Studies in American Literature (471-0-21)
Topic
Sovereignties across the Americas
Instructors
Mariajose Rodriguez Pliego
Meeting Info
Locy Hall 314: Thurs 2:00PM - 4:50PM
Overview of class
The terms "sovereignties" and "Americas" in the title of this course stand at the crossroads of old and new dialogues about their meanings. This course considers Indigenous and Native American notions of sovereignty that imagine nationhood outside of the nation-state framework. It reads these theorizations of sovereignty and nationhood alongside Latin American and Latinx anti-imperial writing. We will consider José Martí's late nineteenth-century articulation of "Our America" alongside the rise of the Guna word "Abiayala" and its use by Indigenous activists from Latin America, and "Turtle Island" as the name that Native American creation stories give to our continent. Our discussions will trace connections between the storytelling traditions of Native American, Indigenous, and Latinx authors across the hemisphere. We will study the narrative forms that authors take up as they construct or critique nationhood: essays, short stories, novels and poetry. We will also examine how authors break down these forms by taking up communal authorship, orality, visual media, and multilingualism as narrative strategies that provide aesthetic and ideological challenges to canonical articulation of nation-state sovereignties.
Teaching Method
Discussion-based seminar.
Evaluation Method
Conference abstract, paper, presentations, and participation in discussions.
Class Materials (Required)
Assigned texts will likely include essays by Emil' Keme, José Martí, Gerald Vizenor, Shari M. Huhndorf, Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, and Walter Mignolo. Primary materials will include works by Leslie Marmon Silko, Luz Jiménez, Tommy Orange, Yuri Herrera, and Natalie Díaz, as well as excerpts from Popol Vuh and Florentine Codex
Texts will be available at: All materials will be uploaded to Canvas.