Greater Mexico: Chicanx/Mexican/Mex-American Literatures and Cultures

Undergraduate / Graduate

This course explores the origins and contemporary resonance of the notion of "Greater Mexico," a term that, in the words of Mexican American folklorist Américo Paredes, encapsulates "all the areas inhabited by people of Mexican culture-not only within the present limits of the Republic of Mexico but in the United States as well." We study essays, novels, poems, films, art works, museum exhibits, and social movements that have shaped the concept of a "greater Mexico" over the course of the last five decades. Course materials and readings by Paredes, Anzaldúa, Robert M. Young, Rubén Ortiz-Torres, the Electronic Disturbance Theater, Jay Lynn Gomez, Salvador Plascencia, and others.