SPA 405 - Latin American Modernities

What constitutes the modern? What is the relationship between progress and modernity? How does literary and artistic form respond to notions of modernity and innovation? How does modernity respond to, incorporate or reject notions of history and tradition? Examining a host of foundational and transformative literary and artistic works, we will put to use the research and analytical skills honed throughout the major and produce original research projects that illuminate our understanding of how the notion of “modernity” is at once proleptic and persistent, a paradoxical component of culture itself. We will focus on a broad range of works from canonical novels (100 Years of Solitude, Kiss of the Spider Woman), short stories (Borges, Cortázar, Mercado),  and poetry (Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz) to plays (Antigona furiosa), films (Zama) and performance art (Regina José Galindo).

Can count for area requirements with permission of instructor.
Satisfies Foreign Language requirement.
Satisfies Cultural Diversity requirement.
Satisfies Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.