SPAN 380 Latinx Storytelling: Identity, Race, and Gender in the Latin American Diaspora
This course examines the intersection of immigration, race, gender, sexuality, and nationality in contemporary Latinx cultural production in the US. Turning to cultural narratives of migration, we will explore the historical, political, and sociocultural processes that have led to the formation of Latinx diasporic communities in the U.S. and how these contexts have shaped the Latinx experience in the U.S. We will discuss questions of Latinx identity, migration, alterity, and belonging in cultural texts produced by different Latinx communities in the U.S. (such as Mexico, Colombia, The Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Guatemala). By centering on a variety of cultural texts (including memoirs, novels, essays, poetry, short fiction, and film), this course examines the role culture plays in documenting the heterogeneity of Latinx identities, along with its intersections with other categories of difference (such as race, gender, sexuality, class, status, nationality). Some of the topics we will cover include: undocumented storytelling; coming-of-age Latinx narratives; narratives of migration and literatures of the borderlands; queer Latinx storytelling; Afro-Latinx narratives and erasures; and state violence, masculinities, and Latinx intergenerational trauma.
Prerequisite
SPAN 202 or SPAN 211