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Academic Year 2003/2004

Chicana/o Literature: Legal Fictions
ENGL 290 FA
Crosslistings:
AMST 252

This course will investigate the legal and fictional formation of Chicana/o group identity in texts by Chicanos/as against legal cases that view institutional racism as antagonism between particular individuals rather than part of a history of long-term discrimination of one group against another. Beginning with Oscar Zeta Acosta's novel, this class will explore both Chicanas/os as subject to the law as well as their attempts to engage in its power structure as detectives, police, jury members, lawyers, translators, etc. We will also watch the film ZOOT SUIT and AMERICAN ME and examine legal documents from the Sleepy Lagoon Case, comparing the role of public stripping, spectacle and surveillance. We will continue looking at these issues of criminality, ethnography, the gaze and their connections to magic realism and homosexuality in works by Castillo, Morales and Rodriguez. In writings by Cervantes, Corpi, Moraga, and Viramontes, we will examine the role of gendered translations that deconstruct the nationalist allegory of the Chicano family as a safe site against capitalism and domination.

MAJOR READINGS

Oscar Zeta Acosta, THE REVOLT OF THE COCKROACH PEOPLE (1973)
Ana Castilla, SAPOGONIA (1990)
Lorna Dee Cervantes, EMPLUMADA (1981)
Lucha Corpi, EULOGY FOR A BROWN ANGEL (1992)
Alejandro Morales, THE BRICK PEOPLE (1988)
Richard Rodriguez, DAYS OF OBLIGATION (1992)
Helena Maria Viramontes, THE MOTHS AND OTHER STORIES (1985)

Shorter pieces include Cherrie Moraga's GIVING UP THE GHOST, Luis Valdez' ZOOT SUIT (the play), and WASHINGTON VS. DAVIS (1976).

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Six very short reaction papers (1 pp.); two papers (5-6 pp. and 10-13 pp.); class participation.

COURSE FORMAT: Discussion

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: HA ENGL    Grading Mode: Graded   

Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-19-2004

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