Latin American Literature 1
A.Y. 2019/2020
Learning objectives
The course provides the necessary training of the main features of Hispanic American literature through the comparison with its most representative texts, analyzed with particular attention to the mechanisms of identity construction and intercultural dynamics in colonial contexts. The student is introduced to the methods and tools of literary analysis in a historical-cultural and comparative perspective, typical of the study of literature in a continental perspective.
Expected learning outcomes
Knowledge and understanding: The student learns to read and understand the main reference texts, in the original language, through basic analytical methods and tools, learns to place them in geographical contexts and corresponding historical periods, starts to learn the main theories and methodologies of the discipline.
Applied skills: the student knows how to recognize the most significant structural characteristics of the works analyzed and understands their main historical and social implications.
He also develops the communicative skills to revise the acquired disciplinary contents.
Applied skills: the student knows how to recognize the most significant structural characteristics of the works analyzed and understands their main historical and social implications.
He also develops the communicative skills to revise the acquired disciplinary contents.
Lesson period: Second semester
Assessment methods: Esame
Assessment result: voto verbalizzato in trentesimi
Single course
This course cannot be attended as a single course. Please check our list of single courses to find the ones available for enrolment.
Course syllabus and organization
Single session
Lesson period
Second semester
Course syllabus
The course is entitled Introduction to Hispanic American Literature and consists of the following three teaching units, which will be addressed in sequence:
A: Invented America: Chronicles, short stories, visions...
B: Building the Latin American identity: from Baroque to Independence
C: From colonial to post-colonial condition: political independence and literary independence
The course aims to offer a first general overview of Hispanic American literature from its origins to the threshold of the 20th century. The common thread will be the construction of the identity of the continent after its discovery and colonization, the search for an expression based on cultural resistance to imperial domination.
Unit A will deal with the problem of the Discovery and Conquest of a new world to which are attributed on the one hand the characters of myth and dream, on the other hand those of the nightmare of barbarism and demoniac. At the centre is the problem of the indium, symbol and symptom of an irreducible cultural otherness, subjected to a constant process of annihilation. We will observe the processes through which European culture will build the image of the other and the different, an image that will remain a restless and disturbing foundation of modernity.
In the teaching unit B the authors of two emblematic centuries such as the 17th and 18th centuries will be analyzed, centered on the search for a Latin-American identity that is detached from the European imagination and therefore different.
In the didactic unit C we will deal with one of the nerve centres of the political, cultural and literary development of the 20th century, characterized by the end of colonial domination and the advent of pos-colonial reality. Political independence will pose the problem of literary independence.
Students who wish to acquire 6 CFU will follow the program in units A and B; all students who wish to acquire 9 CFU will follow the full program (units A, B and C). Students of the other Degree Courses who wish to acquire only 6 CFU will have to agree with the teacher which units to prepare.
The course program is valid until Settembre 2021 inclusive.
A: Invented America: Chronicles, short stories, visions...
B: Building the Latin American identity: from Baroque to Independence
C: From colonial to post-colonial condition: political independence and literary independence
The course aims to offer a first general overview of Hispanic American literature from its origins to the threshold of the 20th century. The common thread will be the construction of the identity of the continent after its discovery and colonization, the search for an expression based on cultural resistance to imperial domination.
Unit A will deal with the problem of the Discovery and Conquest of a new world to which are attributed on the one hand the characters of myth and dream, on the other hand those of the nightmare of barbarism and demoniac. At the centre is the problem of the indium, symbol and symptom of an irreducible cultural otherness, subjected to a constant process of annihilation. We will observe the processes through which European culture will build the image of the other and the different, an image that will remain a restless and disturbing foundation of modernity.
In the teaching unit B the authors of two emblematic centuries such as the 17th and 18th centuries will be analyzed, centered on the search for a Latin-American identity that is detached from the European imagination and therefore different.
In the didactic unit C we will deal with one of the nerve centres of the political, cultural and literary development of the 20th century, characterized by the end of colonial domination and the advent of pos-colonial reality. Political independence will pose the problem of literary independence.
Students who wish to acquire 6 CFU will follow the program in units A and B; all students who wish to acquire 9 CFU will follow the full program (units A, B and C). Students of the other Degree Courses who wish to acquire only 6 CFU will have to agree with the teacher which units to prepare.
The course program is valid until Settembre 2021 inclusive.
Prerequisites for admission
None.
Teaching methods
The course adopts the following teaching methods: lectures and seminars.
Teaching Resources
1. Perassi, Emilia; Scarabelli, Laura, Itinerari di cultura ispanoamericana. Ritorno alle origini e ritorno delle origini, Torino, UTET 2011 (fino a p. 92)
2. Antonucci/Tedeschi, Letteratura ispanoamericana, Roma, Aracne, 2008 (fino a p. 168)
Unit A
3. Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Los naufragios, http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/naufragios--0/html/ (Trad. it., Naufragi, Torino, Einaudi 1989)
4. Bartolomé de Las Casas, Brevissima relazione della distruzione delle Indie, a cura di Flavio Fiorani, edizione con testo a fronte, Venezia, Marsilio, 2012
5. Beatriz Pastor, El discurso narrativo de la conquista, La Habana, Casa de las Américas, 1983 (selezione di capitoli)
Unit B
6. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, "Respuesta a Sor Filotea", https://www.ensayistas.org/antologia/XVII/sorjuana/sorjuana1.htm (Trad. it. Risposta a suor Filotea, trad. di Angelo Morino, Sellerio, Palermo 1995)
Unit C
7. Esteban Echevarría, El matadero, https://www.biblioteca.org.ar/libros/70300.pdf
(Trad. it. Il mattatoio, Roma, Maudit, 2011)
Students who are not attending will have to integrate the bibliography for frequent visitors with the study of Eduardo Galeano, Las venas abiertas de América latina, any edition (Trad. it, Le vene aperte dell'America latina, Milano, Sperling & Kupfer, 2013).
PLEASE NOTE:
The program is not intended to be complete and will be integrated with a series of essays, readings and insights that will be indicated at the beginning of the course and during the lessons. We therefore recommend a careful and constant monitoring of the Ariel platform (Hispanic American Literature 1), both by attending and non-attending students. All the supplementary texts uploaded in the course page are to be considered an integral part of the examination program.
2. Antonucci/Tedeschi, Letteratura ispanoamericana, Roma, Aracne, 2008 (fino a p. 168)
Unit A
3. Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Los naufragios, http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/naufragios--0/html/ (Trad. it., Naufragi, Torino, Einaudi 1989)
4. Bartolomé de Las Casas, Brevissima relazione della distruzione delle Indie, a cura di Flavio Fiorani, edizione con testo a fronte, Venezia, Marsilio, 2012
5. Beatriz Pastor, El discurso narrativo de la conquista, La Habana, Casa de las Américas, 1983 (selezione di capitoli)
Unit B
6. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, "Respuesta a Sor Filotea", https://www.ensayistas.org/antologia/XVII/sorjuana/sorjuana1.htm (Trad. it. Risposta a suor Filotea, trad. di Angelo Morino, Sellerio, Palermo 1995)
Unit C
7. Esteban Echevarría, El matadero, https://www.biblioteca.org.ar/libros/70300.pdf
(Trad. it. Il mattatoio, Roma, Maudit, 2011)
Students who are not attending will have to integrate the bibliography for frequent visitors with the study of Eduardo Galeano, Las venas abiertas de América latina, any edition (Trad. it, Le vene aperte dell'America latina, Milano, Sperling & Kupfer, 2013).
PLEASE NOTE:
The program is not intended to be complete and will be integrated with a series of essays, readings and insights that will be indicated at the beginning of the course and during the lessons. We therefore recommend a careful and constant monitoring of the Ariel platform (Hispanic American Literature 1), both by attending and non-attending students. All the supplementary texts uploaded in the course page are to be considered an integral part of the examination program.
Assessment methods and Criteria
The exam consists of an individual interview, which includes questions asked by the teacher, interactions between teacher and student and the analysis and commentary of one or more passages taken from the works in the program. The interview has a variable duration depending on the didactic units on which the student presents himself, and is held in Italian or Spanish, at the student's choice. The interview aims at verifying the knowledge of the texts in the program, the ability to contextualize authors and works, the ability in the exhibition, the precision in the use of specific terminology, the ability of critical and personal reflection on the proposed themes. Finally, if the interview is held in Spanish, it will take into account language skills. The final grade is expressed in thirtieth, and the student has the right to reject it (in which case it will be recorded as "withdrawn").
International students or Erasmus incoming students are invited to contact the teacher of the course in advance.
Examination procedures for students with disabilities and/or DSA must be agreed with the teacher, in agreement with the competent office.
International students or Erasmus incoming students are invited to contact the teacher of the course in advance.
Examination procedures for students with disabilities and/or DSA must be agreed with the teacher, in agreement with the competent office.
Unita' didattica A
L-LIN/06 - LATIN AMERICAN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES - University credits: 3
Lessons: 20 hours
Unita' didattica B
L-LIN/06 - LATIN AMERICAN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES - University credits: 3
Lessons: 20 hours
Unita' didattica C
L-LIN/06 - LATIN AMERICAN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES - University credits: 3
Lessons: 20 hours