Myths Icons, & Fallen Idols: (Re)scripting the Haitian, Mexican, & Cuban Revolutions in Literature

3 units

In this seminar we will study the watershed moments in Caribbean and Latin America history, such as the Haitian, Mexican, Cuban, and Nicaraguan revolutions, through the lens of aesthetically and ideologically complex re-scriptings of these events in works of literature, film, visual arts, and testimonial accounts. We will explore possible correlations between aesthetic revolutions and political upheavals as well as the violent mechanisms behind the (re)fashioning of historical figures into myths, icons, and fallen idols. Furthermore, reflecting on issues of class, ethnicity, gender and national/regional identities will allow us to gain a more nuanced and deeply contextualized understanding of divergent voices emerging from spaces as diverse as Haiti, Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua. The primary corpus will consist of the writings by Mariano Azuela, Nellie Campobello, Elena Poniatowska, Sabina Berman, Alejo Carpentier, Jorge Edwards, Antonio Benítez Rojo, Wendy Guerra, Nancy Morejón, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Heberto Padilla, Julio Cortázar, and Gioconda Belli, among others. The critical, theoretical, and documentary bibliography will include, but will not be limited to, excerpts from writings by Olympe du Gouges, C.L.R. James, Lizbeth Paravisini Gebert, Michel Rolph Trouillot, Hannah Arendt, Michael Taussig, James C. Scott, Enrique Krauze, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Roberto Fernández Retamar, Roberto Zurbano, Rigoberta Menchú, Margaret Randall, and Zygmunt Bauman.