Debating Cultures: Youth and Counterculture in South America

3 units

This course will explore South American cultures from their most provocative and insurgent expressions, lifestyles, and identities. Focusing on the Andes (Peru, Colombia, and Bolivia) and the South Cone (Chile, Argentina and Uruguay) regions, we will study a conjunction of cultural producers that used their rebellious nature as part of their art. How did they represent the youth of their societies? How did they respond to the status quo? How have they used the flows of globalization, media, and revolution? By exploring literature, music, cinema, and performance, we will discuss the sociopolitical impact of these works, which includes poetry performances to punk albums. In addition, we will emphasize the role of the youth as producers and consumers, as opposed to the politics of adults and institutions. By covering the long sixties to the present, this course will discuss the transformation of these movements and subcultures and how they impacted the sociocultural processes of their regions, both nationally and transnationally. Prior or concurrent enrollment in Spanish 303 is required. Students who have taken more than two Spanish culture or literature classes are not allowed in this course and must proceed to a Researching Cultures class.