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This course explores the diversity within Spanish (European, Christian) as well as Amerindian cultures at the time of the Conquest. Many Old and New World texts can be read as complex examinations of national, religious, ethnic, and personal identity understood as both destiny and choice and as an on-going quest or adventure. Identity assumes many forms here: multiple and sometimes dividied allegiances, border-crossing, passing and disguise, conformist and nonconformist assimilation. We will focus o n four prominent themes: biological and cultural mestizaje as ideal, as curse, and as amoral reality (the cases of Dona Marina/La Malinche, Gonzalo Guerrero, Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, the Inca Garcilaso); the discourse of barbarism and civilization, or what i t means to be fully human (the debate between Las Casas and Sepulveda, Vitoria'a launching of international law, the ethnographic achievements of Sahagun and Acosta); the struggle over the soul of the Church: Is Christianity inherited or acquired? In particular, is is compatible with racist blood-purity statutes aimed at converted Jews and Muslims? (the cases of Fray Luis de Leon, Santa Teresa, Ignacio de Loyola, and the moriscos); and the unstable boundary between the masculine and the feminine: Is anatomy destiny? (the cases of Santa Teresa and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz).
COURSE FORMAT: Discussion
Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA RLAN Grading Mode: Graded
Prerequisites: NONE
Last Updated on MAR-24-2000
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459