海角社区

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Section A: Colonial Latin America

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• Appropriating the Pre-Columbian

This section explores how creole Mexican elites of the late colonial and early republican periods appropriated Aztec history and made it a key component in the construction of a protonational and national identity. In the late seventeenth century, Carlos de Sig眉enza y G贸ngora, in his听Teatro de virtudes pol铆ticas听(1680), presented the ancient Mexica rulers as political models for the new viceroy, reaffirming a local identity but also creating a political genealogy that linked the pre-Columbian world to Spanish imperial power. A century later, the Creole Jesuit Francisco Javier Clavigero, in his听Historia antigua de M茅xico听(1780-81), wrote an encyclopaedic history of the Mexica and challenged the historiographical tradition by claiming pre-Columbian material culture as the basis of Mexican historiography.

In the nineteenth century, the anonymous novel听Xicot茅ncatl听(1826), which narrates the wars and subsequent alliance between Tlaxcalans and Spaniards before the fall of Tenochtitlan, and the work of artists who reproduced pre-Columbian art in their paintings, drew on the pre-Hispanic past at a time when national identity and what it meant to be Mexican were being defined. By analysing the ways in which these authors appropriated the pre-Columbian, students will question the extent to which their exaltation of the Mexica implied an incompatibility of this glorious past with contemporary indigenous societies, and the role of these narratives in shaping our current notions of indigeneity and mestizaje.听

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Section B:听Post-Independence Latin America

• Avant-garde and mid twentieth-century poetry

鈥�The emblematic poetry of the Avant garde and mid twentieth century reacted against听modernismo听but built on its conquests. The teeming 鈥搃sms of the early twentieth century European avant-garde movements were taken up by Latin Americans, who made them their own and redefined their ideological and poetic aims. The Chilean Vicente Huidobro and the Argentinians Oliverio Girondo and Jorge Luis Borges wrote important manifestos and poetry of exciting and challenging novelty and formal experimentation. The Peruvian C茅sar Vallejo radically took apart and reassembled the Spanish language in Trilce, expressing spiritual anguish which leaves the poetic form in pieces. Like Pablo Neruda, Vallejo went on to write politically committed poetry in the context of the Russian Revolution and the Spanish Civil War.听The great Mexican poet Octavio Paz鈥檚 poetry is best approached in his听Libertad bajo palabra.

• The City and the Countryside (la novela de la tierra, cultural nationalism and the return to roots)

The City and the Countryside听offers germane clusters of texts which can be studied as separate groupings or comparatively.听 The best-known text of the听gauchesca, the verse narrative spun around the figure of the River Plate听gaucho听or cowboy is Hern谩ndez鈥檚听Mart铆n Fierro听(1872, 79). The conflicts of early Argentina and Uruguay echo and dialogue with founding notions from Sarmiento鈥檚听Facundo: civilizaci贸n y barbarie听(1845) and echo in the rewritings of Jorge Luis Borges nearly a century later. The 1920s texts by Jos茅 Eustasio Rivera, Ricardo G眉iraldes, R贸mulo Gallegos and others often referred to as the听narrativa de la tierra听and novela la selva, and set in the jungles and plains of South America, address the effects of modernization and nation construction on traditional rural life.听 Mexican narratives of the 1940s and 50s by Juan Rulfo, Jos茅 Revueltas, Agust铆n Y谩帽ez and others combine modernist literary technique with a depiction of traditional rural communities threatened or destroyed by the violence of the Revolution and Cristero Wars and the modernizing campaigns of the State.

• Narrative and experiments in form (Rulfo, the 鈥楤oom鈥�, Cabrera Infante)

This topic covers the extraordinary flowering of narrative innovation, often highly self-conscious, developing from the late 1940s and gaining international recognition for Latin American fiction in the 1960s 鈥楤oom鈥� and beyond. Juan Carlos Onetti was a pioneer with his听La vida breve, then came the landmark Pedro P谩ramo by Juan Rulfo. 听The Argentinian Julio Cort谩zar, inspired by French surrealism, Keats and Poe, wrote Rayuela听(1963), the iconic 鈥榓nti-novel鈥� of the Boom, which is often compared with Carlos Fuentes鈥� Cambio de piel and the later Zona sagrada, which drew on cinema, early post-modern 鈥渃amp鈥� aesthetics, and structuralist interrogations of myth and its functions. Alejo Carpentier, Fuentes and others wrote historical novels of great structural and conceptual complexity. Book-ending the topic comes the monumental Tres tristes tigres, a tongue-twisting novel that tries to capture the frenetic energy of pre-Revolutionary Havana, its orality and popular musical cultures, as well as its parodic emptying out of serious 鈥渉igh鈥� literature.

• The Short Story (Arreola, Monterroso, D谩vila and Ocampo)

The Short Story听has a long and distinguished tradition in Latin America, with local roots in Palma鈥檚听Tradiciones听from the 1870s and the stories of Dar铆o and chronicles of Guti茅rrez N谩jera around the turn of the century.听 The Uruguayan Horacio Quiroga combined the fantastic of Poe and vivid descriptions of the harsh and dangerous nature of the continent to produce his foundational collections between 1917 and 1926.听 The Argentinian Jorge Luis Borges combined the fantastic and detective traditions with disconcerting games with intellectual enigmas and questions of authorhood and language to produce some of the most influential works of Western literature such as听El Aleph (1949) and El informe de Brodie听(1970) [NB Ficciones is studied听on SP5, so not available for study on SP12].听 Julio Cort谩zar drew on his inspiration from 1951 with听Bestiario听(studied in SP5) to write a no less fascinating but more existentially based series of collections such as Final del juego听(1956) and Las armas secretas听(1959).听 From Lugones and Felisberto Hern谩ndez to Arreola and Monterroso, the tradition has great depth and vitality. In 2023-2024 we will be looking at a selection of works by Juan Jos茅 Arreola (often referred to as the 鈥淢exican鈥� Borges), by Augusto Monterroso (who combines elements of the fantastic with social and political satire, and is famed for having written the shortest story ever!), and by two major women writers (recently 鈥渞ediscovered鈥�) who pushed the fantastic genre in new directions: the Argentinian Silvina Ocampo and the Mexican Amparo D谩vila.

• Articulations of Identity (women鈥檚 writing,听poes铆a negrista,听narrativa negra, indigenismo)

Writing on specifically feminine identity, sexuality and language, as well as on race and ethnicity, in poetry and prose, has a rich history in Latin America.听 Through the twentieth century a powerful line of poetry and thought can be drawn between the very different figures of Gabriel Mistral, Alfonsina Storni, Rosario Castellanos and Alejandra Pizarnik.听 The听poes铆a negrista听of Nicol谩s Guill茅n, Pal茅s Matos, Ballagas and others emerged in the 1920s and 30s and explored Afro-Caribbean rhythms, physicality and culture within an anti-colonialist and often humorous discourse.听听Indigenista texts, from the late nineteenth century onwards, have also articulated questions of voice and agency,听mestizaje听and structural injustice and violence mainly in Andean and Mexican societies. We听focus on three female poets, Alfonsina Storni,听Alejandra Pizarnik and Rosario Castellanos and black writing from C19th and C20th Cuba and Colombia (including the first ever slave-autobiography in Spanish, Manzano鈥檚 Autobiograf铆a de un esclavo and the popular poetry of Colombian Candelario Obeso, a nineteenth-century 鈥減recursor鈥� of later 鈥減oes铆a negrista鈥�). Study of indigeneity will be focussed on the early independence 鈥渁ppropriations鈥� of the colonial past (see above), although students are also free to engage with indigenista and neo-indigenista texts by Jos茅 Mar铆a Arguedas, Ciro Alegr铆a, Rosario Castellanos, Miguel 脕ngel Asturias and others (although not those texts covered on SP5).

• Visualizing America (painting, muralism, photography)

This comparative topic explores representational strategies and innovation in the arts in relation to portrayals of identity, gender, ethnicity, landscape, history, modernity, collectivity, revolution and popular culture. It centres on visual culture from the 30s onwards, with a particular focus on the way in which it was shaped by the legacies of historical avant-garde movements and their ramifications in a transatlantic and transcultural sense. Through lectures focused on the British-born surrealist painter Leonora Carrington, who settled in M茅xico in the 1930鈥檚, and the Afro-Cuban painter Wifredo Lam, whose post-colonial dialogue with the European avant-garde dates from the same time, we explore how issues regarding identity were reframed by artists ready to critically question Western representation. We will address the aesthetic strategies that make up the dreamworlds created by Mexican-British painter Leonora Carrington, situating them as part of the larger transformative journey of Surrealism through the work of several prominent visual artists working in Mexico (Frida Kahlo, Remedios Varo) and Argentina (Xul Solar, Leonor Fini). Also in close dialogue with surrealism, as well with the rise of Caribbean ethnography and post-colonial thought in the region, we will explore how Wifredo Lam鈥檚 paintings and etchings 鈥� which he saw as being part of 鈥渁n act of mental decolonisation鈥� 鈥� allow us to critically question the legacy of colonial representations, opening the path for a liberated post-colonial imaginary. Adopting an interdisciplinary and comparative lens, this topic will allow students to map out the vibrant exchanges and the rich variety of artistic practices and visual experiments that characterised a period imbued with the tensions arising from accelerated modernisation and geopolitical change in Latin America and the rest of the world.

• Modernismo: Dar铆o and others *

Spanish American听modernismo, which flourished from around 1885 to the beginning of the First World War, saw a radical renewal of writing in Spanish, in poetry and prose, unrivalled since the Golden Age of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.听 Opening up to Western literature and modernity, especially French romanticism and symbolism, Spanish American writing became far more cosmopolitan and, paradoxically, more American and original.听 The towering figure is the Nicaraguan Rub茅n Dar铆o with his seminal collections听Prosas profanas and听Cantos de vida y esperanza, prose poems and short stories, but there is a bewildering richness of figures, from the Cuban poet, essayist and patriot Jos茅 Mart铆 and the witty chronicles and poetry of the Mexican Guti茅rrez N谩jera to the sardonic poems and fascinating novel,听Sobremesa, of the Colombian Jos茅 Asunci贸n Silva.

听听听听听听听听听听听 *听 the topic will not be lectured on 2024-2025, but there will be a question on it in the exam and students may wish to study it with their supervisor.听

The topics allow a detailed engagement with individual authors and texts in a comparative framework. 听Some of the topics contain regional themes and diverse genres and groupings of texts. 听There are no set texts as such, but major authors and their works are given in the detailed reading lists below. Questions are designed to allow both detailed focus and a wider-ranging approach.

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