Patagonia: Culture

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Full title: Patagonia: Culture at the End of the World In this course, “Patagonia: Culture at the End of the World,” we will study the history of the region comprising southern Argentina and Chile as well as the Mapuche Indigenous territory known as Wallmapu. Our readings will range from Charles Darwin’s Journal of the Beagle Expedition to the scientific work of nineteenth-century explorers and naturalists, short stories about the Selk’nam Indigenous (canoeing) peoples, and films about the Indigenous genocide on both sides of the Andes. Throughout the semester, we will ask how and why this region, often called “the southernmost tip of the world,” occupies a central part in the history of life on Earth. We will study Patagonia as the site of prehistoric extinctions, the home of escaped Nazi criminals, and the space of European exploration and Indigenous resistance. We will follow characters and historical figures such as British naturalists, Galician anarchists, Romanian gold miners, Russian revolutionaries, Scottish Indian hunters, and Indigenous storytellers who store the memory of disappearing languages and natures.