AsianAfrican Lit in Spanish

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

What map of the Spanish-speaking world do you have in your mind? Whatever it is, it probably does not include Asia and Africa. The widely held premise that cultures of the Spanish-speaking world exist only in Europe and the Americas will be revealed to be entirely wrong in this course, which will focus instead on artistic traditions in Spanish from the Philippines and Taiwan in Asia, Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara in Africa, and elsewhere in both continents and around the planet. Key theoretical issues of colonialism, national identity, and translation will be discussed along the way. The timeframe will mostly be from the late 19th century through today, though the earliest narratives will date from the failed Spanish conquest of Taiwan in the early 17th century. Texts to be analyzed will include fiction, poetry, alleged non-fiction, films, songs, a graphic novel, and the only known Asian science fiction novel in Spanish. Texts in Chabacano (a Filipino language partly derived from Spanish) and Catalan will also come up for discussion. The course will offer, in short, an ongoing discussion of how cultural production in Spanish is a global rather than binary (i.e., Spain/Latin America) phenomenon. During the course, students may conduct independent research at the Library of Congress to seek out unknown Asian or African literature in Spanish and analyze it. The term paper will include the option of focusing on Asian or African literature in Portuguese. The course is open to both undergraduates and graduate students. It will be taught entirely in Spanish and as a seminar in which vibrant class participation is a must. Please note that due to the market unavailability of most texts, nearly all readings will be in the form of pdfs.