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Resistance and Discourse: The Place of the Indigenous in Modern Latin America
SPAN251 SP

Crosslistings: LAST234

This course will examine how intellectuals and writers of the postcolonial period have made use of indigenous cultures as well as of the first European reflections on those cultures: the chronicles of discovery and conquest. Excerpts from Vision de los vencidos and from texts of Cristobal Colon, Bernal Diaz, Hernan Cortes, and Bartolome de Las Casas will be read in conjunction with 19th- and 20th-century essayists, novelists, short story writers, and poets. An important premise of this course is that the indigenous is not only a complex reality in Latin America, it is also an object of discourse, a kind of wild card in the intellectual's hand. The major question we will consider is the following: How have so-called pre-Columbian and contemporary indigenous cultures been brought forth in the highly polemical context of nation building in the 19th and 20th centuries?

MAJOR READINGS

Authors will include: Aridjis, Homero Asturias, Miguel Angel Carpentier, Alejo Garcia Calderon, Francisco Mariategui, Jose Carlos Matto de Turner, Clorinda Menchu, Rigoberta Neruda, Pablo Paz, Octavio Reyes, Alfonso Vasconcelos, Jose Vargas Llosa, Mario

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Oral presentations; three short papers (3-5); final paper.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

SPAN234 is intended for students who have completed SPAN223 or SPAN226. Students who have not done so should consult with the professor before preregistering. Readings, class discussion, and written work in Spanish only. Unless preregistered students attend the first class meeting or communicate directly with the instructor prior to the first class, they will be dropped from the class list. NOTE: Students must still submit a completed Drop/Add form to the Registrar's Office.

COURSE FORMAT: Lecture

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: HA RLAN    Grading Mode: Student Option   

Prerequisites: NONE

Last Updated on MAR-24-2000

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