HIST 105-05, Latin American Fiction and History, Fall 2009

Abstract

This introduction to Latin American history exposes you to broad literary, social, and cultural currents in the modern period, roughly covering independence from Spain to today. You will analyze novels, short stories, poetry, and plays as historical documents that illuminate national identity, race, gender, class, and politics at specific moments. The course engages costumbrismo, modernism, vanguardism, indigenismo, magical realism, and other literary and historical currents from Mexico and the Caribbean in the north to the Andes and Argentina in the south. You will address a number of important questions: How can we read fictional texts as historical documents? How does fiction expand our knowledge of Latin America’s colonial and postcolonial past? What does literature tells us about the region that no other historical documents do? And what does writing across culture and language mean for modern identity and national authenticity? The course covers a number of important themes: Colonial Legacies and Republican Possibilities Nation-Building Civilization vs. Barbarism Cultural Emancipation from Europe Liberalism Indigenismo (a political, intellectual, and artistic project that defended indigenous masses against exploitation) Latin American Modernity and Modernism Imperialism