54
Hispanic American Language and Literature
UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI "L'ORIENTALE"
Overview
Date/time interval
Syllabus
Course Objectives
First and foremost, the course aims to provide the tools for studying the literary production, forms and styles of the origins of Spanish-language literature produced on the American continent at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. From this premise, the main objective of the course is to reflect on the concepts of modernity and the national cultural project; on the inclusion (or especially the exclusion) of multiculturalism and interculturalism from the configuration of the homeland; and on the concepts of colony, colonization, coloniality and domination. The intention of the course is thus to assess the cultural, literary processes aimed at aesthetically organizing the formation of the modern state in the Hispano-American subcontinent and to evaluate how this cultural experience determines the more comprehensive view of cultural complexity.
Part of the course is also aimed at proposing and possibly consolidating technical, structural and formal knowledge in the narratological composition of the literary text so as to deepen the ability to write and translate specialized texts.
Autonomy of Judgment:
Upon completion of the course, the student(s) will be expected to demonstrate knowledge of the major phases and trends at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries in Hispano-Americanism, the fundamental problems of the concepts of interculturality, and the challenges they/we face in defining a post-colonial, non-subalternative identity.
Communication Skills:
The student should demonstrate that he/she possesses the linguistic tools to make critical judgments about texts from the “liberal period” at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and the context of their elaboration. In the second year, he/she should be able to expound in Spanish a critical text studied in another language (Italian, English. etc.).
Learning skills:
The student should demonstrate autonomy in learning and applying the literary structures covered in the course and, in the second year of Hispano-American literatures, should be able to use the tools of analysis in the current use of the Spanish language.
Course Prerequisites
It is helpful if male and female students possess intermediate language skills and abilities for the first year of Hispanic American literatures (B1 of CEFR or CEFR) and upper intermediate for the second year of the course (B2 of CEFR or CEFR) and have prior knowledge of medieval Spanish literature. In addition, it is highly recommended to enroll in the “Introduction to Latin America” seminars organized by the Center for Latin American Studies (CeSAL), which are valid as Other Educational Activities (AAF) and are intended to provide the basic knowledge for studies related to Latin America.
Teaching Methods
Teaching involves face-to-face lectures with a communicative approach structured to achieve the learning objectives for each block of the course. The blocks end with a lesson organized according to the flipped classroom method in which the students, organized in small working groups (max. 4 people) propose the analysis of the literary text central to that particular block. The work, elaborated on a power point presentation, aims to put the learned content and developed communication skills in dialogue with the teacher's knowledge, so as to recapitulate through two perspectives in dialogue (the student's and the teacher's) the specific content.
Assessment Methods
Students who participate in the prearranged presentations according to the procedures summarized under “Teaching Methods” have an initial testing time there.
The examination consists of an oral interview on the monographic topics and the textbook part.
Language in which the examination is conducted: Italian and/or Spanish
a) for students taking the first year of Spanish-American literatures, the exam will be held in Italian with only one question in Spanish;
b) for students who are to take the second year of Spanish-American literatures, they will have to expose the content entirely in Spanish;
c) on the other hand, for those who have only one exam in Spanish-American literatures, this will be as in point a) for those who have placed the exam in the 2nd year of their curriculum and as in point b) for those who have placed the exam in the 3rd year of their curriculum.
Evaluation Criteria: First, the completeness of information and on the use of correct terminology in the exposition of narrative theories applied to literary genres will be considered for evaluation. Second, the ability to place narrative discourse in the broader context of debate and development of Hispanic American culture will be assessed. The assessment of language skills is implicit in the ability to develop a cohesive and coherent oral text complete with the necessary information in the appropriate terminology.
Texts
Manuale: José Miguel Oviedo, Historia de la literatura hispanoamericana, Alianza, Madrid 2005 (estratti dai voll. 3, 4).
Dispensa di testi critici:
Ericka Beckman, “Sujetos Insolventes. José Asunción Silva y la economía transatlántica del lujo” (Revista Iberoamericana, LXXV: 228, 2009);
Marta Casaús Arzú, Las redes intelectuales centroamericanas (F&G, 2005);
Antonio Cornejo Polar, “Introducción”, in Clorinda Matto de Turner, Aves sin nido (Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1994);
Claude Fell, “Il romanzo della rivoluzione messicana”, (UTET, 2000);
Juan Liscano, “Prólogo”, in R. Gallegos, Doña Bárbara (Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1977)
Alejandro Lenoël, “Introducción”, in M.A. Asturias, Leyendas de Guatemala (Cátedra, 1995).
José Martí, Nuestra América (Clacso, 2010);
Iván Molina Jiménez, La estela de la pluma: cultura impresa e intelectuales en Centroamérica durante los siglos XIX y XX, (Euna, 2004) cap. 6, pp. 195-238;
Graciela Nélida Salto, “Otro Calíban. Horacio Kalibang o los autómatas” (Casa de las Américas, 209, 1997);
José Edmundo Paz Soldán, Pueblo enfermo (Plural, 2003);
Ángel Rama, “Introducción”, in Rubén Darío, Poesía, (Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1985);
There are no bibliographic changes for non-attenders.
This is the bibliography with reference texts. Detailed information will be uploaded at the beginning of the course on Unifind under “Useful Resources” and on the course's Microsoft Teams group.
Contents
Course Title: Latin America Facing Modernity
1. Introduction: Post-colonial issues in Latin America and the configuration of the modern state (4 hours);
2. The first half of the 19th century, romanticism and the exclusion of otherness: the concept of Civilización y barbarie (4 hours);
3. Political stability and the insertion of Latin America in the global (western) market: Modernism (6 hours);
4. Dystopias from modernity: science fiction and the critique of technocracy (4 hours);
5. The beginnings of indigenist literature: Clorinda Matto de Turner (4 hours);
6. The indigenous in the literature of the nation: Alcides Arguedas (6 hours);
7. The literature of production and capital: El tungsteno by César Vallejo, La vorágine by José Eustasio Rivera, Bananos by Emilio Quintana, Mamita Yunay by Carlos Luis Fallas (8 hours);
8. Women in the system of land ownership: Doña Bárbara by Rómulo Gallegos (4 hours);
9.Land ownership and the Mexican Revolution: Los de abajo to El llano en llamas and Pedro Páramo (4 hours);
10. Central American and indigenous culture: the case of Miguel Ángel Asturias (4 hours).
Course Language
Spanish