SPAN 4940

Cuba:The Repeating Island

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2015-2016.

As Cuba and the United States move forward toward normalizing diplomatic relations, this course seizes the opportunity to contextualize and analyze Cuba and cubanidad as sites and trajectories of repression and contestation.  Through literature, visual culture, music, and blogs, we interrogate and problematize prevalent dichotomous representations of the island as a space of fragmentation/uniformity, monotony/contingency, and persecution/liberation.  Divided into four sections, this course deconstructs the transition from 'Pseudo' Republic to Revolution (Carpentier, Castro, Che Fernández Retamar), sexual alterity as a mechanism of revolt (Pinera, Sarduy, Arenas), the genre of 'dirty realism' during the so-caled 'Special Period' of the 1990's (Gutiérrez, Ponte), and contemporary dissidence in post-Fidel 'New Cuba' (blogs, performance art, rap and punk music).  Theoretical readings (Benitzer Rojo) accompany primary texts and frame key ideas with respect to political subjectivity, biopolitics, and space.

When Offered Fall.

Distribution Category (LA-AS)
Language Requirement Satisfies Option 1.

Comments Conducted in Spanish.  This is the mandatory senior seminar for Spanish majors.

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