BHUM 16A00 - Contemporary Latin American Identities and Literature

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This seminar explores and recontextualizes the changing constructions of identity of contemporary Latino culture from a perspective located outside the geographic context of Latin America. Our approach prioritizes the notions of movement and subjectivity expressed in the literary works of Latino canon. Some of the topics addressed in this class are: exile, diaspora, immigration, construction of memory, cultural and linguistic hybridism and the neo/postcolonial condition. These themes will be presented within their historic and geopolitical context as well as in relation to literary genres like, among others, travel literature, journalistic chronicle, autobiography, family saga, poetry and bildungsroman. Conceptualization of hybrid and border identities, Spanglish and the limits of transculturation and the subversion of internal colonialism towards the creation of a new Latin American identity. Some of the authors we will study are: Reinaldo Arenas, Cristina García, Junot Díaz, Julia Álvarez, Sandra Cisneros and Gloria Anzaldúa.



DESCRIPTION OF COURSE SESSIONS:

Session 1: Course Introduction What does it mean to be Latino?

Session 2: Latin Intellectuality and Travel: Coney Island José Martí

Session 3: Cuban exile and self-exile: Antes que anochezca Reinaldo Arenas

Session 4: Decolonizing poetic language: Nuyorican poets

Session 5: Caribbean Diasporas in New York City: Cuban-american and Dominican-american poets.

Session 6: Conflicting masculinities: Drown Junot Díaz

Session 7: The migrant subject: Unaccompanied Javier Zamora

Session 8: Memory and family history: Dreaming in Cuban Cristina García

Session 9: Identity and bilingualism: How the García Girls Lost Their Accents Julia Álvarez

Session 10: Feminine Identity and Belonging: The House on Mango Street Sandra

Cisneros Session 11: Rethinking the border: Borderlands/La frontera Gloria Anzaldúa

Session 12: Hybrid Identities: the case of Spanglish



ADDITIONAL READINGS:

1. Juan González, Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America. New York: Penguin Books, 2001.

2. García, Cristina. Dreaming in Cuban. New York :Ballantine Books, 1993.

3. Zamora, Javier. Unaccompanied. Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 2017.

4. Alvarez, Julia. How the García Girls Lost Their Accents. New York :Plume, 1992.

5. Stavans, Ilan. Spanglish: the making of a new American language. New York : Rayo, 2004.

6. Juan Flores,“Life off the Hyphen: Latino Literature and Nuyorican Traditions” in Mambo Montage: The Latinization of New York City. eds. Laó-Montes, Agustín and Arlene Dávila. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.

Valeria DEL BARCO

Séminaire

English

Close reading of about twenty pages per week, preparation of discussion questions.

None. All of the texts are available in English, Spanish or, to a lesser extent, French. Class discussion will be carried out in English. Students may choose a language to submit written work.

Autumn 2024-2025

GRADING CRITERIA:

1. Attendance and class participation 10%

2. Oral presentation 25%

3. Mid-term essay 30%

4. Final essay 35%

The two-hour weekly sessions will comprise a lecture-style introduction, followed by an oral presentation/discussion leaders, discussion of the reading and the topics covered.