Latin American Literatures and Cultures: Colonial and 19th-Century

Crosslistings: LACS 21900, RDIN 21905

This course offers an overview of major trends in Spanish-American writing from the colonial period through the late nineteenth century. We will pay particular attention to both the aesthetic dimensions of the texts and the historical conditions that made them possible. Topics include the textual forms that emerged within the context of conquest and colonization, such as those produced by Indigenous writers; the formation of mestizo and criollo cultural identities and their gendered dimensions; the struggles for independence and the formation of new Spanish- American nations beginning in 1810; and literary responses to the challenges posed to those nations by the emergence of U.S. imperialism toward the end of the nineteenth century. We will read Indigenous chronicles and testimonies of the Conquest; works by the mestizo writer Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and the creole nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz; the autobiography of the enslaved poet Juan Francisco Manzano; independence-era literature by Simón Bolívar and Esteban Echeverría; and anti-imperialist texts by the Cuban writer José Martí.

Taught in Spanish.

Prerequisites
SPAN 20300