SPA 368 Modernity in Mexican Literature
Mexican intellectuals turned their gazes away from Europe during the 20th century to interrogate their unique indigenous, colonial, and revolutionary past in an existential effort to discover who they were—literally writing their history and present through literature. The result was a collectively produced collage of ideas about race, gender, and psychic trauma that continues to be foundational well into the 21st century even as economic crises, globalization, and migration threaten to disrupt all attempts to articulate a cohesive “Mexicanness.” Students will read a selection of Mexican novels, short stories, plays, and poetry written in Spanish by mestizo, indigenous, and Euro- and Afro-descended authors (male and female). Students will also watch at least two Mexican films.