HIS 5115 CANNABILISM IN LATIN AMERICAN WORLD
Anthropophagus - man-eater - was one of the first labels Europeans attached to the native peoples of the Americas. This course will study the historic and symbolic construction of cannibalism in the area today known as Latin America. It will examine: a) the practice of anthropophagy among the indigenous peoples of the area, in the 16th century - its aims, meanings, and changes; b) the construction, in Europe, from the 16th to the 19th centuries, of one of the most powerful symbols of savagery, cannibalism; c) the upside down turn Latin American artists did to the concept in the first half of the 20th century, transforming cannibalism in a new way of representing themselves and their relationship with the world.