The Novel in Latin America: Society, State, Nature (Taught in English) (222-0-1)

Instructors

Jorge Coronado
847/491-8277
3-135 Crowe

Meeting Info

Kresge Cent. Hall 2-380 Kaplan: Mon, Wed 9:00AM - 9:50AM

Overview of class

Can novels help us understand what Latin America means now and what it has meant in the past? Can they help us understand what the world beyond the region means? This course will examine the modern Latin American novel in terms of three of its obsessions: society, state, and nature. We will explore canonical—and blockbuster—novels of the so-called Boom period with an eye to their elaborate articulations of the region, its inhabitants and their identities. Beyond proposals of magical realities, we will focus on the ways in which identity becomes a point of resolution and problem for understanding Latin American societies as well as, crucially, grasping the region's place in global history. We will also interrogate the way in which these novels, at times anachronistically, undercut the fixation on identity by introducing doubts concerning nationalism, the individual, class hierarchies, capitalism and, especially, the way in which these have intersected with the state in the region. We will pay special attention to what, if anything, is "Latin American" about these novels. Finally, we will read a novel from the same period that, turning away from what one critic has called "mestizo-criollo-elite" literary practices, leaves behind simplifying representations of nature as anti-civilization in order to claim the natural broadly conceived as a site of knowledge and epistemology. Importantly, it hinges on the centrality of indigenous peoples and indigeneity not to regional identity but rather to a redefinition of what we understand humanity to be and how it has been defined in Latin American and world history. This course is taught in English.

Learning Objectives

• Observe the forms, content, and specificities of the novel in Latin America through the 20th century through practices of close reading and analysis.
• Develop an understanding of the social, political, and cultural contexts shaping Latin American novels, including issues related to class, identity, nature, society and state.
• Assess how literature portrays diverse Latin American identities, analyzing the intersections of regional, national, ethnic, class and gendered identities and how they contribute to or challenge cultural unity.
• Students will produce persuasive interpretations, analyses, and commentaries through class participation and writing assignments. They will also enhance their writing proficiency and refine their skills in interpretation and critique. This will include summarizing, close reading, contextualizing, and synthesizing analyses of course texts in various short writing assignments, culminating in a final exam.

Evaluation Method

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez (1967), trans. Gregory Rabasa
ISBN 978-0060883287

Pedró Páramo, Juan Rulfo (1955), trans. Douglas Weatherford
ISBN 978-0802160935

The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector (1977) trans. Benjamin Moser
ISBN 978-0811230049

Other course materials will be provided via email.

Class Attributes

Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Global Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity
SoC Humanities and Fine Arts Distro

Associated Classes

DIS - Kresge Centennial Hall 2-319: Fri 9:00AM - 9:50AM

DIS - Kresge Centennial Hall 2-329: Fri 9:00AM - 9:50AM

DIS - Kresge Centennial Hall 2-325: Fri 9:00AM - 9:50AM