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In this thesis I present a case study of the Spanish civil war in cinema. I examine how this period has been represented in cinema through time, in different countries and in various cinematic forms. I reject the postmodern prognosis that the past is a chaotic mass, made sense of through the subjective narrativisation choices of historians working in the present. On the contrary, I argue that there are referential limits on what histories can be legitimately written about the past. I argue that there are different, often contradictory, representations of the Spanish civil war in cinema which indicates a diversity of uses for the past. But there are also referential limits on what can be legitimately represented cinematically. I argue that the civil war setting will continue to be one which filmmakers turn to as the battle for the future of Spain is partially played out in the cinematically recreated battles of the pas

This thesis examines the development ofnatural history in the Spanish Empire (1750-1850). I explore why the Spanish Crown promoted scientific institutions and expeditions in the second halfofthe eighteenth century, and I situate Spanish engagement with natural history within an imperial context. One Spanish commentator, scrutinising the contents ofthe Real Gabinete de Historia Natural in 1788, gloried that 'we have seen form this immense collection of singularities ofnature, brought at considerable expense, not only from all regions ofEurope, but also from Asia, Africa and America; so that all parts ofthe world may contribute to forming the most complete treasure ofNatural History that exists in the Universe'. I suggest that Spain's capacity to procure and exhibit exotic natural treasures reflected the potency ofher imperial structures. I also address the social, religious and economic benefits associated with the classification, collection and cultivation of natural objects. I am especially interested in the part that Spanish Americans played in this process, and the ways in which the development ofthe natural sciences on the imperial periphery intersected with the evolution of creole patriotism in the late colonial period. I consider how the creation, legitimisation and dissemination of scientific knowledge reflected broader questions of imperial power and national identity. I examine the ambiguous position ofcreole naturalists, who were simultaneously anxious to secure European recognition for their work, to celebrate the natural wealth oftheir homelands and, in some cases, to vindicate local forms of knowledge against purportedly universal European systems such as Linnaean botany, and I extend this analysis beyond independence, asking whether political freedom fomented or compromised the pursuit of natural history in the former colonies.

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The present study sets out to challenge a common assumption that Green politics is virtually non-existent in Spain. This assumed state of affairs has been attributed to a number of factors including a materialist society which prioritises economic growth, Spain’s political culture and, finally, the country’s electoral system. The result, according to the few scholars who include Spain in their studies, is a country with a weak political ecology social movement (PESM) and a Green party that enjoys only ‘trivial support’ (Mair 2001:103). As will be demonstrated, such assumptions are based on an insufficient knowledge of political ecology in Spain. The lack of knowledge has resulted in Spain’s green movements and parties being routinely misinterpreted and, indeed, overlooked. The first and most glaring misconception is many scholars’ persistence in referring to the ‘Spanish Green party’ as if a single party existed. In fact, the ‘Spanish Greens’ comprise not one national party but a variable and variegated number of different political parties, a few of which have certainly achieved a measure of electoral success (depending, of course, on how success is defined). Furthermore, it will be shown that reasons often given for the failure of the Green parties – such as the country’s alleged lack of interest in environmental matters – overlook other more pertinent factors such as, for example, tensions between the Spanish Greens and the environmental movement organisations (EMO), the nationalist factor and continuing tensions between the ‘green-greens’ and the ‘red-greens’. Despite numerous problems at party level, the present study will show that Spain’s PESM is as vigorous as – though different from - that of other countries which are reputed to be environmental leaders. To pursue this argument, the thesis will provide an overview of Spain’s Green parties, setting these within the cultural and historical context of the broader PESM to which they belong. Drawing on territorial politics literature, the thesis will, in particular, demonstrate that the territorial dimension – that is, Spain’s division into 17 autonomous regions – has been one of the neglected but determining factors contributing to the problems besetting the Spanish Greens. It will also be argued that, in its own way, the efforts of Spanish ecologists have undoubtedly contributed towards the ‘piecemeal’ greening of Spain. The arguments are further developed through two in-depth case studies focusing on political ecology, and more particularly Green parties, in two of Spain’s regions, Catalonia and Andalucia.

This thesis comprises an attempt to re-evaluate the experience and the survival of the indigenous Christian population of al-Andalus. It is a response to two problematic aspects of the historiography, whose authority has only recently begun to be questioned: first, the inordinate focus upon the polemical and problematic mid-ninth-century Cordoban hagiography and apologetic of Eulogius and Paul Albar, whose prejudiced vision has not only been accepted as a source of social history, but also projected onto all Andalusī Christianity to support the second – the assertion that conversion happened early and en masse, and led to their eradication in the early twelfth century. Eulogius and Albar’s account of a Córdoba oppressed and Christians persecuted (a trope herein dubbed the ecclesia destituta) has dominated thinking about the indigenous Christians of al-Andalus, due to its championing by Catholic historians since the texts’ rediscovery and publication in 1574, and by nineteenth-century Spanish nationalists to whose ideological and patriotic purposes it was amenable. The Cordobans’ account is here re-evaluated as regards its value as a historical artefact and its internal problems are outlined. The discrepancies between the picture created by Eulogius and Albar and that of other contemporary reports, and the problematic hagiography, are then explained to some degree by the literary models Eulogius had at his disposal – of primary interest are the classical pagan poetics of Vergil, Horace and Juvenal and the late antique theology of Augustine. Albar’s famous despair at the Arabisation of the Christian youth has, in conjunction with Eulogius’ ecclesia destituta and the relative scarcity of documentary evidence for the Christians of Andalusī territory, formed the crux of assumptions regarding the speed and extent of Arabisation and conversion. In reassessing Richard Bulliet’s ‘curve of conversion’, which seemed on a faulty reading to prove these assumptions, the second part of the thesis seeks to argue that profound Arabisation did not impact until a century later than is thought and resulted not in assimilative decline but in a late cultural flowering, and show the long, and in many places unbroken, survival of indigenous Christian communities in al-Andalus to the early fifteenth century.

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