Cultura y civilización en Latinoamérica

Abstract

Descripción del Curso/Course Description Since its discovery until the present, America has been imagined and conceived as the “New Continent”, a place for utopia, but also as a spaceof inequalities and extreme forms of violence. The course explores distinctive cultural aspects of Latin America by looking at the ways it has been represented in readings spanning from the diaries written by Christopher Columbus to the texts of the Cuban Revolution, the iconography of Peronism, or the recent debates on Neoliberalism, Globalization and Populism. Drawing on essays, but also on short-stories, paintings, photographs, murals and film, the course addresses a set of questions that lie at the heart of how we think about Latin America. The purpose of the course is threefold: to introduce students to problems central to Latin America, to familiarize students with a variety of non-fictional writings in Spanish, such as essay, chronicle, journalism and documentary films, and to sharpen student’s skills as analytical readers.