SPAN 4374 - [Oil, Ghosts, and Beauty Queens]

(GB) (LA-AS, ALC-AS)

Spring. Not offered: 2021-2022. Next offered: 2022-2023. 4 credits. Student option grading.

I. Troconis.

Benedict Anderson famously argued that nations are “imagined political communities.” Following Anderson’s claim, this course explores the different mechanisms at play in the act of imagining the nation and the ways in which art defines how a nation imagines itself. We will focus on Venezuela, and on the images that have historically defined its national identity: oil, ghosts, and beauty queens. As we discuss contemporary works of Venezuelan literature, film, and performance, we will ask: How do natural resources shape a nation’s identity? What role does the past play in the coming together and coming apart of revolutions? How do notions of masculinity, femininity, and beauty define political power? And, finally, who gets to participate in the imagining of the nation, and who gets excluded?