SPAN 6500 - [Literature of the Conquest]

(crosslisted)
(also LATA 6500)

Fall. 4 credits.

Next offered 2014-2015. Conducted in Spanish. Co-meets with LATA 4500/SPAN 4500.

M. A. Garces.

Examines the cultural and psychological impact of the “Discovery” on the literatures of the Old and the New World. In a voyage that takes us from the Caribbean to the mesetas of Ancient Mexico and the Andean regions of South America, we will explore the formation of various discourses on the New World through a close reading of 16th and 17th century European and Amerindian texts. Particular attention will be paid to the formation of an “American discourse” in the literary subjects who launched a counteroffensive against the political views of the colonizers. Reading selections may be drawn from Columbus, Cabeza de Vaca, Bartolomé de las Casas, Hernán Cortes, Bernal Díaz, Aztec and Maya Testimonies on the Conquest, Michel de Montaigne, Pedero Cieza de Leon, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Guaman Poma, and Alonso de Ercilla among others.