War, Revolution and the Cult of the Hero in Latin American Culture

This course will tackle the literary underpinning of war and revolution in order to scrutinize its powers. The discourse on war does not originate ex nihilo but recycles and appropriates narratives of the nation, the State or a given region depending on the specificities of each given war. Starting with Bolivar's "Decreto de Guerra a Muerte", passing through literary renditions of civil wars, continuing with guerrilla warfare texts, all the way to narratives on the War on Drugs, this course will question the ways in which war and revolution are made through language and staged in literature. Taught in Spanish.