Debating Cultures:Art of Recycling: Remix, Appropriation, & Eco-Narratives in Latin America & Spain

3 units

Some of the most disruptive and controversial artistic and literary works of the 20th and 21st centuries reuse previous materials and known works. These practices of recycling and appropriation have reopened great theoretical and socioeconomic debates: Is it ethical to create a work of art by recycling parts of other works? In these times of remakes and remixes, what gives originality and value to a work of art today? What are the legal limits of appropriation and intellectual property? In our course, we will discuss these questions by analyzing a varied corpus (music, cinema, literature, photography, and other plastic and visual arts) of contemporary works and authors that are recycling the canon and rewriting the current laws of how art and literature work in the Latin American and Spanish context. At the same time, the importance of the aesthetics of recycling coincides with a historical moment in which the ecological crisis is at the center of public debate. For this reason, we will also analyze how Climate and Weird Fiction in Spanish are creating ecological narratives to denounce, among other topics, the extractivism of the planet's resources and propose new sustainable ways of relating to our environment. This course will have an important practical dimension, so students will have the opportunity to experiment with different forms of artistic intervention. The course will be taught entirely in Spanish, with a strong and graded oral communication component. 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.