Héctor Domínguez-Ruvalcaba

Study of important themes or issues in the cultural production of the Latin American world. Among the regions studied are Spain; North, Central, and South America; the Caribbean; and related areas in Africa.

Topic 1: Fantastic Fiction from Latin America. Analysis of short stories by Latin American writers that in some way represent an alternative to realism.

Topic 2: Nonfiction Narratives from Latin America. Study of nonfiction works written in contemporary Latin America as experimental narrative forms that offer insight about current political, social, and economic problems of the region. Examination of these realities through readings and careful analysis of the works of popular nonfiction Latin American writers.

Topic 3: Jewish Voices from Latin America. Overview of popular Jewish writers from Brazil and Spanish America, with special emphasis on those who portray in their work the situation of the Jewish communities of their respective cities and countries.

Topic 4: Sex and Sexuality in Latin America. Examines different representations of sex, sexuality, and eroticism in the various cultures of Latin America. These concepts do not refer to explicit or provocative texts or images in books, films, or photographs alone. On the contrary, they include a vast gamut of life, love, pain, and social conflict.

Topic 5: Revolutionary Imagination in Latin American Cultures. Explores literary expressions in Latin America that reflect a dissident or transgressive imaginary published during the revolutionary period (1960-1990). Examination of how different sociohistorical experiences require new narrative forms, and innovative ways of exploring and codifying collective community identities.

Topic 6: Violence in Contemporary Mexican Culture. Studies the representation of violence in contemporary literary and cultural production in Mexico in order to understand social, political, and cultural implications of current violence there. Taught in Spanish.

Topic 7: East/West/New World Encounters. Survey of works mostly in the Latin American and Hispanic literary tradition in which images or themes related to the East (Asia, Eastern Africa, the Middle East) are developed.

Topic 8: Memory and Writing in Caribbean Culture. Studies literary works from the greater Caribbean basin (with a focus on Cuba and Puerto Rico) in which the act of remembering is emphatically dramatized and described.

Topic 9: Literary Figurations in the Multimedia Age. Focuses on the figurations of sounds and images in literary language in the context of the multimedia environment of modern and contemporary Latin America.

Study of important themes or issues in the cultural production of the Latin American world. Among the regions studied are Spain; North, Central, and South America; the Caribbean; and related areas in Africa.

Topic 1: Fantastic Fiction from Latin America. Analysis of short stories by Latin American writers that in some way represent an alternative to realism.

Topic 2: Nonfiction Narratives from Latin America. Study of nonfiction works written in contemporary Latin America as experimental narrative forms that offer insight about current political, social, and economic problems of the region. Examination of these realities through readings and careful analysis of the works of popular nonfiction Latin American writers.

Topic 3: Jewish Voices from Latin America. Overview of popular Jewish writers from Brazil and Spanish America, with special emphasis on those who portray in their work the situation of the Jewish communities of their respective cities and countries.

Topic 4: Sex and Sexuality in Latin America. Examines different representations of sex, sexuality, and eroticism in the various cultures of Latin America. These concepts do not refer to explicit or provocative texts or images in books, films, or photographs alone. On the contrary, they include a vast gamut of life, love, pain, and social conflict.

Topic 5: Revolutionary Imagination in Latin American Cultures. Explores literary expressions in Latin America that reflect a dissident or transgressive imaginary published during the revolutionary period (1960-1990). Examination of how different sociohistorical experiences require new narrative forms, and innovative ways of exploring and codifying collective community identities.

Topic 6: Violence in Contemporary Mexican Culture. Studies the representation of violence in contemporary literary and cultural production in Mexico in order to understand social, political, and cultural implications of current violence there. Taught in Spanish.

Topic 7: East/West/New World Encounters. Survey of works mostly in the Latin American and Hispanic literary tradition in which images or themes related to the East (Asia, Eastern Africa, the Middle East) are developed.

Topic 8: Memory and Writing in Caribbean Culture. Studies literary works from the greater Caribbean basin (with a focus on Cuba and Puerto Rico) in which the act of remembering is emphatically dramatized and described.

Topic 9: Literary Figurations in the Multimedia Age. Focuses on the figurations of sounds and images in literary language in the context of the multimedia environment of modern and contemporary Latin America.

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

The objective of this seminar is to study the most important aesthetic currents in Latin America that have focused on the representation of different forms of violence, from the second half of twentieth century to the beginning of twenty-first century. In turn, the seminar will analyze various intellectual and political debates regarding violence on the continent. Questions related to the relationship between politics and cultural production, political violence and the Cold War, neoliberal politics and criminal organizations, gender and sexuality violence, patriarchal institutions, and the politics of the body will be proposed as subjects of enquiry. It is relevant for this course to define the paradigms through which Spanish American creators and intellectuals interpret violence in the context of cold war and neoliberal economy and its implicit forms of oppression, people's control, and cultural expressions. That is, our main point of inquiry is how the different expressions of violence have been determinant in the articulation of various aesthetic expression forms: testimonio, crónica, performance, hip hop, soap operas, narco-series, etcetera. The topics this seminar will address are: Colombia's literatura de la violencia, dirty war in the Southern Cone, Central American guerrillas, 1968 and the political violence in Mexico, racial conflicts in indigenous and afro-descendant populations, narco-culture, and homophobic and misogynist violence.

Grade criteria:

Oral presentations 20%

Class participation 20%

Annotated bibliography 10 %

First draft of term paper 10%

Term paper 40%

Biobliography:

Benavides, Hugo.  Drugs, Thugs and Divas. Telenovelas and Narcodramas in Latin America.  Austin: The University of Texas Press, 2008.

Benjamin, Walter.  Para una crítica de la violencia. Mexico City: Premiá, 1982.

Coronil, Fernando, Julie Skurskied, ed.  States of Violence.  Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2006.

Franco, Jean.  Una modernidad cruel. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2016.

González Rodríguez, Sergio.  Huesos en el desierto.  Barcelona: Anagrama, 2002.

Lemebel, Pedro.  Tengo miedo torero.Santiago: Seix Barral, 2001.

Montemayor, Carlos.  Guerra en el paraíso. México: Diana, 1991.

Parra, Eduardo Antonio.  Nostalgia de la sombra. Mexico City: Joaquín Mortiz, 2002.

Pécaut, Daniel.  Las FARC ¿Una guerrilla sin fin o sin fines?Bogotá: Norma, 2008.

Pía Lara, María.  Narrar el mal. Una teoría postmetafísica del juicio reflexionante.  México: Gedisa, 2009.

Ramírez, Sergio.  Adiós muchachos. Una memoria de la revolución sandinista.  Madrid: Alfaguara, 2007 (1999).

Rotker, Susana, ed.Ciudadanías del miedo.Caracas: Nueva Sociedad, 200,185-201.

Schultze-Kraft, Peter, ed.  La horrible noche. Relatos de violencia y guerra en Colombia.  Bogotá: Planeta, 2001.

Segato, Rita Laura.  "Qué es un feminicidio. Notas para un debate emergente." Brasilia: n/ed, 2006.

Thayer, Willy.  El fragmento repetido. Escritos en estado de excepción.  Santiago:  Ediciones Metales Pesados, 2006.

Uribe, María Victoria.  "Reflexiones sobre estética y violencia en Colombia."  Estética y violencia: necropolítica, militarización y vidas lloradas.  Helena Chávez Mac Gregor, ed.  México: UNAM, 2012.

Valencia, Sayak.  Capitalismo Gore. Tenerife: Melusina, 2010.

Films:

Boogie. Dir. Gustavo Cova. 2009.

Canoa.Dir. Felipe Cazals. 1976.

El sicario. Room 164.Dir. Gianfranco Rossi, 2011.

Garage Olimpo. Dir. MarcoBechis, 1999.

La teta asustada. Dir. Claudia Llosa, 2009.

Machuca. Dir. Andrés Wood. 2004.

This course is devoted to the study of literary texts, art pieces, and films dealing with violence in Mexico in recent years.  The class will discuss the characteristics of these representations and how they can lead us to understand social, economic, and political processes that generate violent events. The questions we are going to address are: what are the aesthetic, ethic, and political implications of the representations of violence? How can we understand Mexican society and gender system through the analysis of these narratives? What are the strategies that these works suggest for the solution of such difficult reality? Topics that will be addressed in this course include: political violence, sex-gender violence, organized crime, disappearances, exile, and migration.

Examines important themes in Iberian, Latin American, or African societies and examines their treatment in audiovisual and media production.

Topic 1: Gender Issues in Contemporary Latin American Cinema. Same as Latin American Studies 370S (Topic 24) and Women's and Gender Studies 335 (Topic 6). Studies Latin American cinema as a device of gender system formation and reinforcement, and as criticism of patriarchal hegemony; discusses questions related to sexuality depicted in Latin American films. Subjects covered include: maternity, prostitution, machismo, children's sexuality, homosexuality, heterosexuality, and gender violence in films from the 1930s to present.

Topic 2: Violence in Spanish Film. Focus on representations of violence in film from and about Spain since the 1920s to present. Includes the Spanish Civil War, torture, and other state-sanctioned violence; children and violence; violence against women; homophobic violence; terrorism; and ethnic and racist violence.

Topic 3: Latin American Film and Culture. Same as Latin American Studies 370S (Topic 25: Latin American Film and Culture). Overview of Latin American cinema from the silent era to present, with an emphasis on the last forty years. Subjects covered include: the development of the film industry (particularly in Argentina and Mexico in the 1930s and 1940s); the "New Wave" of Latin American cinema in the 1960s; and contemporary trends.

Topic 4: Latin American Literature and Film. Same as Latin American Studies 370S (Topic 26: Latin American Literature and Film). Studies, in a broad sense, the connections between Latin American cinema and literature, through extensive readings and in-class movie exhibitions. A number of renowned literary works by Latin American authors and their film versions will be analyzed with a comparative approach.

Topic 5: Mediascapes: Literature and Media in the Caribbean. Same as Latin American Studies 370S (Topic 28). Analyzes the relationship between literature and media technologies in contemporary Caribbean cultures. Examination of the notion and uses of Caribbean mediascapes; in other words, the uses of media technologies derived from film, television, the internet and YouTube, and the ways they are used and read in the Spanish Caribbean.

Topic 6: Indigenous Voices: From Nezahualcoyotl to Radio. Same as Latin American Studies 370S (Topic 29). Examines how Indigenous writers, intellectuals, and cultural producers have creatively established their own voices through writing and other forms of media.

Study of important themes or issues in the cultural production of the Latin American world. Among the regions studied are Spain; North, Central, and South America; the Caribbean; and related areas in Africa.

Topic 1: Fantastic Fiction from Latin America. Analysis of short stories by Latin American writers that in some way represent an alternative to realism.

Topic 2: Nonfiction Narratives from Latin America. Study of nonfiction works written in contemporary Latin America as experimental narrative forms that offer insight about current political, social, and economic problems of the region. Examination of these realities through readings and careful analysis of the works of popular nonfiction Latin American writers.

Topic 3: Jewish Voices from Latin America. Overview of popular Jewish writers from Brazil and Spanish America, with special emphasis on those who portray in their work the situation of the Jewish communities of their respective cities and countries.

Topic 4: Sex and Sexuality in Latin America. Examines different representations of sex, sexuality, and eroticism in the various cultures of Latin America. These concepts do not refer to explicit or provocative texts or images in books, films, or photographs alone. On the contrary, they include a vast gamut of life, love, pain, and social conflict.

Topic 5: Revolutionary Imagination in Latin American Cultures. Explores literary expressions in Latin America that reflect a dissident or transgressive imaginary published during the revolutionary period (1960-1990). Examination of how different sociohistorical experiences require new narrative forms, and innovative ways of exploring and codifying collective community identities.

Topic 6: Violence in Contemporary Mexican Culture. Studies the representation of violence in contemporary literary and cultural production in Mexico in order to understand social, political, and cultural implications of current violence there. Taught in Spanish.

Topic 7: East/West/New World Encounters. Survey of works mostly in the Latin American and Hispanic literary tradition in which images or themes related to the East (Asia, Eastern Africa, the Middle East) are developed.

Topic 8: Memory and Writing in Caribbean Culture. Studies literary works from the greater Caribbean basin (with a focus on Cuba and Puerto Rico) in which the act of remembering is emphatically dramatized and described.

Topic 9: Literary Figurations in the Multimedia Age. Focuses on the figurations of sounds and images in literary language in the context of the multimedia environment of modern and contemporary Latin America.

DESCRIPTION:

The objective of this seminar it to review the main theoretical frameworks that have oriented the field of Latin American and Iberian literary and cultural studies from the last half of twentieth century to present. It will focus on those conceptual formations that inform critical discourses and intellectual interventions of this academic field. The seminar is conceived as a survey, not of critical currents but of the use and adaptation of crucial terms and ideas to the task of cultural and literary criticism. Thus, the discussions will address the following topics: a) Poststructuralism in Latin American and Iberian cultural criticism; b) Theories of gender and sexuality in academic debates of the field; c) The development of the epistemology of the south: postcolonial, decolonial, subaltern, and race studies; d) The use of theoretical proposals like affect theory, sound studies, media studies, posthumanism, and animal studies in conversations on violence, extractivism, disability, disposability, and migration.

The class will study theoretical works and will analyze how they are applied to critical texts on Latin American literary and cultural studies.

Students are required to attend a conference in the field of Latin American literary and cultural studies and write a report on the theoretical frameworks the presentations were based.

GRADE CRITERIA:

20 % Participation

20% Reading reports

10% Conference report

20% Presentations

30% Final essays

Tentative bibliography:

Sarup, Madam. An Introductory Guide to Post-Structuralism and Postmodernism.

Deleuze, Gilles; Guattari, Félix. A Thousand Plateaus.

Butler, Judith. Bodies that Matter

Rodriguez, Ileana, ed. Convergencia de tiempos

Mbembe, Achile. Necropolitics

Valencia, Zayak. Capitalismo Gore.

Preciado, Beatriz. Manifiesto contrasexual.

Brian Massumi, “The Autonomy of Affect”

Jacques Derrida, “The Animal That Therefore I am”

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Tendencies

Study of important themes or issues in the cultural production of the Latin American world. Among the regions studied are Spain; North, Central, and South America; the Caribbean; and related areas in Africa.

Topic 1: Fantastic Fiction from Latin America. Analysis of short stories by Latin American writers that in some way represent an alternative to realism.

Topic 2: Nonfiction Narratives from Latin America. Study of nonfiction works written in contemporary Latin America as experimental narrative forms that offer insight about current political, social, and economic problems of the region. Examination of these realities through readings and careful analysis of the works of popular nonfiction Latin American writers.

Topic 3: Jewish Voices from Latin America. Overview of popular Jewish writers from Brazil and Spanish America, with special emphasis on those who portray in their work the situation of the Jewish communities of their respective cities and countries.

Topic 4: Sex and Sexuality in Latin America. Examines different representations of sex, sexuality, and eroticism in the various cultures of Latin America. These concepts do not refer to explicit or provocative texts or images in books, films, or photographs alone. On the contrary, they include a vast gamut of life, love, pain, and social conflict.

Topic 5: Revolutionary Imagination in Latin American Cultures. Explores literary expressions in Latin America that reflect a dissident or transgressive imaginary published during the revolutionary period (1960-1990). Examination of how different sociohistorical experiences require new narrative forms, and innovative ways of exploring and codifying collective community identities.

Topic 6: Violence in Contemporary Mexican Culture. Studies the representation of violence in contemporary literary and cultural production in Mexico in order to understand social, political, and cultural implications of current violence there. Taught in Spanish.

Topic 7: East/West/New World Encounters. Survey of works mostly in the Latin American and Hispanic literary tradition in which images or themes related to the East (Asia, Eastern Africa, the Middle East) are developed.

Topic 8: Memory and Writing in Caribbean Culture. Studies literary works from the greater Caribbean basin (with a focus on Cuba and Puerto Rico) in which the act of remembering is emphatically dramatized and described.

Topic 9: Literary Figurations in the Multimedia Age. Focuses on the figurations of sounds and images in literary language in the context of the multimedia environment of modern and contemporary Latin America.

The objective of this seminar it to review the main theoretical frameworks that have oriented the field of Latin American and Iberian literary and cultural studies from the last half of twentieth century to present. It will focus on those conceptual formations that inform critical discourses and intellectual interventions of this academic field. The seminar is conceived as a survey, not of critical currents but of the use and adaptation of crucial terms and ideas to the task of cultural and literary criticism. Thus, the discussions will address the following topics: a) Poststructuralism in Latin American and Iberian cultural criticism; b) Theories of gender and sexuality in academic debates of the field; c) The development of the epistemology of the south: postcolonial, decolonial, subaltern, and race studies; d) The use of theoretical proposals like affect theory, sound studies, media studies, posthumanism, and animal studies in conversations on violence, extractivism, disability, disposability, and migration.

The class will study theoretical works and will analyze how they are applied to critical texts on Latin American literary and cultural studies.

Students are required to attend a conference in the field of Latin American literary and cultural studies and write a report on the theoretical frameworks the presentations were based.

Sarup, Madam. An Introductory Guide to Post-Structuralism and Postmodernism.

Deleuze, Gilles; Guattari, Félix. A Thousand Plateaus.

Butler, Judith. Bodies that Matter

Rodriguez, Ileana, ed. Convergencia de tiempos

Mbembe, Achile. Necropolitics

Valencia, Zayak. Capitalismo Gore.

Preciado, Beatriz. Manifiesto contrasexual.

Brian Massumi, “The Autonomy of Affect”

Jacques Derrida, “The Animal That Therefore I am”

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Tendencies

Brings together central issues, concepts, and themes that define Iberian or Latin American literatures and cultures, while focusing on a specific case-study or case-studies.

Study of important themes or issues in the cultural production of the Latin American world. Among the regions studied are Spain; North, Central, and South America; the Caribbean; and related areas in Africa. 

Brings together central issues, concepts, and themes that define Iberian or Latin American literatures and cultures, while focusing on a specific case-study or case-studies.

Utopias and Apocalypses: the Latin American Essay in the Neoliberal Era

Course Description:  This seminar will focus on the study of the main cultural debates in contemporary Spanish America through analyzing some of the most influential essays published from the late 1980s to the present. Questions related to the relationship between politics and cultural production, the local and the global, nationalisms and migrations, the understanding of violence, urban life, gender relations, and sexual and ethnic diversity will be proposed as subjects of enquiry. It is central to this course to define the paradigms through which Spanish American intellectuals interpret social reality in the context of neoliberal economy and the emergence of new forms of oppression, resistance, and cultural expressions.  For this seminar, Spanish American essay production is understood as intellectual intervention in the public sphere, and as theoretical propositions aimed to redefine Spanish America cultural identity in the midst of the post-dictatorial rearrangements, the increasing of organized crime and paramilitarization, the weakening of the state institutions and the growing of ethnic and gender violence. That means that essay will be approached as a discursive field where political contentions are expressed as poetic struggles, a problem of meaning that is also a problem of cultural and social understanding.

Grading:

Oral presentation 15%

Class participation 15%

Annotated bibliography 15 %

First draft of term paper 20%

Term paper 35%

Bibliography:

Achúgar, Hugo. La biblioteca en ruinas: reflexiones culturales desde la periferia. Montevideo: Trilce, 1994.

Castañeda, Jorge. La utopía desarmada. México: Joaquín Mortiz, 1993.

Cornejo Polar, Antonio. Escribir en el aire. Ensayo sobre la heterogeneidad sociocultural en las literaturas andinas.  Lima: Editorial Horizonte, 1994.

García Canclini, Néstor. Culturas híbridas: estrategias para entrar y salir de la modernidad.  México: Grijalbo, 1989.

Martín Barbero, Jesús. Al sur de la modernidad: comunicación, globalización, y multiculturalidad

Monsiváis, Carlos. Aires de familia: cultura y sociedad en América Latina. Barcelona: Anagrama, 2000.

Piglia, Ricardo. Tres propuestas para el próximo milenio. Buenos Aires: La Nación, 2000.

Quijano, Aníbal.  "Colonialidad del poder y clasificación social." Journal of Worl-System Research. 11:2 (Summer-Fall, 2000), 342-386.

Reguillo, Rosana.  Estrategias del desencanto. La emergencia de culturas juveniles en Latinoamérica. Ed. Norma, Buenos Aires, 2002.

Richard, Nelly.  Masculino/femenino: prácticas de la diferencia y cultura democrática. Santiago : Francisco Zegers Editor, 1993.

-----.  Márgenes e instituciones. Arte en Chile desde 1973. Santiago: Metales Pesados, 2007.

Rojas, Rafael.  Tumbas sin sociego: revolución, disidencia y exilio del intelectual cubano. Barcelona: Anagrama, 2006.

Sarlo, Beatriz.  La ciudad vista: mercancías y cultura urbana. Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 2009.

Thayer, Willy.  La crisis no moderna de la universidad moderna. Santigo: Editorial Cuarto Propio, 1996.

Villoro, Juan.  "La alfombra roja del terror del narco" 

May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Taught in Spanish. Studies the representation of violence in contemporary literary and cultural production in Mexico in order to understand social, political, and cultural implications of current violence there. Taught in Spanish. 

Course Description: This seminar is devoted to study the representations of Mexican masculinities in Literature, Film and visual arts. The objectives are: a) to distinguish the social, political and cultural factors of the formation of Mexican masculinity; b) to recognize the Mexican gender system, as represented in a selection of canonical representations; c) to analyze the cultural and political aspects of gender violence. The topics the class will address are: a) machismo, patriarchy, and homosociety in bandits and revolutionary narratives; b) the criticism of machismo and the politics of gender in twentieth century Mexican essay; c) melodrama and the technologies of masculinities in the analysis of classic Mexican cinema; d) misogyny, homophobia, and criminal violence in contemporary literature and film.

Grade criteria:

Oral presentation:                              10%

Class participation:                            15%

Annotated bibliography and abstract:  10%

First draft of term paper/ symposium:  25%

Term paper:                                        40%

READINGS:

Argüelles, Hugo. Trilogía mestiza. México: Plaza y Valdés Editores, 1994.

Altamirano, Ignacio Manuel.  El zarco. Episodios de la vida mexicana en 1861-1863. 

Chacón, Tomás.  Cuentas pendientes.  Ciudad Juárez: H. Ayuntamiento de Juárez, 1992.

Connel, R.W.  Masculinidades. México: PUEG-UNAM, 1993.

Guzmán, Martín Luis.  El águila y la serpiente.  Madrid: Compañía Iberoamericana de Publicaciones, 1928.

Inclán, Luis G.  Astucia. México: Universidad Veracruzana-Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2005 (1866). 

Irwin, Robert M. Mexican Masculinities. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.

Macías-González, Víctor. "The Lagartijo at The High Life. Masculine Consumption, Race, Nation, and Homosexuality in Porfirian Mexico". The Famous 41. Sexuality and Social Control in Mexico, 1901.  Ed. M. Irwin, McCaughan Nasser. Nueva York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, 227-249.

Mendoza, Elmer. Un asesino solitario.  México: Tusquets, 1999.

Monsiváis, Carlos. Amor perdido. México: Era, 1977.

Mora, Sergio de la.  Cinemachismo: masculinities and sexuality in Mexican film. Austin : University of Texas Press, 2006.

Narcocultura. Dir. Shaul Schwarz.  USA-Mexico: 2013.

Núñez Noriega, Guillermo. Sexo entre varones. Poder y resistencia en el campo sexual.  México: Miguel Ángel Porrúa-El Colegio de Sonora-UNAM, 1999.

Paz, Octavio.  El laberinto de las soledad. Segunda ed. revisada y ampliada. México: FCE, 1959.

Parra, Eduardo Antonio.  Nostalgia de la sombra.  Mexico City: Joaquín Mortiz, 2002.

Payno, Manuel.  Los bandidos de Río Frío.  México: Porrúa, 1982 (1891).

Ramos, Samuel.  Perfil del hombre y la cultura en México.  México: SEP, 1987.

Rascón Banda, Víctor Hugo. “Hotel Juárez”, en Teatro de frontera 13/14. Ed. Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda). México-Durango: Siglo XXI, 481-517. 2004

Urquizo, Francisco L. Tropa vieja. En Antonio Castro Leal, ed.  La novela de la revolución mexicana. México: Aguilar, 1964.

The main questions this course will address are: What is the role of Latin American cinema in the formation of a gender system? How Latin American cinema reinforces or destabilizes patriarchal hegemony? How can we characterize the relationship between marginal sexualities and gender structures in Latin American cinema? What's the role of filmic representations in the understanding of contemporaryy gender violence? To answer these questions the class will analyze a selection of films produced from the 1930s to the present, focusing on the following topics:

a) Questioning maternity: Como agua para chocolate.

c) Prostitution: La bella de la Alhambra/ La vida precoz y breve de Sabina Rivas

d) Breaking family values: Chacotero sentimental

e) Exorcising machismo: Entre Pancho Villa y una mujer desnuda

f) Labor and women: Danzón/ María, llena eres de gracia/ Las minas de las minas*

g) Sex and Childhood: La virgen de los Sicarios/ La niña santa/ De tripas corazón*

h) Homosexuality and homophobia: Un lugar sin límites/ Contracorriente

i) Queer chanllenges: XXY, Blosoms of Fire

j) Feminicides: Señorita extraviada/ Traspatio

Taught in Spanish.  Students will learn about various cultural expressions and will be able to understand them in specific political and historical contexts

Taught in Spanish. Studies the representation of violence in contemporary literary and cultural production in Mexico in order to understand social, political, and cultural implications of current violence there.

This course aims to discuss the main topics of Spanish and Spanish American literary and cultural expressions, based on the following axes:

1. Gender relationships.

2. The question of coloniality and resistance.

3. Migratory movements.

These three topics will be discussed by reviewing literature, art, films and popular expressions of the region.

Studies Latin American cinema as a device of gender system formation and reinforcement, and as criticism of patriarchal hegemony; discusses questions related to sexuality depicted in Latin American films. Subjects covered include: maternity, prostitution, machismo, children's sexuality, homosexuality, heterosexuality, and gender violence in films from the 1930s to present. Conducted in Spanish.

Description: This course aims to introduce the students to the main trends of queer studies on Latin American literature and culture. Significant works dealing with Latin American sexualities and studies of the body have been published in recent years. This scholarly production results from placing the episteme of body and sexuality on the central preoccupations of social sciences and humanities. Studying sexualities in Latin America conveys an intersection of multiple axes of difference (race, class, nationality, religion), where sexuality, rather than being considered an immanent object of study, functions as a theoretical basis for knowing culture and society. By reading literary and critical works in which body and sexuality are represented beyond the hegemonic gender system, this course will focus on three topics: a) queer rhetoric: (de) naturalization, performance and liminalities; c) marginal sexualities and national identity: modernity and citizenship in the representation of sexuality; b) images and self-images of the queer subject: homophobia, machismo, and queer body on the public arena; e) queer theory beyond sexuality: disability, monstrosity, and body transformations. The course will include: an introduction to the main concepts of queer studies; reading some critical works about queer Latin American culture; analyzing literature, art, and cinema with this approach.

Grading policy:

Oral presentation 10%

Class participation 15%

Annotated bibliography 10%

First draft of term paper 25%

Term paper 40%

Texts:

N/A.  "Los 41. El escándalo periodístico de 1901."  In Robert McKee Irwin, Edward J. McCaughan, and Michelle Rocío Jasser.  The Famous 41. Sexuality and Social Control in Mexico, 1901.  New York: Palgrave, 2003.

Angelides, Steven.  A History of Bisexuality.  Chicago: University of Chicago, 2001.

Arenas, Reinaldo.  Antes que anochezca.  Barcelona: Fábula, 1996.

Bejel, Emilio.  Gay Cuban Nation.  Chicago: University of Chicago, 2001.

Berman, Sabina.  Lunas.  México: Katún, 1988.

Berenguer, Carmen.  Naciste pintada.  Santiago (Chile): Cuarto propio, 1999.

Blanco, José Joaquín.  Las púberes canéforas.  México: Océano, 1983.

Butler, Judith.  Bodies that Matter.  New York: Routledge, 1993.

Castellanos Moya, Horacio.  Baile con serpientes.  Barcelona: Tusquets,

Connell, R. W.  Masculinidades.  México: UNAM, 2003.

Fiol-Matta, Licia.  A queer Mother for the Nation. The State and Gabriela Mistral.  Minneapolis: University of minnesota Press, 2002.

Jagose, Annamarie.  Queer Theory. An Introduction.  New York: New York U., 1996.

Lamborguini, Osvaldo.  Novelas y cuentos.  Barcelona: Serbal, 1988.

Lemebel, Pedro.  Loco afán.  Barcelona: Anagrama, 1996.

Molloy, Sylvia.  "Too Wilde for Comfort: Desire and Idelogy in Fin-de-Siècle Spanish America."  Social Text  31-32 (1992), 187-201.

Novo, Salvador.  La estatua de sal.  México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1998.

Perlonguer, Néstor.  Prosa plebeya. Ensayos 1980-1992.  Buenod Aires: Puñaladas, 1997.

Peterse, Alan.  Unmasking the Masculine. 'Men' and 'Identity' in a Skeptical Age.  London-Thousand Oaks-New Delhi: Sage, 1998. 

Puig, Manuel.  El beso de la mujer araña.  México: De bolsillo,

Quiroga, José.  Tropics of Desire. Interventions form Queer Latino America.  New York-London: New York University Press, 2000.

Richard, Nelly.  Masculino/femenino: prácticas de la diferencia y cultura democrática.  Santiago (Chile): Francisco Zegers, 1989.

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky.  Epistemology of the Closet.  Berkeley-Los Angeles: University of California, 1990.

Sifuentes-Jáuregui, Ben.  Transvestism, Masculinity, and Latin American Literature. Genders Share Flesh.  New York: Palgrave, 2002.

Vallejo, Fernando.  La virgen de los sicarios. México: Alfaguara, 1999.

Zapata, Luis. El vampiro de la colonia Roma.  México: Grijalbo,

Taught in Spanish. Studies the representation of violence in contemporary literary and cultural production in Mexico in order to understand social, political, and cultural implications of current violence there. Taught in Spanish. Latin American Studies 322 and 370S may not both be counted unless the topics vary. Only one of the following may be counted: Latin American Studies 370S (Topic 23), Spanish 350 (Topic 13), 355 (Topic 6), Women's and Gender Studies 340 (Topic 20).

Topic 1: Gender Issues in Contemporary Latin American Cinema. Same as Latin American Studies 370S (Topic 24: Gender Issues in Latin American Cinema). Studies Latin American cinema as a device of gender system formation and reinforcement, and as criticism of patriarchal hegemony; discusses questions related to sexuality depicted in Latin American films. Subjects covered include: maternity, prostitution, machismo, children's sexuality, homosexuality, heterosexuality, and gender violence in films from the 1930s to present. Conducted in Spanish. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Only one of the following may be counted: Latin American Studies 370S (Topic 24), Spanish 350 (Topic: Gender in Contemporary Latin American Cinema), 350K (Topic 1).

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

DESCRIPTION:

This seminar will focus on the study of the main cultural debates in contemporary Spanish America through analyzing some of the most influential essays published from the late 1980s to the present. Questions related to the relationship between politics and cultural production, the local and the global, nationalisms and migrations, the understanding of violence, urban life, gender relations, and sexual and ethnic diversity will be proposed as subjects of enquiry. It is central to this course to define the paradigms through which Spanish American intellectuals interpret social reality in the context of neoliberal economy and the emergence of new forms of oppression, resistance, and cultural expressions.  For this seminar, Spanish American essay production is understood as intellectual intervention in the public sphere, and as theoretical propositions aimed to redefine Spanish America cultural identity in the midst of the post-dictatorial rearrangements, the increasing of organized crime and paramilitarization, the weakening of the state institutions and the growing of ethnic and gender violence. That means that essay will be approached as a discursive field where political contentions are expressed as poetic struggles, a problem of meaning that is also a problem of cultural and social understanding.

Grade criteria

Oral presentation 15%

Class participation 15%

Annotated bibliography 15 %

First draft of term paper 15%

Term paper 40%

Bibliography

Achúgar, Hugo. La biblioteca en ruinas: reflexiones culturales desde la periferia. Montevideo: Trilce, 1994.

Castañeda, Jorge. La utopía desarmada. México: Joaquín Mortiz, 1993.

Cornejo Polar, Antonio. Escribir en el aire. Ensayo sobre la heterogeneidad sociocultural en las literaturas andinas.  Lima: Editorial Horizonte, 1994.

García Canclini, Néstor. Culturas híbridas: estrategias para entrar y salir de la modernidad.  México: Grijalbo, 1989.

Martín Barbero, Jesús. Al sur de la modernidad: comunicación, globalización, y multiculturalidad

Monsiváis, Carlos. Aires de familia: cultura y sociedad en América Latina. Barcelona: Anagrama, 2000.

Piglia, Ricardo. Tres propuestas para el próximo milenio. Buenos Aires: La Nación, 2000.

Quijano, Aníbal.  "Colonialidad del poder y clasificación social." Journal of Worl-System Research. Festschrift for Immanuel Walerstein I.  11:2 (Summer-Fall, 2000), 342-386.

Reguillo, Rosana.  Estrategias del desencanto. La emergencia de culturas juveniles en Latinoamérica. Ed. Norma, Buenos Aires, 2002.

Richard, Nelly.  Masculino/femenino: prácticas de la diferencia y cultura democrática. Santiago : Francisco Zegers Editor, 1993.

-----.  Márgenes e instituciones. Arte en Chile desde 1973. Santiago: Metales Pesados, 2007.

Rojas, Rafael.  Tumbas sin sociego: revolución, disidencia y exilio del intelectual cubano. Barcelona: Anagrama, 2006.

Sarlo, Beatriz.  La ciudad vista: mercancías y cultura urbana. Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 2009.

Thayer, Willy.  La crisis no moderna de la universidad moderna. Santigo: Editorial Cuarto Propio, 1996.

Villoro, Juan.  "La alfombra roja del terror del narco" 

This course will be devoted to the study of literary texts, art pieces, and films dealing with violence in Mexico in recent years.  The class will discuss the characteristics of these representations and how they can lead us to understand social, economic, and political processes that generate violent events. The questions we are going to address are: what are the aesthetic, ethic, and political implications of the representations of violence? How can we understand Mexican society and gender system through the analysis of these narratives? What are the strategies that these works suggest for the solution of such difficult reality?

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

Sequel to Spanish 322K and 328, approaching in a more specialized way the study of important currents in Hispanic civilization.

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This seminar aims to revise Spanish American literary texts and visual art produced between the end of nineteenth century and the two first decades of the twentieth century that are considered part of the modernista aesthetics, from a theoretical perspective that combines queer and postcolonial approaches. Some of the questions we are going to address are:

• How modernista aestheticism articulates neocolonialism with modern national projects?
• What is the role that sexuality and sensuality play in the construction of the modernista imagination?
• What are the intersections of modernista art, poetry, fiction and prose?
• How the intellectual insights of modernistas can be interpreted as gender politics?

Grading criteria:

Presentation: 10%

Participation: 15%

Paper draft: 15%

Final paper: 50%

Bibliography:

Arévalo Martínez, Rafael.  El hombre que parecía un caballo y otros cuentos. México: CONACULTA, 1997.

Barba Jacob, Porfirio.  Guirnaldas de la noche.  Xalapa: Gobierno del Estado de Veracruz, 2004.

Bhabha, Homi K.  The Location of Culture.  London-New York: Routledge, 1994.

Casal, Julián del.  Crónicas habaneras.  La Habana: Universidad Cemtral de Villas, 1963.

Darío Rubén. Azul, El salmo de la pluma. Canto de vida y esperanza. Otros poemas. México: Porrúa, 2002.

-----. "Catulle Mendes". Obras completas.  Madrid: Afrodisio Aguado, 1950.

D'Halmar, Augusto.  Obras escogidas.  Santiago: Ed. Andrés Bello, 1970.

Gutiérrez Nájera, Manuel. "Crónica de color bitter." En José Olivio Jiménez y Antonio R, de la Campa.  Antología crítica de la prosa modernista.  New York: Eliseo Torres and Sons, 1976, 127-132.

-----.  "La mañana de San Juan." En José Olivio Jiménez y Antonio R, de la Campa.  Antología crítica de la prosa modernista.  New York: Eliseo Torres and Sons, 1976, 209-213.

Jiménez, José Olivio.  Antología de la poesía modernista hispanoamericana. Madrid: Hiperión, 1985.

Lugones, Leopoldo.  Las fuerzas extrañas.  Buenos Aires: Ediciones del 80, 1981.

Martí, José. "El terremoto de Charleston." En José Olivio Jiménez y Antonio R, de la Campa.  Antología crítica de la prosa modernista.  New York: Eliseo Torres and Sons, 1976, 104-116.

-----. "Nuestra América".  Obras completas.  La Habana: Lex, 1946.

-----. "Prólogo al poema de 'El Niágara' de J.A. Pérez Bonalde (1982)." En José Olivio Jiménez y Antonio R, de la Campa.  Antología crítica de la prosa modernista.  New York: Eliseo Torres and Sons, 1976, 46-51.

Molloy, Sylvia.  "Too Wilde for Confort: Desire and Ideology In Fin-de-Siecle Spanish America."  Social Text 31-32 (1992), 187-201.

Montaldo, Graciela.  La sensibilidad amenazada.  Caracas: Planeta, 1995.

Montero, Oscar.  Modernismo y homofobia. Darío y Rodó."  En Daniel Balderston y Donna Guy, eds.  Sexo y sexualidades en América Latina.  Buenos Aires-Barcelona-México: Paidós, 1997.

Nervo, Amado.  Obras completas.  Madrid: Aguilar, 1973.

Paz, Octavio.  Cuadrivio: Darío, Lópex velarde, Pessoa, Cernuda.  México: Joaquín Mortiz, 1969.

Prado, Pedro.  Alsino.  Santiago: Editorial Nascimento, 1951.

Rama, Ángel.  Las máscaras democráticas del modernismo.  Montevideo: Fundación Ángel Rama, 1985.

Ramos. Julio.  Desencuentros de la modernidad en América Latina. Litearatura y política en el siglo XIX.  Santiago: Ed, Cuarto Propio, 2000.

Rodó, José Enrique.  Cinco ensayos.  Madrid: Editorial América, 1917.

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofski.  Epistemology of the Closet.  Berkeley: University of California, 1990.

Silva, José Asunción.  Poesía. De sobremesa.  Mdrid: Cátedra, 2006.

Varela, Juan.  "Carta de Juan Varela a Rubén Darío."  En Rubén Darío. Azul, El salmo de la pluma. Canto de vida y esperanza. Otros poemas. México: Porrúa, 2002.

Description:

This course aims to discuss the main topics that constitute the Latin American cultural process, based on the following axes:

1. Aspects of Spanish American cultural expressions and daily life.

2. Gender relationships.

3. The question of coloniality.

These three topics will be discussed by reviewing history, politics, art, literature, and popular expressions of the region. The questions we will address include: How coloniality––i.e. the condition of dependency from imperial countries­––has shaped political culture, gender structure, beliefs, and perceptions? What are the distinctive aspects of Spanish American cultural expressions? What are the most significant political conflicts of the region? What is the significance of popular events and daily life practices in the area?

Texts: A selection of the following texts are included in the reading packet for this class

Rhory Benítez et. al., El silencio que la voz de todas quiebra. Mujeres y víctimas de Ciudad Juárez. Chihuahua: Ediciones Azar- NMSU-UACJ, México, 1999.

Burgos, Elizabeth/ Rigoberta Menchú.  Me llamo Rigoberta Menchú.  México: Siglo XXI, 1985.

Galeano, Eduardo.  Las venas abiertas de América Latina.  México: Siglo XXI, 1979.

Huilca, Saturnino.  Huilca, habla un campesino peruano.  Hugo Neira, ed.  La Habana:  Casa de las Américas, 1979.

Lemebel, Pedro.  De perlas y cicatrices.  Santiago: LOM, 1996.

Martínez, José Luis, ed.  Nezahalcóyotl. México: SEO-Diana, 1975.

Ortiz, Fernando.  Los negros esclavos.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1996.

Poniatowska, Elena.  Hasta no verte Jesús mío. México: Era, 1986.

Ramos Smith, Maya.  La danza en México durante la época colonial.  México: CONACULTA-Alianza Editorial Mexicana, 1990 (1979)

Taibo II, Paco Ignacio, Subcomandante Marcos.  Muertos incómodos (falta lo que falta).  México: Joaquín Mortiz, 2005.

Toscano, Salvador.  Cuauhtémoc.  México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1984.

Uslar Pietri, Arturo.  Las nubes.  Caracas: Monte Ávila, 1997.

Salazar, Alonso.  Drogas y narcotráfico en Colombia.  Bogotá: Planeta, 2001.

Grading: 

4 partial tests            40%

Final test                     30%

Quizzes                      15%

Class participation   15%

Main literary trends and principal writers in Spanish America since Modernism. Taught in Spanish.

W 5:00-8:00 PM

MEETS WITH: LAS 392S, 40410

DESCRIPTION:

This course proposes a discussion about the parallel between literary and political reflections that can be found in the most outstanding essayists in Latin America. The relationship between the literature and the construction of the nation leads us to reconsider some contemporary theoretical approaches that point to the imaginary generation of this concept, such us the definitions proposed by Benedict Anderson, Homi Bahbah, Fredric Jameson, Slavoj Zizek, and Doris Sommer, among others. This means that we will analyze the nation as a literary topic, which will be addressed under the following questions: what are the imaginary constituents of the myth of the nation in Latin America? How the relationship between politics, history, ethnography, and aesthetics can be articulated? And, what is the status of essay as genre in Latin America? This class will be divided in three units, focusing on the three historical periods of major production of Latin American essays: a) The formation of the nations after the independence in Nineteenth Century from Bolivar to José Martí; b) The modern prose including the generation of the Centenario, the Ateneo de la Juventud and the projects of social-oriented states; c) and the generation of the Cold War.

 Kind of Course: general

 Grading policy:

Oral presentation on theoretical or critical reading 10%

Class participation 10%

Three partial exams 30 %

Term paper 50%

 Readings:

Bolívar, Simón. Discurso de Angostura

Buarque de Holanda Sérgio Raízes do Brasil

Galvez, Manuel. El solar de la raza

González, Luis.  "El país de cuatro pisos"

Martí, José. "Nuestra América"

Mairátegui, Carlos. Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana

Ortiz, Fernando.  Contrapunto cubano del tabaco y el azúcar

Paz, Octavio. El laberinto de la soledad; La estación violenta

Rama, Ángel. La ciudad letrada

Reyes, Alfonso. La experiencia literaria, México en una nuez

Vasconcelos, José.  La raza cósmica

Main literary trends and principal writers in Spanish America since Modernism.

Survey of the social and cultural evolution of the Spanish American countries.

Survey of the social and cultural evolution of the Spanish American countries.

Sequel to Spanish 322K and 328, approaching in a more specialized way the study of important currents in Hispanic civilization.

Survey of the social and cultural evolution of the Spanish American countries.

Designed to give intensive practice in oral expression, based on cultural readings, with some writing. Three lecture hours a week for one semester.

A survey of the social, political, and cultural history of Spain.

Introduction to the study of Spanish phonetics and phonology, focusing on four aspects: mechanisms of sound production, representation of sounds and intonation, dialect variation, and comparison with English.

Please check back for updates.

Survey of the social and cultural evolution of the Spanish American countries.

Sequel to Spanish 322K and 328, approaching in a more specialized way the study of important currents in Hispanic civilization.

Department of Spanish and Portuguese

SPANISH 327 G-Advanced Grammar and Composition I

Summer 2012

This document contains important information and represents an agreement between the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and its students. You indicate acceptance of these policies by registering for this course.  Read it carefully and refer to it frequently. You are responsible for knowing all of the information in it. Please note especially the sections on Academic Honesty and the Attendance Policy.

INSTRUCTOR:                      Irma Celina Nevárez-Carter

COURSE TITLE:                    Advanced Grammar and Composition I

MEETING TIME / PLACE:     M-F 10:00-11:30 / MEZ 2.118

E-MAIL:                                  celina@austin.utexas.edu

OFFICE:                                 MEZ 4.108

OFFICE HOURS:                  MWF 9:30-10:00 and 11:30-12:00

PHONE:                                 471-1686                    

1. COURSE PURPOSE, GOALS, AND OBJECTIVES

The language program at The University of Texas focuses on the development of three major types of competencies (all equally ranked in terms of importance):

(1)  linguistic competence (linguistic proficiency in Spanish including knowledge of phonetics/phonology, morphosyntax, lexicon, discourse, etc.)

(2)  communication/ interactional competence (communicative abilities in Spanish including knowledge of sociocultural uses of the language, pragmatics, cultural background/perspectives)

(3)  metalinguistic competence (awareness of language as a conceptual, symbolic  system)

Within the language program, SPN 327G is the first in the Advanced Spanish Grammar and Composition two-course sequence. It is a bridge course between lower and upper-division Spanish designed to

• help you inductively master grammar points of particular concern to speakers of English
• perfect your grammar skills through a variety of tasks designed to clarify grammatical points, including oral, reading, and writing activities
• acquire and apply strategies of composition development (pre-writing, writing, revising, editing, and evaluation)
• promote critical and integrative thinking skills.

This learner-based course will lead you through a “guided inductive approach” that presents you with selected samples to analyze in order to

• discover patterns of oral and written discourse,
• formulate hypotheses about the linguistic and communicative functions of the Spanish language
• develop an understanding of Hispanic culture and literature.

All in-class activities, readings, movies, and assignments are in Spanish.

Expectations: This is a fifth-semester course designed to strengthen and advance your knowledge of Spanish. Students enrolled in this course are expected to

• have mastered basic grammatical concepts (agreement; verb conjugations: present, past, future; pronouns)
• understand indicative, imperative, and subjunctive moods
• read and write at a fourth-semester level or at an advanced proficiency level

If you are weak in any of these skills, it is your responsibility to study and master them and/or visit your instructor at the beginning and throughout the semester to help you reach the expected basic level that is necessary for you to understand and master advanced notions.

The course will be entirely taught in Spanish

2. PREREQUISITE

Spanish 312L, 612, or the equivalent with a grade of C. 

3. REQUIRED MATRIALS

 Iguina, Zulma and Dozier, Eleanor. Manual de gramática: Grammar Reference for

Students of Spanish. Fouth Edition: Thomson and Heinle.

Main literary trends and principal writers in Spanish America since Modernism.

Interdisciplinary topics relating to Women's and Gender Studies.  Seats restricted to WGS MA and Portfolio students during early registration.  Check cross-listings for home departments and originating field of study.

Please check back for updates.

Main literary trends and principal writers in Spanish America since Modernism.

Please check back for updates.

Main literary trends and principal writers in Spanish America since Modernism.

Main literary trends and principal writers in Spanish America from the sixteenth century through Modernism.