Latin American Modernismo (341-0-1)
Instructors
Maria Alejandra Uslenghi
847/467-1713
3-113 Crowe
Meeting Info
Kresge Centennial Hall 2-420: Mon, Wed 9:30AM - 10:50AM
Overview of class
This course works comparatively with texts from Latin American modernismo and European traditions to elaborate on different conceptualizations of the modern imagination. Modernismo characterizes by its strategies of cultural appropriation on one side, and of cultural exhibition on the other, as it marks the moment of most intense traffic of symbolic and material goods and at the same time it claims its cultural autonomy that portrays in exhibitions, chronicles, journalism, and its poetry. Museums, world exhibitions, geographic expeditions, photography and travel writing, department stores, the fashion industry and the commodification of everyday life -what we can call an "exhibitionary complex-" rendered up and laid out the meaning of the modern world. Through these mechanisms the world began being represented as a framed visual display laid out for a spectator. We will explore the system of cultural appropriation and translation practiced by Latin American writers in a moment of imperial globalization and we will consider the Latin American inflexion on such topics as literature and cosmopolitism, the poetic representation of the street and metropolitan cities, the organization of urban leisure, the woman as objet d'art, the metropolitan fascination with subaltern cultures and debates on the production and consumption of mass urban culture. Prerequisite: SPAN 250-0, 251-0, 260-0, or 261-0.
Registration Requirements
Prerequisite: SPAN 250-0, 251-0, 260-0, or 261-0.
Learning Objectives
- Students will be familiar with modernist literature, its main topics, and will have knowledge of its historical and socio-cultural context.
- Students will be able to critically read short stories, poetry and chronicles to identify significant aesthetic and philosophical aspects of modernist literature.
- Students will be able to connect modernist authors' literary production to its contemporary visual culture exercising close reading analysis of both literary and visual texts.
Class Materials (Required)
All the readings and class materials will be available in Canvas.
Class Materials (Suggested)
We will read selections of modernist Latin American poetry and short stories. We will analyze both visual and literary materials.
Class Attributes
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area
Enrollment Requirements
Enrollment Requirements: Registration for Majors and Minors in either Spanish or Portuguese until the end of preregistration, after which time enrollment will be open to everyone who has taken the prerequisite.
Prerequisite: 1 course from SPANISH 250-0, SPANISH 251-0, SPANISH 260-0, or SPANISH 261-0