The French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies Department is offering a new course, taught by Oscar Cabezas. This can count towards the Major or Minor in Latin American Studies:
SPAN490G Postcolonial “Indigenismo” in Latin American Literature and Culture
This course will explore the main literary texts and essays of so-called postcolonial “Indigenismo” of the twentieth century. The course will mainly explore the contradictions between the processes of modernization in Latin America and the resistance of pre-Colombian culture to integration by the Nation-State.
The course aims at a postcolonial and de-colonial understanding of the following novels: Alcides Arguedas’s Raza de bronce (Bolivia), José María Arguedas’s Los ríos profundos (Peru), Rosario Castellanos’s Balún canán (Mexico), Mario Vargas Llosa’s Lituma en los Andes (Peru), Rodrigo Rey Rosa’s Material humano (Guatemala) and Horacio Castellanos Moya’s Insensatez (Nicaragua). In order to grasp the meaning of postcolonial “indigenismo,” students will also be exposed to a selection of essays written by a number of scholars and intellectuals: José Mariategui’s Siete ensayos sobre la realidad peruana (Peru), José Vasconcelos’s Raza cósmica (Mexico), Roger Bartra’s La sangre y la tinta (Mexico) and Walter Mignolo’s The Dark Side of Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options.
The course will be conducted in Spanish and will be open to comparative discussions about the differences between Latin American “Indigenismo” and the discourse around Canadian “First Nations.”