Department of Spanish and Portuguese

Prerequisite: HISP-S 324 or HISP-S 328 or Consent of Department.

Until relatively recently, science fiction has generally been treated as a “light” and unserious genre. Recently, though, both popular audiences and scholars have become increasingly attentive to the significance of the alternative worlds and dystopian futures that science fiction creates, as well as to the piercing social and political critiques that it has issued. In this course, we will examine how throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, Spanish American, Caribbean, and Latiné writers and directors have used science fiction and other modes of questioning what we understand to be reality to challenge readers’ understanding of the world and to show their concerns about modernization and technological development, the power of dictatorships, the marginalization of people of color, the climate crisis, femicide, and much, much more.

Through in-class discussions and written work, we will examine how writers and artists use science fiction to reflect, criticize, and, at times, seek to change their historical, cultural, and/or political contexts.

We will also focus on strengthening writing skills, including thesis development and follow-through, analysis, and organization, among others. Assessments will include class participation, a short and long essay, a midterm exam, in-class exercises, and discussion boards.
   
We will study fiction by Julio Cortázar, Gabriela Damián Miravete, Junot Díaz, and Luis Alberto Urrea, among others, as well as seeing films such as “Sleep Dealer” and the zombie-filled “Juan de los muertos.”

HISP-S 474     #23425      (3)     2:20P-3:35P    MW      SY 0009      Prof. Deborah Cohn

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