Cultures of Spanish-Speaking Countries I
A.Y. 2025/2026
Learning objectives
The course aims to provide students with the critical tools that allow them to deepen their knowledge of the different socio-cultural dynamics of Latin American modernity. The use of the various textual and audiovisual materials should foster critical thinking, while stimulating the delineation of autonomous research processes.
Expected learning outcomes
Consolidation of knowledge of multiple cultural aspects - literature, visual art, music - featuring the contemporary Latin America scene. The application of the theory and practice of Cultural Studies in socio-historical and linguistic contexts, allows to develop an autonomous research paths in specific aspects of the Hispanic modernity.
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
Responsible
Lesson period
Second semester
Course syllabus
This course, of an interdisciplinary nature, brings together different categories to think about Latin America. It also addresses the colonial substrate that has determined relations of power, exploitation, discrimination and constructions of otherness. To this end, it seeks to relate these categories to cultural productions of the 21st century that reflect social, cultural and historical contexts. Different textual typologies will be analyzed: chronicle, essay, novel, story, music and film. The objective is to provide tools for the interpretation of Hispanic American cultures in close relation to their past and their 'situated' enunciation.
The program is as follows:
1. Approaching Latin America: fundamental concepts and categories (coloniality of power and knowledge, decoloniality, acts of resistance)
2. Narrating migration: short story "Días de 1978" by Roberto Bolaño (2001); essay Los niños perdidos (2016) by Valeria Luiselli.
3. Reflection on marginalized, yet very active, collectives in contemporary Spanish-American reality. Central role of Pacha Mama for some social groups. It will be shown how this is in constant and open conflict with current neoliberal policies. Reading of the text Piñén by the Mapuche author Daniela Catrileo.
4. Development of LGBTQIA + rights in Spanish-American and in particular in contemporary Cuba, through the reading of short stories selected by the teacher and the viewing of films.
5. Narrating gender violence: essay "Los noriginales: desedimentar un feminicidio" (in Escrituras geológicas, 2022) by Cristina Rivera Garza
The program is as follows:
1. Approaching Latin America: fundamental concepts and categories (coloniality of power and knowledge, decoloniality, acts of resistance)
2. Narrating migration: short story "Días de 1978" by Roberto Bolaño (2001); essay Los niños perdidos (2016) by Valeria Luiselli.
3. Reflection on marginalized, yet very active, collectives in contemporary Spanish-American reality. Central role of Pacha Mama for some social groups. It will be shown how this is in constant and open conflict with current neoliberal policies. Reading of the text Piñén by the Mapuche author Daniela Catrileo.
4. Development of LGBTQIA + rights in Spanish-American and in particular in contemporary Cuba, through the reading of short stories selected by the teacher and the viewing of films.
5. Narrating gender violence: essay "Los noriginales: desedimentar un feminicidio" (in Escrituras geológicas, 2022) by Cristina Rivera Garza
Prerequisites for admission
Students must have adequate command of oral and written Spanish and awareness of its American variants. They must also have a competent knowledge of the complex Latin American reality and of some historical and cultural turning points. The course will be conducted in Spanish.
Teaching methods
The lessons will be partly frontal and partly will take the form of a seminar-workshop. Each topic will be contextualized using different cultural objects and text analysis methods. Student participation will be encouraged in each session to promote exchange, discussion and debate. This will be done through group comments in the classroom, which will then be presented orally.
Teaching Resources
Selection of Cuban and Chilean texts edited by the teacher
Cabnal, Lorena. "Acercamiento a la construcción de la propuesta de pensamiento epistémico de las mujeres indígenas feministas comunitarias de Abya Yala". Feminismos diversos: el feminismo comunitario. ACSUR-Las Segovias, 2010. https://porunavidavivible.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/feminismos-comunitario-lorena-cabnal.pdf
Catrileo Daniela. Piñen (2025)
Cumes, Aura. "Mujeres indígenas, patriarcado y colonialismo: un desafío a la segregación comprensiva de las formas de dominio". Anuario de Hojas de Warmi 17 (2012), pp. 1-16.
Curiel, Ochy y Falconí, Diego. Feminismos decoloniales y transformación social. Barcelona: Icaria, 2021.
Curiel, Ochy. "Construyendo metodologías feministas desde el feminismo decolonial". Otras formas de (re)conocer. Reflexiones, herramientas y aplicaciones desde la investigación feminista (Eds. Irantzu Mendia Azkue et.al. Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2015, pp. 45-60. http://www.ram-wan.net/restrepo/documentos/ochy.pdf)
Lugones, María. "Colonialidad y género". Tabula Rasa 9 (julio-diciembre. 2008), pp. 73-101.
Luiselli, Valeria. Los niños perdidos. Madird: Sexto Piso, 2016
Quijano, Aníbal. "Colonialidad del poder, eurocentrismo y América Latina". Cuestiones y horizontes: de la dependencia histórico-estructural a la colonialidad/descolonialidad del poder. Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 2014, pp. 777-832.
Rivera Garza, Cristina. "Introducción", "Los noriginales: desedimentar un feminicidio".
Escrituras geológicas. Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2022, pp. 9-18, 179-187.
Segato, Rita. La guerra contra las mujeres. Madrid: Traficantes de Sueños, 2016.
Cabnal, Lorena. "Acercamiento a la construcción de la propuesta de pensamiento epistémico de las mujeres indígenas feministas comunitarias de Abya Yala". Feminismos diversos: el feminismo comunitario. ACSUR-Las Segovias, 2010. https://porunavidavivible.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/feminismos-comunitario-lorena-cabnal.pdf
Catrileo Daniela. Piñen (2025)
Cumes, Aura. "Mujeres indígenas, patriarcado y colonialismo: un desafío a la segregación comprensiva de las formas de dominio". Anuario de Hojas de Warmi 17 (2012), pp. 1-16.
Curiel, Ochy y Falconí, Diego. Feminismos decoloniales y transformación social. Barcelona: Icaria, 2021.
Curiel, Ochy. "Construyendo metodologías feministas desde el feminismo decolonial". Otras formas de (re)conocer. Reflexiones, herramientas y aplicaciones desde la investigación feminista (Eds. Irantzu Mendia Azkue et.al. Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2015, pp. 45-60. http://www.ram-wan.net/restrepo/documentos/ochy.pdf)
Lugones, María. "Colonialidad y género". Tabula Rasa 9 (julio-diciembre. 2008), pp. 73-101.
Luiselli, Valeria. Los niños perdidos. Madird: Sexto Piso, 2016
Quijano, Aníbal. "Colonialidad del poder, eurocentrismo y América Latina". Cuestiones y horizontes: de la dependencia histórico-estructural a la colonialidad/descolonialidad del poder. Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 2014, pp. 777-832.
Rivera Garza, Cristina. "Introducción", "Los noriginales: desedimentar un feminicidio".
Escrituras geológicas. Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2022, pp. 9-18, 179-187.
Segato, Rita. La guerra contra las mujeres. Madrid: Traficantes de Sueños, 2016.
Assessment methods and Criteria
The exam consists in a written exam. I request the analysis and commentary of one or more
passages taken from the works in the program. The exam will be held in Spanish. The exam aims to verify:
- knowledge of the texts studied,
- the ability to contextualize geographically, socially and historically the different cultural
phenomena analyzed
- the ability to analyze the textuality and cultural artifacts addressed
- the ability to present
- the precision in the use of specific terminology
- the ability to reflect critically and personally on the proposed themes.
The final grade is expressed in thirtieths, and the student has the right to refuse it (in which case it will be recorded as "withdrawn").
There will be the opportunity to make oral presentations along the way, which will contribute to the final grade.
Warnings:
International or incoming Erasmus students are invited to promptly contact the professor.
The exam methods for students with disabilities and/or DSA must be agreed with the professor, in agreement with the competent Office.
passages taken from the works in the program. The exam will be held in Spanish. The exam aims to verify:
- knowledge of the texts studied,
- the ability to contextualize geographically, socially and historically the different cultural
phenomena analyzed
- the ability to analyze the textuality and cultural artifacts addressed
- the ability to present
- the precision in the use of specific terminology
- the ability to reflect critically and personally on the proposed themes.
The final grade is expressed in thirtieths, and the student has the right to refuse it (in which case it will be recorded as "withdrawn").
There will be the opportunity to make oral presentations along the way, which will contribute to the final grade.
Warnings:
International or incoming Erasmus students are invited to promptly contact the professor.
The exam methods for students with disabilities and/or DSA must be agreed with the professor, in agreement with the competent Office.
L-LIN/06 - LATIN AMERICAN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES - University credits: 6
Lessons: 40 hours
Professor:
Bolognese Chiara
Professor(s)