Topics in Latina and Latino Text and Representation (393-0-2)

Topic

Memory, Mourning, and Protest

Instructors

Elvia Mendoza
Crowe Hall, Room 1144

Meeting Info

Kresge Centennial Hall 2-410: Tues, Thurs 3:30PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

How are acts of protest rooted in memory and mourning? What forms do memory and mourning take, and how might they guide us in enacting other possible futures? To explore these questions, we critically examine the connections between memory and mourning and the ways they inform acts of protest, spanning from the public to the intimate, from the individual to the collective, and from the historical to the contemporary. We engage with a range of visual and written texts, including scholarly writings, film, performance, visual art, and novels, to understand how remembrance, loss, and refusal are embodied, expressed, and mobilized to challenge enduring legacies of oppression and intersecting forms of racial and gender violence. We will analyze acts of protest across various sites, from archives to the body, and to the streets, to discuss how claims to histories of oppression, violence, and loss are transformed into collective expressions of public outrage, resistance, and political action.

Learning Objectives

1. Critically analyze how memory is mediated, socially and politically constructed, and mobilized within structures of power.
2. Examine how acts of protest can reshape our understanding of the past and present and inform visions for enacting social change.
3. Discuss how mourning and loss can serve as foundations for mobilizing communities and social movements to protest oppressive systems of power.
4. Articulate in writing and through oral presentations how acts of protest emerge from memory and mourning.

Class Materials (Required)

The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat
Civil Disobedience: Art and Decoloniality in Central America, by Kency Cornejo

Class Attributes

Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area