SPAN 375 - Memory and Image in Contemporary Latin American Literature and Art

This course focuses on memory and image, two categories that have acquired great relevance since the 1980s, in ethical, political, juridical, epistemological, and aesthetic domaines. The terms “subjective turn” and “iconic turn” used by cultural critics reflect this phenomenon. A corpus of theoretical works (Plato, Aristotle, Agustine, Nietzsche, Bergson, Halbwachs, Nora, Bazin, Marin, Barthes, Sontag, Didi-Huberman) will familiarize the student with the main debates and relevant categories and will enrich their understanding of the literary and visual art works under examination. Together with testimonies and other non-fiction works will be thus examined and contrasted with practices (literature, performance, visual arts) that use aesthetics to engage with the past. Particular attention is paid to the presence of the imaginary, the anachronistic, obsolescence, and the emptying of objects. Parallel to the ethico-political dimensions of memory, the function of forgetting will be discussed. Included are works by: Patricio Guzmán, Albertina Carri, Rodolfo Walsh, Alejandro Zambra, Roberto Bolaño, Cynthia Rimsky , Margo Glantz, Juan Carlos Onetti, Ricardo Piglia, Leon Ferrari y Doris Salcedo. Conducted in Spanish.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Prerequisite(s): SPAN 321
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).