Michael Iarocci, Associate Professor of Spanish, University of California at Berkeley is a recognized leader in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Spanish literary and cultural studies. HIs most recent book, Properties of Modernity: Romantic Spain, Modern Europe and the Legacies of Empire, published by Vanderbilt University Press in 2006, is already considered a seminal text in the field. Professor Iarocci's work has appeared in leading national and international peer-reviewed journals (Hispanic Review, Revista HIspanica Moderna, Bulletin of Spanish Studies, Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispanicos). Hehas addressed themes ranging from neoclassical poetics to later nineteenth-century visual culture and written about numerous authors, including Enrique Gil, Jose Cadalso, Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, Jose Pereda and Benito Perez Galdos. HIs most recent research, the subject of his talk, involves an analysis of Francisco Goya's relationship to the photojournalism of war. While conventional wisdom is the Goya is a precursor on that front, a more complex story can be told about Goya's relationship to the photographic and about the reception history of visual images in the 19th century.
Following the talk, the Museum will host a viewing session of Goya’s etching series, Los Desastres de la Guerra (1810 – 1820).
This lecture is co-sponsored with 6VµçÓ°Íø Department of Romance Languages and Literatures.