SPAN 4375 - Fictions of the Conquest

(HB) (CA-AS) Satisfies Option 1.

Fall. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Prerequisite: SPAN 2140 or SPAN 2150, or permission of instructor. This course covers the readings of the Colonial Spanish Q exam.

M. A. Garcés.

This course examines the impact of the “Discovery” on the Old and the New Worlds, from the encounters of Columbus with the inhabitants of the Antilles to the Spanish discovery of the great Aztec and Inca civilizations. Particular attention will be paid to the formation of an “American imaginary” in works by European and Amerindian writers from the 15th to the 17th centuries. The second part of the course focuses on the Inca civilization, from early accounts of the conquest to the informed and subversive descriptions offered by Inca Garcilaso and Guaman Poma. Readings may be drawn from Columbus, Las Casas, Cortés, Bernal Díaz, Aztec and Maya Testimonies to the Conquest, Inca Garcilaso and Guaman Poma.