introduction to this section effectively orients the reader to the material to follow. The first section in “Approaches,” “Teaching Unamuno,” consists of three articles, which are appropriately broad in scope: “Unamuno for the Twenty-First Century,” by Gonzalo Navajas; “Teaching Unamuno in Seven Contexts,” by Nelson R. Orringer, and “Teaching the Multifaceted Unamuno in a Semester-Long Undergraduate Course,” by Leslie J. Harkema. The seven chapters in the next unit, “Literary and Historical Milieu,” meaningfully situate Unamuno in his historical and literary context. These address an array of diverse topics, as the titles indicate: “Toward a Twentieth-Century Modernity: Unamuno’s Paz en la guerra” (Salvador Oropesa); “Dressing Up Unamuno’s Naked Theater: Contextualizing Unamuno’s Drama in the Classroom” (Tracie Amend); “Teaching Unamuno’s Poetry: Romanticism and Modernity” (Stephen J. Summerhill); “Unamuno, an Iberian Thinker: Portuguese Culture and Travel Literature in Por tierras de Portugal y España” (Juan Francisco Maura); “Unamuno’s Niebla: A Lesson in Paradox, Adaptation, and Innovation” (Edward H. Friedman); “The Perversion of Genius: Unamuno’s Exile and the Censors” (Ana Urrutia-Jordana); and “Unamuno’s Press Articles: The Badge of Identity of the Unamunian Intellectual” (Stephen G. H. Roberts). The nine entries in the “Critical and Theoretical Approaches” section focus almost exclusively on Unamuno’s novels: “The Pathos of the Hero in Unamuno” (Francisco LaRubia-Prado); “Of Love and Power: Teaching Unamuno’s Amor y pedagogía to Undergraduates outside the Literary Major” (Mark J. Mascia); “Trains, Time, and Technology: Teaching “Mecanópolis through Mobility and Science Fiction Studies” (Benjamin Fraser); “Unamuno’s Metafiction: Niebla as a Deviation from Convention” (Craig N. Bergeson); “Teaching Unamuno’s Novels: Confrontation and Existence” (Juan Herrero-Senés); “Abel Sánchez; or, The Reader’s Personality as Textual Assemblage” (Thomas R. Franz); “Teaching Cómo se hace una novela and Its Legacy in Contemporary Spanish Autofictions” (Cristina Carrasco); “San Manuel Bueno, mártir, as Literary Artifact” (Brian Cope); and “Teaching Miguel Picazo’s La tía Tula to College Students in the United States” (Diana Roxana Jorza). The six chapters in the subsequent part, “Comparative Literature, Philosophy, and Religion Classrooms,” present interdisciplinary approaches to teaching Unamuno beyond the Spanish [End Page 505] classroom. Contributions to this section include: C. A. Longhurst, “Belief...