Department of Spanish and Portuguese

Prerequisite: HISP-S 328.

This course will explore key trends and texts in twentieth- and twenty-first century Mexican literature and cultural production.  Topics include representations of the Mexican Revolution, critiques of its failure and institutionalization, and efforts at democratization; the relationship and power dynamics between Mexico and the US; migration, border crossing—and impediments to such crossings—and the crises that result; questions of citizenship and agency, and who has—and does not have—access to them; debates over what it (supposedly) means to be Mexican and who is—and who is not—allowed to claim that identity, as well as the sheer range of ways to be or see oneself as Mexican both within and outside of the nation; Chicanx identities; representations of indigeneity and the indigenous; mestizaje in Mexican culture and politics, and how the concept both includes and excludes; changing conceptions of gender and sexuality, including, in particular, refutations of ideas about malinchismo and different dimensions of the women's movement(s); countercultural and student movements and activism of the 1960s, culminating in the 1968 massacre at Tlatelolco; questions of power and political control, and the globalization of Mexican culture; and others.  We will, additionally, examine how revolutionary activism, resistance, and democratizing efforts have often been entwined in broader, transnational movements, including student movements, anti-establishment protests and counterculture, and the environmental movement.

We will examine the ways that content and structure/techniques work together in artistic texts to convey themes, and we will explore how texts respond to, criticize, and, often, seek to change their historical, cultural, social, and/or political contexts.

We will read and analyze fiction, films, testimonial works, essays, murals by Diego Rivera and others, and more.  Daily reading assignments, attendance, active participation, discussion board postings, and frequent study questions are required, as well as other assignments (papers, midterm exam, etc.).  The course will be conducted in Spanish.

We will also focus on strengthening writing skills, including thesis development and follow-through, analysis, and organization, among others.

HISP-S 479     #29782        9:35A-10:50A    TR         BH 336       Prof. Deborah Cohn

Note: Above class meets with HISP-S 498, section #13038

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