The Spanish and Portuguese Section offers undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan. It is unique in its commitment to exploring the trans-historical and cross-cultural interrelations between all these language areas and their corresponding cultural formations. The research interests of its academic staff thus span a wide range of areas including Medieval and Golden Age Spanish cultures and their consolidation in dialogue with the diverse cultures and faith systems of Africa and the 'New World' the literature, art and cinema of Portugal, Brazil and Lusophone Africa the literature of modern Spain and its relationship with the Enlightenment, colonialism, and modernity the cinema of the Ibero-American world from early silent film through to its avant-garde, indigenous, popular, and transnational dimensions today and the culture of Catalonia from its rebirth in the Renaixença, through its resistance to Franquismo in literature and film, to its vibrant contemporary artistic, architectural and cinematographic expressions.