The Latin American Essay: Themes and Tendencies

THIS COURSE IS TAUGHT IN GUADALAJARA

Central to the formation of a Latin American cultural discourse since the mid-19th-century, the genre of the essay has become the main vehicle for the articulation of issues, concerns, and ideals for generations of intellectuals in the region. The course will explore the continuity and difference that have marked the study of this essential literary genre in the work of some of its most representative exponents and through concepts such as cultural mestizaje, transculturation, heterogeneity, hybridity, and peripheral modernity. From the perspective of the new cultural history, it will also analyze the impact political events and social movements, on the one hand, and the social sciences and the economy, and the languages of the arts and film, on the other, have had on its development from the journalistic articles of the modernista generation to the neo-Zapatista communiqués, or the radio essays of Latino/a authors in the United States. Among the authors included in the program are José Martí, José Enrique Rodó, Alfonso Reyes, Jorge Luis Borges, José Carlos Mariátegui, Octavio Paz, Mariano Picón Salas, Rosario Castellanos, Beatriz Sarlo, and Richard Rodriguez. (1 unit)

Required texts: Tulio Halperín Donghi, Historia contemporánea de América Latina (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2005); John Skirius, El ensayo hispanoamericano del siglo XX (México: F.C.E., 2004).

Texts available in Mexico