RLSP 403
Exemplary Monsters: Cannibals, Zombies, Ghosts and Vampires in Latin American Literature Spring 2018
Division I
Cross-listed COMP 405
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

The course will focus on the figure of the monster and the idea of the monstrous in Latin American and Caribbean literatures in its different variants of representation: cannibals, zombies, ghosts and vampires among others. We will focus on literary texts, but also explore Latin American and Caribbean films and visual works centered on the monster. We will analyze the role of these representations, and the role of monsters as symbols of the identity and history in Latin America and the Caribbean. Is there a specifically “Latin American monster”? How do monsters in Latin America function culturally? What would be the differences in the representations of the monstrous in different historical periods? Special emphasis will be placed on the monster’s association with race, gender, and cultural otherness, as well as its role as vehicle for discourses about exoticism, barbarism, colonization, slavery, and dictatorships. We will also take into account the idea of the monster as appropriation of difference and as a vehicle of the unrepresentable (the abject subject, violence). Authors to be studied include Horacio Quiroga, Carlos Fuentes, Jorge L. Borges, Pedro Cabiya among others.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 22
Expected: 12
Class#: 3423
Grading: no pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: active participation in class discussions, an oral presentation, short writing assignments, final research paper
Extra Info: may not be taken on a pass/fail basis; not available for the fifth course option
Prerequisites: any RLSP 200 or 300-level course, or results of the Williams College Placement Exam, or permission of the instructor
Enrollment Preferences: Spanish majors
Distributions: Division I
Notes: This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
COMP 405 Division I RLSP 403 Division I

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