Fictions of History in Latin America
* This course is taught in Buenos Aires, Argentina. *
The aim of the course is to explore and relate the different ways in which discourses of fiction (mainly literature) are articulated with Latin American History of the XIXth and XXth Centuries. We will focus in events, characters and stages relevant to Latin American culture. By reading excerpts from La Consagración de la Primavera (Carpentier, 1978) and El General en su laberinto (García Márquez, 1989) we will focus on the key interpretative dimensions that will structure the course: a) when narration deals with a social and historical reality (Carpentier) or b) when it focus on a historical character (as García Márquez´ Simón Bolívar)
1.- When fiction appeals to historical events in order to build a narrative (e.g. historical fictions)
2.-When fiction intervenesin historical discourses in order to transgress its possible direction or pervades its version offering another quite different, or disintegrates the borders between truth and fiction (e.g.some historical discourses that appeals to fiction in order to produce a “reality effect”, some science fiction narratives or fictions which puposedly change historical events)
3.- When fiction shows its denial with respect to historical reality (e.g. prohibitions, censorship, etc)
The course is organized around five key issues:
a.- Historical characters from Latin America XIXth Century (Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, Paraguay and Juan Manuel de Rosas, Argentina)
b.- Silenced women: other versions of traditional literary texts and characters from Latin American culture.
c.- Two historical personalities in Latin American XXth Century: Juan Domingo Perón and Ernesto Che Guevara
d.- Three Argentine historical events: Malvinas War (1982), the floods of 1985 and the 2001 crises
e.- Time of illnesses: AIDS and COVID
(1 unit)
Crosslisted: Culture/Literature