This 10-weeks course surveys major Latin American literary works from pre-Columbian traditions to the period preceding the rise of modernism in the late 19th century. We will take a critical approach to the idea of "literature" by examining poetic and dramatic texts alongside historical, legal, ethnographic, and religious documents. Through this broad conception of textuality, we will explore the articulation, transformation, and preservation of identity across the colonial and early republican eras.
Aventuras con Libros
Syllabus Winter 2026 SPAN 261 Literature in Modern Latin America
This 9-weeks course provides an overview of some of the major trends in Latin American literatures since 1888, modernismo, the historical avant-garde, the "Boom," and end of the 20th century. The readings, class discussions and assignments will offer many opportunities to improve students’ oral and written Spanish. The course will emphasize various literary styles and ideological constructions that, in different ways, reflect the complexity of Latin American writing.
Syllabus Fall 2025 SPAN 261 Literature in Modern Latin America
This course provides an overview of some of the major trends in Latin American literatures since 1888, modernismo, the historical avant-garde, the "Boom," and end of the 20th century. The readings, class discussions and assignments will offer many opportunities to improve students’ oral and written Spanish. The course will emphasize various literary styles and ideological constructions that, in different ways, reflect the complexity of Latin American writing.
Erick Mota’s Habana Undergüater and Cuba’s Collective Trauma of 1990 Socialism’s Collapse
The enthralling Mota's plots and characters reflect the ongoing negotiation of Cuban national identity at the dawn of the twenty-first century to a world that feels like a post-apocalyptic future. This integration of Afro-Cuban mythology also challenges traditional Western narratives: He never justifies the choice and instead presents a universe where diverse ontologies and knowledge systems coexist. It is a liberating and subversive political project, but still full of conflicts.
When your body stops being evidence of your humanity
Today I will discuss four stories written by people who don't remember much about the world before the fall of the Berlin Wall where the body is an ethical and technological focus: "Chunga Maya" by Alejandro Martín Rojas (1984), "Dulce" by Iris Rosales Valdés (1984), "Mulas" (Mules) by Dennis Mourdoch Morán (1985), and "Ojos de cocodrilo" (Cocodrile Eyes) by Malena Salazar Maciá (1988).
Seven Hundred Eighteen Words Apropos of “Anxiety Loops”
In “Blacceleration Then and Now," Professor Tavia Nyong'o proposes exploring "Black fabulation as a mode of dwelling within disaster," since we already are in the apocalypse. From the get-go, it is not complicated to deduce that for him, bad readings of science fiction equal disaster. As a prime subject for state-sponsored techno-vigilance (victim) and language teacher (victimizer), I concur.
Bitácora de viaje 