SPAN6643 · Romance Languages and Literatures

Historiography, Memory, and Autobiography in Colonial Latin American Texts

Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences

The European encounter with the New World brought about violent conflict and posed intellectual and material challenges perhaps unprecedented in Western civilization. In this course we will undertake a close study of the fascinating and extraordinarily rich works at the origins of the Latin American literary tradition, exploring literary themes such as discovery and shipwreck, possession and loss, and the ways in which authors use them to inscribe themselves as narrators. We will review the range of medieval and renaissance discursive practices at play in the texts and the ways that authors employ and subvert them, as well as critical debates and approaches of our times.