SPAN20240

Learning Outcomes:

On successful completion of this modules students should be able to:

On successful completion of this module students should be able to:
Identify and engage with cultural and political theories around the perception and representation of Latin America.
Put key ideas and concepts explored in the course into their wider historical context.
To analyse and interpret various cultural media such as film, journal entries, literature and art and link them to the course’s main themes.
To be able to think independently and creatively around the topics covered and to integrate critical viewpoints with your own.

Indicative Module Content:

This is subject to change but is an indicator of planned content this year:

Week 1, Block 1:
Theoretical approach and Travellers’ Tales
Class 1, 21 Jan: Introduction and the ‘Invention’ of Latin America
Readings taken from Mignolo (2005), The Monroe Doctrine (on Brightspace)
Class 2, 23 Jan: Comment on readings

Week 2 Class 1, 28th Jan: Travellers’ Tales: Columbus, von Humboldt, Darwin, Palin
Class 2, 30th Jan: Discussion of readings on above (on Brightspace)

Week 3, Block 2:
Latin Hollywood
Class 1, Feb 4th: Latin Hollywood and the Good Neighbour Policy
Class 2, Feb 6th: Readings of excerpts of documents: The Hays Code (Brightspace) and discussion of ‘Good Neighbour’ film clips.

Week 4 Class 1, 11th Feb: Latin Hollywood to the present
Class 2, 13th Feb: Analysis of clips from Down Argentine Way
(1940), The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (1966), Reading of Swanson, ‘Remember the Alamo’ and ‘Going down on Good Neighbours’ (Brightspace).
Outline of expectations for the group presentations.
Watch: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly online

Week 5 Class 1, 18th Feb Imagining Latin America on screen: West Side Story (1961), West Side Story (2021)
Class 2, 20th Feb: Revisioning Latin America on screen in contemporary Latin music: Juan Luis Guerra: 'Tus besos'
(2018) and Mon Laferte 'Que se sepa nuestra amor' (2020).

Block 3: Borderlands:
Week 6, Class 1, 25th Feb: Borderlands: Mexican American perspectives. Luís Alberto Urrea and Gloria Anzaldúa: Excerpts from the texts 'Borderlands, La Frontera' (1987) and 'The Devil’s Highway' (2004) (Brightspace).
Class 2: 27th Feb: A recent North American literary interpretation of the border, American Dirt (2019) by Jeanine Cummins. This class will take the form of a discussion forum which will be set up in advance and which every student will contribute to in the class hour online. Further instructions will be given in due course. Excerpts will be posted online, but it is best to read the novel in its entirety.

Week 7 Class 1, 4th March: Chicanos in the USA. Chicano self-representation: art and activism.
Read: Chicano Art chapter (Brightspace) and introduction to Our Lady of Controversy: Alma López's Irreverent Apparition
(link provided on BS)
Class 2, 6th March: Group presentations x 2

Two-week study break: no classes

Block 4: Icons
Week 8: Class 1, 25th March: Icons: what makes an icon and why are
we drawn to Latin American icons: political, sporting, criminal
and religious?
Read:
1) ‘Evita: The Globalisation of a National Myth’ by Marta
Savigliano
2) Extracts from Santa Evita and Diarios de motocicleta
(Provided on BSpace)
Watch: The Motorcycle Diaries online (2004)
Class 2, 27th March: Group presentations x 2

Week 9: Class 1, 1st April : Two Argentine Icons: Evita and Che. Discussion and debate.
Class 2, 3rd April: Group Presentations x 2

Week 10 Class 1, 8th Apr: AHGBI: Reading and activities will be set.
Class 2, 10th Apr: Group Presentations x 2

Week 11 Class 1, 15th Apr: The cult of the narcos and their representation: narco-corridos, social media, print media. Discussion of episodes from Narcos.
Read: ‘Screening Latin American-ness’ (BSpace)
Class 2, 17th Apr: Group presentations x 2

Week 12 Classes 1 and 2, 22nd and 24th Apr: Group presentations if needed. Recap and essay preparation.

Student Effort Hours:

Approaches to Teaching and Learning:

Blended learning. While there will be some lectures, there will also be a strong component of student-facing learning, with class discussions, quizzes and group presentations. The summative assessment will encourage students to apply their learning on a particular topic relating to Latin American representations. This could be a topic explored in class or something independent of that but based around the theme of foreign and domestic perceptions of Latin America.

*Trigger warning: there may be content that is discussed that could be upsetting to students, such as themes of racism and violence. I will pre-warn students of this at the start of the module and subsequently.

AI usage: amber (you may use generative AI for this assignment for certain purposes only under the guidance of your module coordinator and within academic integrity guidelines).

Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.

Module Requisites and Incompatibles

Not applicable to this module.
 

Assessment Strategy

 

Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 

Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment
• Group/class feedback, post-assessment
• Peer review activities

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Peer review in class, group feedback given and essay feedback given.

Please get a copy of 'American Dirt' by Jeannine Cummins (2019) Tinder Press. Extracts will be provided but it is much better to have a copy of the book t participate in the debate.

Secondary Reading:

Beverley, John, Michael Aronna and José Oviedo (Eds). The Postmodernism Debate in
Latin America. London: Duke University Press, 1995.
Chasteen, John Charles and Sara Castro-Klarén. Eds. Beyond Imagined Communities:
Reading and Writing the Nation in Nineteenth-Century Latin America. Washington:
John Hopkins University Press, 2003.
Ferman, Claudia (ed.). The postmodern in Latin and Latino American cultural narratives : collected essays and interviews
Figueredo, D. H. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Latino History and Culture. Indianapolis:
Alpha Books, 2002.
Ramírez, Luz Elena. British Representations of Latin America
Read, Justin. Modern poetics and hemispheric American cultural studies, Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Beardsell, Peter. Europe and Latin America: Returning the Gaze
Cummins, John. The Voyage of Christopher Columbus. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson,
1992
Docker, John. 1492: The Poetics of Diaspora. London; New York: Continuum, 2001.
Palin, Michael. Full Circle. London: BBC, 1997.
Peñaloza, Fernanda, Wilson, Jason and Canaparo, Claudio (eds.). Patagonia : myths and realities, Oxford ; New York : Peter Lang, c2010
Bellos, Alex. Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life. London: Bloomsbury, 2003.
Galeano, Eduardo, Football in Sun and Shadow. Trans. Mark Fried. London: Fourth Estate,
2003.
McGowan, Chris. The Brazilian sound : samba, bossa nova, and the popular music of Brazil, Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 1998.
Root Regina A. Ed. The Latin American Fashion Reader Oxford: Berg, 2005.
Rowe, William and Vivian Schelling. Memory and Modernity. Popular Culture in Latin America. London, Verso, 1991.
Taylor, Chris. The Beautiful Game: A Journey Through Latin American Football. London, Latin America Bureau, 1998.
Wade, Peter. Music, race & nation: 'música tropical' in Colombia, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
Waxer, Lise. Situating Salsa: Global Markets and Local Meanings in Latin Popular Music.
London: Routledge, 2002.
Wood, David and Johnson, Louise (eds.). Sporting cultures : Hispanic perspectives on sport, text and the body, London : Routledge, 2008.
Alarcón, Daniel. The Aztec Palimpsest: Mexico in the Modern Imagination. University of
Arizona Press, 1997.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La frontera. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Press
Boyle, T. C. The Tortilla Curtain New York: Bloomsbury, 1996.
Cisneros, Sandra. Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. Random House, 1991.
Keating, Analouise. Entre Mundos/Among Worlds: New Perspectives on Gloria Anzaldúa
Keating, Analouise. Women Reading Women Writing: Self-Invention in Paula Gunn Allen,
Gloria Anzaldúa, and Audre Lorde. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1996.
Luis, William. Dance Between Two Cultures: Latino Caribbean Literature written in the
United States.
Pérez Emma. The Decolonial Imaginary: Writing Chicanas into History. Bloomington, Ind.:
Indiana University Press, c1999. (electronic resource).
Pérez-Firmat, Gustavo. Next Year in Cuba: A Cubano's Coming-Of-Age in America. Houston:
Arte Público Press, 2005.
Trujillo, Carla. Living Chicana Theory. Berkeley: Third Woman Press, 1998.
Urrea, Luís Alberto. Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border. Anchor
Books, 1993.
Urrea, Luís Alberto. The Devil’s Highway: A True Story. Little, Brown and Company, 2006.
Borge, Jason. Latin American Writers and the Rise of Hollywood Cinema. Routledge, 2008.
Boyd, Susan. Hooked: Drug War Films in Britain, Canada, and the United States. New York:
Routledge, 2008.
Hadley-Garcia, George. Hispanic Hollywood: The Latins in Motion Pictures.New York:
Carol Pub. Group, 1990.
Stevens, Donald F. Based on a True Story: Latin American History at the Movies.
Wilmington, Del.: SR Books, (1997).
Thomas, Victoria. Hollywood’s Latin Lovers: Latino, Italian, and French Men Who Make the
Screen Smoulder. Santa Monica: Angel City Press, (1998).
Ortiz Fernández, Fernando. Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar. New York: Vintage
Books, 1970.
Anderson, Jon Lee. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life. New York: Grove Press, 1997.
Brunk, Samuel and Ben Fallow (eds). Heroes and Hero Cults in Latin America. Austin:
University of Texas Press, 2006.
Butterfield Ryan, Henry. The Fall of Che Guevara: A Story of Soldiers, Spies and Diplomats.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Dujovne Ortiz, Alicia. Eva Perón. Trans Shawn Fields. London: Warner, 1997.
Guevara, Ernesto ‘Che’. Diarios de motocicleta. Melbourne: Ocean Press, 2003.
Hooks, Margaret. Frida Kahlo. Portraits of an Icon. London: Bloomsbury, 2003.
Lindauer, Margaret A. Devouring Frida: The Art History and Popular Celebrity of Frida
Kahlo. London: University Press of New England, 1999.
Perón, Eva. La razón de mi vida. Buenos Aires: Peuser, 1951.
Baddeley, Oriana. Drawing the line: art and cultural identity in contemporary Latin America,
Benson. Elizabeth P. [et al.]. Retratos: 2,000 years of Latin American portraits, New Haven, Conn. ; London : Yale University Press, 2005
Craven, David. The new concept of art and popular culture in Nicaragua since the revolution in 1979, Lewiston, N.Y. ; Lampeter : E.Mellen, 1989.
Hedrick, Tace. Mestizo modernisms: race, nation, and identity in Latin American culture, 1900-1940, New Brunswick, N.J. ; London : Rutgers University Press, 2003.
Ramírez, Mari Carmen. Inverted utopias: avant-garde art in Latin America, New Haven; London : Yale University Press, 2004.

Timetabling information is displayed only for guidance purposes, relates to the current Academic Year only and is subject to change.