Caribbean Discourse, Caribbean Poetry: (Dis)-Identity and Landscape

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Caribbean societies are diverse, multi-ethnic and multi-lingual. They also share a common history of colonization and slavery, neo-colonization, and plantation and tourist economies that are in stark contrast to the stereotypes of sun, sand, etc. This course examines high points in 20th and 21st Century Caribbean discourse (meta-theoretical texts about the Caribbean) and Caribbean poetry from the three major linguistic traditions (Spanish, English and French). We will focus on the poetry itself, the place of land and seascapes in Caribbean discourse, as well as issues of identity, difference and disidentification. We will read theoretical texts by Fernando Ortiz, Antonio Benítez Rojo, Édouard Glissant, Silvio Torres Saillant, and José Esteban Muñoz, and poetry by José Martí, Nicolás Guillén, Aimé Césaire, José Lezama Lima, Virgilio Piñera, Derek Walcott, Rosario Ferré, Julia Álvarez, Juan Carlos Flores, Víctor Fowler, and Damaris Calderón. Class to be conducted in Spanish.