Courses offered
SPRING 2025
SPN 415/SPN 510 Hispanic Cultures. Mestizo Studies
This course studies the term mestizo from its elusive and dynamic uses in the colonial period, its systematic implementation in Latin American national discourses from the late 19th century to mid-20th century (in novels, essays, poems and visual culture) to its critique and possible reformulation in current fiction and essays. There will be in-class written assignments, oral presentations, short written homework and a final research project.
Course relief (Chair)
Fall 2024
SPN 384 Intro Latin American Literature and Culture I
This course studies diverse textual traditions (written and visual) of the Spanish empire and the peoples of the Americas during the first global interchanges, transatlantic travels and the formation of new social structures in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the first part the students will read texts produced during the conquest and the early evangelization, leading to European debates on the nature of the Indians, the justice of the Spanish occupation of the New World, and the beginnings of international law and human rights. In the second part, the focus will be on narrations of the formation of the new mestizo and criollo cultures. Emphasis will be on authors such as the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and the Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Contemporary critical readings will complement class discussion.
Course relief (Chair)
SPRING 2024
SPN 652 Colonial Textual Cities and Andean Borderlands
This doctoral seminar explores the semiotics of Hispanic urban spaces imposed on the Andean geography and its intricate relation to textual culture and media history in the early modern period (1600 to 1750). Some of the questions that will guide our inquiry are: What was the meaning of “indio criollo” used by indigenous urban dwellers in a multiethnic city like Lima by 1600? How did Spanish cities in the Andes transform and reshape indigenous cultures? What was the impact of the new colonial cities in the global politics and culture of the Spanish Monarchy? What was the role of printed culture in the popular daily life in the viceroyalty of Peru? The course will study Spanish and Andean Renaissance and Baroque texts and textuality, focusing on a broad range of discourses and materialities, from cosmography, narrative chronicles, chorography, epic poetry, fiestas, city plans, viceregal censuses, relaciones de sucesos and news-sheets, to travel accounts, including some French and English texts. The seminar includes a critical dialogue with Andean modern novels and discussions on Latin American literary theory, on historiography, philology, and methodological considerations. All students are expected to write short responses, give an in-class presentation, and write a final research paper on primary sources and critical problems studied in class. The seminar will be taught in Spanish.
Course relief (Chair)
FALL 2023
SPRING 2022
Sabbatical semester (non teaching)
FALL 2022
SPN 652 Colonial Textualities in the Extended Andes
This doctoral seminar studies the complex uses of writing and print culture in the extended Andean region (from Panama to Chile) from 1550 to 1750. Although our main focus will be on materials produced in European codes within the colonial context, such as chronicles, maps, epic poems, relaciones de sucesos or news pamphlets, the seminar will also study the interaction of Spanish and indigenous languages and semiotic artifacts. Our discussions will include 20th century narratives and criticism (i.e. J.M. Arguedas and William Rowe) to trace the history and transformations of some critical categories for our understanding of Andean cultures (i.e. the lettered city). All students are expected to write a final research paper on colonial or early modern primary sources based on the material and critical problems studied in class. The seminar will be taught in Spanish.
SPRING 2022
SPN 415/510 Hispanic Cultures in Contact/Hispanic Cultures. Mestizo Studies
In the first part, this course studies the history of the term mestizo from its elusive and dynamic uses in the colonial period (as seen in legal documents, narrative accounts, poetry and other textual and visual materials) to its systematic implementation in Latin American national discourses from the late 19th century to mid-20th century, as seen in novels (romantic and naturalistic), in cultural essays, narratives and paintings of the indigenista, negrista, and criollista movements. In the second part, we will explore the current vitality of the term in literary and cultural studies (in contrast to transculturation, heterogeneity, diversity, etc), in new formal political projects (i.e. constitutions), as well as in recent indigenous texts and performances. In the third part, we will explore research topics for our final project. In general terms, the course is an interrogation of race and ethnicity in Latin America (focusing in the Andean region and Mexico), mainly through close and contextual readings of texts in Spanish, but also through visual culture.
SPN 312 Introduction to Literary Studies
Reading of selected passages of prose and poetry in class, with special concentration on improving students’ written and oral skills, and introducing them to the basic elements of literary analysis of Spanish and Latin American works.
FALL 2021
SPN 395 Introduction to Latin American Literature and Cultures I
This course studies diverse textual traditions (written and visual) of the Spanish empire and the peoples of the Americas during the first global interchanges, transatlantic travels and the formation of new social structures in the 16th and 17th centuries. Beginning with the writings of Columbus and the cartographic imagination, in the first part the students will read texts produced during the conquest and the early evangelization, leading to European debates on the nature of the Indians, the justice of the Spanish occupation of the New World, and the beginnings of international law and human rights. In the second part, the focus will be on narrations of the formation of the new mestizo and criollo cultures. Emphasis will be on authors such as the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and the Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Contemporary critical readings will complement class discussion.
The class will also explore the early new Spanish American vocabulary on such key words as Indian, cannibal, encomienda, maroon, criollo, ladino, mestizo, etc. Students will get familiar with the intellectual debates and language that accompanied the formation of the Spanish-American society and culture.
SPN 310 Spanish Grammar and Composition for Students of Hispanic-American Background.
A course designed to improve writing through the study of Hispanic-American literature and culture. May not be taken for credit in addition to SPN 311.
SPRING 2021
Non teaching semester (Humanities Institute Fellowship)
FALL 2020
SPN 415 Hispanic Cultures in Contact / Spn 551 Early Latin American Literature
Latin American History through Fiction: This combined SPN 415/SPN 551 will study fictional Latin American narratives from the 19th to 21st centuries as complex sources of historical knowledge. We will be focusing on testimonials and experiential content and comparing them to classic readings on Latin American history, from the ending of the colonial period to the migrating communities of the postmodern times. The course will include some theoretical texts on the rhetoric of historiography and the tensions between history and fiction.
SPN 652 Colonial Latin American Cultures. Information and Narration in Andean Colonial Textualities
This doctoral seminar studies the textural culture of colonial Latin America, dealing with a diversity of genres, from legal writing, historiography, autobiography and epic poetry to visual materials, such as drawings, textiles, decorated vases, etc. The course explores the transatlantic Ibero-American traditions in relation to native and local cultures. Major authors and historical events will be studied in depth along with current criticism and theories.
The seminar “Information and Narration in Andean Colonial Textualities” is dedicated to writing technologies, narrative and information structures in various discourses and textualities within the Spanish colonial and mestizo society in the extend Andes between the 16th and early 18th centuries.
SPRING 2020
SPN 396 Introduction to Latin American Literature II
Readings in Spanish-American literature from the late colonial period (19th century) to the present
SPN 390 Communications, Media and Journalism in Spanish
In this class students will be reading, analyzing, writing, producing and publishing news and media material in Spanish. Emphasis will be on the new digital media culture of globalized Latin America, Latino USA and Spain in relation to specific historical and social contexts, power relations, gender and ethnic politics and ethical issues. The intersection of Latin American journalism and literature (the crónica), the new testimonial documentaries and the tensions between storytelling and information will be central in our multimedia work. The final group project will involve a multimedia digital publication in Spanish related to current events in Spanish speaking communities. Taught in Spanish. See our course blog!
FALL 2019
SPN 395 Introduction to Latin American Literature I (colonial period)
Literature and historiography of the Spanish empire and its colonies in the Americas. Beginning with the writings of Columbus and the cartographic imagination, in the first part the students will read texts produced during the conquest and the early evangelization, leading to intense debates on the nature of the Indians and the justice of the European occupation of the New World. In the second part, the focus will be on narrations of the formation of the new criollo culture of the vice-regal city. Emphasis will be on authors such as the mestizo Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and the Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Contemporary critical readings will complement class discussion.
Course relief for Director of Undergrad Studies
SPRING 2019
SPN 390 Communications, Media and Journalism in Spanish
In this class students will be reading, analyzing, writing, producing and publishing news and media material in Spanish. Emphasis will be on the new digital media culture of globalized Latin America, Latino USA and Spain in relation to specific historical and social contexts, power relations, gender and ethnic politics and ethical issues. The intersection of Latin American journalism and literature (the crónica), the new testimonial documentaries and the tensions between storytelling and information will be central in our multimedia work. The final group project will involve a multimedia digital publication in Spanish related to current events in Spanish speaking communities. Taught in Spanish. See course blog here!
Course relief for Director of Undergrad Studies
FALL 2018
SPN 652 Ruins and continuities in Andean narratives [Colonial Spanish American Literature]
This seminar and critical workshop will take early 20th century Andean studies, indigenismo, anthropology and archaeology (Luis Valcárcel, J. C. Tello and José María Arguedas) as a point of departure, and then move back in time to textualities produced during the 16th to 18th centuries in the region, focusing on problems of continuities (resistance), change (transformation) and mestizaje (transculturación, heterogeneidad), as well as on material culture (books, paper, stone) and the particularities of writing and text circulation in a colonial setting. The class will review current literary criticism, studies in coloniality of power and historiography, but it will mainly follow a critical philological approach. Main texts to be studied represent a diversity of agents and genres: chronicles, poems, letters, festival accounts, extirpation of idolatry and saintly narratives, official news sheets, cartography, etc. Seminar is taught in Spanish.
SPN 395 Introd to Latin American Literature I (colonial period)
SPRING 2018
SPN 551 Early Latin American Literature
This course will provide an introduction to major texts of the colonial period and to narratives, poems, essays and films from the 20th and 21st century that revise the colonial legacies and study the vitality of the indigenous cultures in modern Latin America. Students will learn about the historical context and rhetorical traditions behind each text, letter, chronicle, poem, testimony or legal document to be studied. The class, taught in Spanish, will cover more than 400 years of cultural production in the Americas. Students will write 2 exams and 5 short quizzes (in class), and prepare a final group presentation. Authors or texts to be studied include: H. Cortés, Las Casas, Cabeza de Vaca, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Inca Garcilaso, Guaman Poma, Popol Vuh, Manuscrito de Huarochirí, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Siguenza y Góngora; J. M. Arguedas, Elena Garro, Rigoberta Menchú, Gabriel García Márquez, Alonso Cueto, Alejo Carpentier.
Course relief for Director of Undergrad Studies
FALL 2017
SPN 395 Introd to Latin American Literature I (colonial period)
Literature and historiography of the Spanish empire and its colonies in the Americas. Beginning with the writings of Columbus and the cartographic imagination, in the first part the students will read texts produced during the conquest and the early evangelization, leading to intense debates on the nature of the Indians and the justice of the European occupation of the New World. In the second part, the focus will be on narrations of the formation of the new criollo culture of the vice-regal city. Emphasis will be on authors such as the mestizo Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and the Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Contemporary critical readings will complement class discussion.
SPN 311 Spanish Conversation and Composition
SPRING 2017
SPN 652 Textuality in the Extended Andes
This doctoral seminar will study narratives, legal documents, epic poetry, maps and other forms of colonial textuality related to the extended Andean region in a transatlantic context, from early Spanish accounts to mestizo and indigenous narratives (1520 to 1620). Structured as a workshop, the seminar will study in detail the language of each text (vocabulary, rhetoric, poetics), the cultural debates in which they were produced, as well as the history of their materiality and transmission (manuscripts and printed editions). Textual discussion will be accompanied by readings in cultural criticism, ethno-history and colonial and post-colonial Latin American studies. Main authors to be studied include: Cieza de León, Ercilla, Miramontes, Cabello Balboa, Acosta, Tito Cusi Yupanqui, Inca Garcilaso, Guaman Poma, Tomé Hernández, etc.
GLS 102 Early texts and images of Spanish America
This course is designed as a seminar and a workshop in which students will be analyzing primary sources (images and narratives) on the European circumnavigations of the sixteenth century. The seminar will focus on the Strait of Magellan and Panama, which became geographical keys to articulate the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and opened the first global circulation of culture and commodities.
Course relief for Director of Undergrad Studies
FALL 2016
SPN 395 Introd to Latin American Literature I (colonial period)
This course studies the literature and historiography of the Spanish empire and its colonies in the Americas, mainly in the 16th and 17th centuries, at the very beginning of the first global interchanges, transatlantic and world-encompassing travels. Beginning with the writings of Columbus and the cartographic imagination, in the first part the students will read texts produced during the conquest and the early evangelization, leading to debates on the nature of the Indians and the justice of the European occupation of the New World, and the beginnings of international law and human rights movements. In the second part, the focus will be on narrations of the formation of the new mestizo and criollo cultures. Emphasis will be on authors such as the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and the Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Contemporary critical readings will complement class discussion. The class will also explore the early vocabulary of empire and the colonies, focusing on such key words as Indian, cannibal, encomienda, maroon, criollo, ladino, mestizo, etc. Students will get familiar with the intellectual debates and language that accompanied the formation of the Spanish-American society and culture.
SPN 311 Spanish Conversation and Composition
A thorough review of Spanish grammar and of the active use of spoken and written forms. Not intended for students of Spanish-speaking background.
SPRING 2016
Sabbatical
FALL 2015
SPN 395 Introd to Latin American Literature I (colonial period)
SPN 652 Colonial Spanish American Literature: Moral Geographies
This seminar studies the textual culture of colonial Latin America from 1500 to 1800, dealing with a diversity of genres, from legal writing, historiography, autobiography and epic poetry to visual materials, such as maps, textiles, decorated vases, etc. The course explores the imperial transatlantic Ibero-American traditions in relation to native and local cultures. Major authors and historical events will be studied in depth along with current criticism and theories. The seminar also examines problems in textual criticism and material culture in the Early modern and colonial world.
SPRING 2015
Non teaching semester. Course relief, LACC Director extension.
FALL 2014
SPN 671 José María Arguedas: Literature and Criticism
This doctoral seminar studies the writings of Peruvian anthropologist, novelist, poet and translator José María Arguedas and the critical discourse constructed around his work. The novels, shorts stories, essays and poems of Arguedas, which have been a mayor source for Latin American critical theory since the 1970s, will be carefully read in relation to debates around indigenismo, mestizaje, transculturación, popular culture, orality, colonialism, sexuality, migration, etc. Besides the main works of Arguedas, students will read and discuss texts by Mariátegui, Ángel Rama, Antonio Cornejo Polar, Gustavo Gutiérrez, William Rowe, among others.
SPN 395 Introd to Latin American Literature I (colonial period)
SPRING 2014
Non teaching semester. Accumulated course relief, LACC Director.
FALL 2013
SPN 652 Colonial Spanish American Literature: Moral Geographies
This seminar will explore letters, chronicles, epic poetry, maps and other forms of colonial textuality related mainly to South America, from the early accounts of the European expansion to local mestizo production in early 1600. Structured as a workshop, the seminar will analyze primary texts in Spanish (and some Portuguese) along with contemporary criticism. The seminar will interrogate the intersection of geography (writing on land) and morals (customs, culture, etc) to produce a working concept of “moral geography”.
Main authors to be studied include: Columbus, Pero Vaz de Caminha, Vespucci, Cieza de León, Bartolomé de Las Casas, Alonso de Ercilla, Juan de Miramontes, Tito Cusi Yupanqui, Felipe Guaman Poma and Inca Garcilaso.
SPN 395 Introd to Latin American Literature I (colonial period)
SPRING 2013
HUS 252 Latin America Today
This course is designed to offer an introduction to the diverse histories, cultures, societies, economies and political systems of contemporary Latin America. Drawing on a variety of texts and cultural artifacts (literary prose, poetry, photography, historical and journalistic articles and documentary and fiction film), the course will seek to understand the features that define and question the unity of a large portion of the world with about 20 countries; and the challenging issues and promising traits that the region faces today in a globalized world. Ultimately, the course aims to answer the question of “what is Latin America today?”
SPN 396 Introduction to Spanish American Literature II
This survey course studies Spanish American “literature” from the late eighteenth century to late twentieth century. Students will read letters, essays, chronicles, narrative fiction, poetry and film produced in the vast territories and diverse cultures comprehended between Mexico, Central America, Spanish speaking Caribbean and South America.The course will explore the relation between historical movements and literary and cultural production, the formation of modern national discourses, local traditions and cosmopolitanism. Students will get familiar with the intellectual debates and language that accompanied the formation of a Latin American literature.
Fall 2012
SPN 435 Contemporary Latin American Literature
This course will review different “contemporary” narrative traditions in Latin America. The main focus will be on short fiction [cuento o narrativa breve], but poetry, essays, literary criticism and testimonial accounts will also be studied.
One of the main critical questions that will guide our review of about 20 Latin American authors from different countries is related to the problem of contemporaneity. What makes an author or a text a “contemporary”? How can we define contemporaneity in the highly diverse cultural area of Latin America and what is the importance of space or location in this? How can an old text be more contemporary than a new one?
The class will have a seminar structure. Discussions will also touch on issues of gender, power, globalization, sexuality, colonialism, Latin America in the US, invention of traditions and relations between parents and children. Authors to be studies include Aurora Arias, Jorge Luis Borges, Junot Díaz, Gabriel García Márquez, Elena Garro, José Luis González, José Emilio Pacheco, Elena Poniatowska, Virgilio Piñera, Blanca Varela, Juan Villoro, etc.
SPN 395 Introd to Latin American Literature I (colonial period)
Literature and historiography of the Spanish empire and its colonies in the Americas. Beginning with the writings of Columbus and the cartographic imagination, in the first part the students will read texts produced during the conquest and the early evangelization, leading to intense debates on the nature of the Indians and the justice of the European occupation of the New World. In the second part, the focus will be on narrations of the formation of the new criollo culture of the vice-regal city. Emphasis will be on authors such as the mestizo Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and the Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Contemporary critical readings will complement class discussion.
Spring 2012
SPN 652 Colonial Latin American Lit: Utopian texts in the Andes
This seminar is structured as a reflection on utopian discourses in the Andes. We will begin analyzing early modern European narratives (Vespucci, More) in the humanist tradition to produce a working concept of “utopia” that could have played a significant role in early Andean mestizo colonial texts. The focus will be on Inca Garcilaso’s Comentarios reales and Guaman Poma’s Nueva corónica y buen gobierno, and in documents around Indigenous messianic movements, such as the Taqui Onkoy; on Spanish and Criollo heretics and saints, like Francisco de La Cruz or Santa Rosa de Lima; and in testimonies of indios ladinos (Christian neophytes) in Cieza de León’s, Crónica del Perú and the Manuscrito de Huarochirí.The consolidation of a Criollo ideology embodied in the ideal feminine city of Lima will be studied in the epic poem Vida de Santa Rosa by Luis Antonio de Oviedo y Herrera, Count of La Granja.
The seminar will also attempt to bridge colonial and twentieth century Andean texts and their utopian traditions. The final part of the semester will be devoted to the study of José María Arguedas’s work and the dynamics of utopia and counter-utopia, ideology and utopia, in contemporary critical discourse, fiction and colonial studies (Flores Galindo, Burga). Special attention will be paid to Argueda’s posthumous novel, El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo.
SPN 435 New World Encounters. Literature, non fiction and journalism in Latin America.
Since colonial times, “encounters” have been the basic ground for the production of a Latin American narrative tradition. This course will study the form, structure and historic contexts of “non-fiction” narratives produced in diverse “contact zones”, from early accounts (relaciones), letters and crónicas of the colonial period to the travel narratives of the 19th century and contemporary non-fiction texts and documentaries. The class will also explore the formation of a journalistic discourse in Latin America, the centrality of the crónica, and study the importance of newspapers and journals in the development of a modern Latin American narrative.
Fall 2011
SPN 435 Topics: Fictions of Communities in the Andes
This course, structured as a seminar, reflects on diverse images of communities and national narratives in modern Peruvian literature (late 19th and 20th century), studied in their Latin American context. The focus will be in short stories, novels, essays and poetry of the indigenismo (a net of discourses about indigenous cultures) and the urban criollo literature. Authors to be studied include José María Arguedas, Alonso Cueto, Clorinda Matto, Julio Ramón Ribeyro, Mario Vargas Llosa, César Vallejo, etc. Classes will be conducted in Spanish.
SPN 395 Introduction to Latin American Literature I (colonial period)
Spring 2011
SPN 652 Matter and Voice in Colonial Textualities
The main objective of this doctoral seminar is to reflect on colonial textuality or the processes in which meaning is produced through texts in specific contexts in early Spanish-America. The seminar, conceived as a workshop on critical reading and textual criticism, will be arranged into 4 sections of about 3 weeks each one: 1) a textual study of an account written by the Spanish priest Miguel Cabello Balboa on the maroon societies of the Equatorial coast Verdadera descripción y relación de la Provincia de las Esmeraldas (c. 1582); 2) problems of speech and voice: the poetics and politics of Indian discourses in colonial epic poetry (discussion of selected cantos from Ercilla, Castellanos and Oña); 3) a study of a manuscript of an Andean colonial fiesta (Relación de Pausa 1607); and 4) texts and space: accounts on the geography on the Strait of Magellan 1580 to 1621 (Sarmiento de Gamboa, Argensola and Nodal)
Students are required to write three short reports and a final paper, and give an oral presentation on the final project.
Course relief: Director of Undergraduate Studies
Fall 2010
SPN 435 Readings on Civilization and Barbarism
This class will explore “civilization and barbarism” as a long lasting interpretative matrix for Latin America, focusing on essays, novels, short stories and poetry, as well as legal documents, films, urbanism, etc. It will follow a basic historical approach beginning with a reflection on the origins of concept of “civilization,” the colonial debates on the legal status of the Indians and the typology of “barbarians” in the first ethnographic works of Bartolomé de Las Casas and José de Acosta. Eighteenth century racial categorizations, casta paintings, indigenous upheavals, and the emergence of new modern states in the nineteenth century will be also studied through this binary opposition and its critics, as in Sarmiento, Martí, González Prada, etc. The second half of the class will be devoted to twentieth century texts, the avant-gardes and ethnographic writing (novela testimonio). Students will read and discuss the poetry of Palés Matos and narratives by José Luis González, J. M. Arguedas, Mario Vargas Llosa and Gregorio Martínez.
SPN 395 Introduction to Latin American Literature I
Spring 2010
SPN 652 Colonial Spanish American Literature: moral geographies
This seminar will explore colonial territories and “moral geographies” in chronicles, epic poetry, maps and other forms of colonial textuality related mainly to South America, from the early accounts of the European expansion to local mestizo production in early 1600. Structured as a workshop, the seminar will analyze primary texts in Spanish (and some Portuguese) along with contemporary criticism.
Main authors to be studied include: Columbus, Pero Vaz de Caminha, Vespucci, Francisco de Jerez, Pedro de Cieza de León, Bartolomé de Las Casas, Alonso de Ercilla, Juan de Miramontes, Tito Cusi Yupanqui, Felipe Guaman Poma and Inca Garcilaso.
The seminar will be taught in Spanish, and it is intended only to doctoral students.
HUS 252 Latin America Today
An introduction to Latin American history, geography and culture. All Spanish and Portuguese texts or films in English translation.
Fall 2009
SPN 395 Introd to Latin American Literature I (colonial period)
Literature and historiography of the Spanish empire and its colonies in the Americas. Beginning with the writings of Columbus and the cartographic imagination, in the first part the students will read texts produced during the conquest and the early evangelization, leading to intense debates on the nature of the Indians and the justice of the European occupation of the New World. In the second part, the focus will be on authors such as the mestizo Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and the Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Contemporary critical readings will complement class discussion.
SPN 435 Topics: Fictions of Communities in the Andes
Spring 2009
SPN 510 Hispanic Culture. 20th Century Latin American Novel: History and Fiction
This MA course studies Spanish American narrative fictions and their relation to history and historiography. Focus will be on the diverse traditions of “realism” in twentieth century novels. Students will get familiar with intellectual, artistic and political debates that accompanied the formation of modern Spanish-American societies and cultures. During the semester, it is expected that students will develop and practice analytical tools for
reading literary and cultural artifacts; familiarize with mayor narrative works, artistic movements and literary criticism in Latin America; and learn and discuss Latin American literary history and historiography. Required texts: Jorge Luis Borges, Ficciones; Juan José Saer, El entenado; Alejo Carpentier, El arpa y la sombra y El reino de este mundo; Mariano Azuela, Los de abajo; Gabriel García Márquez, Cien años de soledad y El otoño del patriarca; Ricardo Güiraldes, Don Segundo Sombra; Roberto González Echevarría, Myth and Archive; Mariano Picón Salas, De la Conquista a la Independencia.
SPN 396 Introduction to Spanish American Literature II
This survey course studies Spanish American “literature” from the late eighteenth century to mid twentieth century. Students will read essays, narratives (short-stories and novels) and poetry produced in the vast territories and diverse cultures comprehended between Mexico, Spanish speaking Caribbean and South America. The course will explore the relation between historical movements and literary production, the formation of modern national discourses, local traditions and cosmopolitanism. Students will get familiar with the intellectual debates and language that accompanied the formation of a “Latin American” literature.
Fall 2008
SPN 671 José María Arguedas and the Narratives of Indigenismo
This seminar will study the work of 20th century Peruvian anthropologist, novelist, poet and translator José María Arguedas. The class will begin discussing 19th century writers such as Manuel González Prada, Clorinda Matto de Turner and Ricardo Palma, and the traditions involved in the formation of new discourses on the Indians. The work of Arguedas, which has been a mayor source for Latin American critical theory, will be carefully read as a narrative space for the constitution of an Andean subject, and as a key intervention into cultural and political debates around colonialism, indigenismo, mestizaje, acculturation, orality, etc. Students will also read and discuss texts by José Carlos Mariátegui, Luis E. Valcárcel, Sebastián Salazar Bondy, Alberto Escobar, Ángel Rama, Alberto Flores Galindo, Antonio Cornejo Polar, William Rowe, etc.,
SPN 395 Introd to Latin American Literature I (colonial period)
Literature and historiography of the Spanish empire and its colonies in the Americas. Beginning with the writings of Columbus and the cartographic imagination, in the first part the students will read texts produced during the conquest and the early evangelization, leading to intense debates on the nature of the Indians and the justice of the European occupation of the New World. In the second part, the focus will be on narrations of the formation of the new criollo culture of the vice-regal city. Emphasis will be on authors such as the mestizo Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and the Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Contemporary critical readings will complement class discussion.
Spring 08
SPN 312 Introduction to Literary Studies (TuTh 1250-210)
20th century short stories, novels, poetry and essays from Latin America and Spain read in conjuction to some critical theory and literary analysis.
SPN 652 Colonial Spanish American Literature (Th 330-630)
This graduate seminar studies the formation of a colonial discourse on the Incas, and the particularities of textual production and circulation in the Andes in the 16th century. Main reading list: Xerez, Cieza, Sarmiento de Gamboa, Cabello de Balboa, Tito Cusi Yupanqui, Jesuita Anónimo, Acosta, Inca Garcilaso, Huaman Poma, etc.
Fall 07
SPN 395 Introd to Latin American Literature I (colonial period)
SPN 435 Topic: Fictions of Communities in the Andes
*Note:
300-400: advanced undergraduate courses (cursos del pregrado)
500-599: M.A. courses (cursos de la maestría)
600-699: Ph.D. courses (cursos del doctorado)
