SPA 377 - Puerto Rico:Past,Present,Future

In this course, we will examine how the past and present of Puerto Rico have been shaped by colonial subjugation and how Puerto Rican literary and cultural production has gone about critiquing coloniality and imagining decolonial futures. Focusing on the 20th and 21st centuries, we will explore how the colonial status of Puerto Rico evolves from its absorption as an annexed US territory in 1898 to its nebulous designation in 1952 as a Commonwealth or “Free Associated State” [Estado Libre Asociado], which has lasted to the present day. We will investigate how the island’s colonial relationship to the United States has led to mass migration and displacement, suppression of independence movements, disaster capitalism, austerity measures, and ecological crisis. Above all, we will examine how Puerto Rican arts and letters-literature, film, music, performance, visual arts-represent, negotiate, and reimagine coloniality, on the island and in the diaspora. We will interpret how this archipelagic archive goes about dreaming, imagining, and mobilizing decolonial futures for Puerto Rico.

Satisfies Hispanic Studies major and minor requirement.
Satisfies Latin American Studies major and minor requirement.
Satisfies Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.