RLSP 215
The Other Caribbean: Identity, Subalternity, and Resistance (19th­21st Centuries)
Last Offered Spring 2017
Division I
This course is not offered in the current catalog

Class Details

The Hispanic Caribbean has been viewed as an exotic place since colonial times. This perception was exploited in the Golden age of Hollywood and has been revived in contemporary times through a neo-exotic lens focused on touristic consumption. In this way, region is reproduced in the imaginary as a place of enjoyment and pleasure. This course critically analyzes this imaginary and focuses on the cultural complexity of the Hispanic Caribbean in order to highlight the traces of traumatic experiences that have marked the region: colonization, slavery, the processes of creolization and transculturation, the political conflicts of the 20th century (Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorship, the Cuban Revolution and the disagreement Cuba/USA, the relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States), emigration and exile. We also explore together the quest for and critique of national and ethnic identities through the analysis of literary works and other artistic expressions (painting, cinema, music) from the 19th century to the present. We will examine the early modern imagining of the uncivilized island savage (emblematized by the figures of Prospero and Caliban), and then we will approach the voice of the slave Francisco Manzano (Autobiografía) and the romantic representations of 19th century antislavery narrative (Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda’s Sab). We will study the mulata myth and the imaginary of the monster (in Cirilo Villaverde’s Cecilia Valdés). The course will also delve into the symbol of the “stain” (“mancha“) in relation to the consolidation of Creole identity (Luis Lloréns’s La mancha de plátano) and the representation of guilt as a negative mark: the complicity of intellectuals with power (Juan Bosch’s “La mancha indeleble”). We will study important Caribbean authors such as Luis Palés Matos, Nicolás Guillén, René Marqués, Rosario Ferré, Luis Rafael Sánchez, Ana Lydia Vega, Reinaldo Arenas, Heberto Padilla, among others. Conducted in Spanish.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 19
Expected: 15
Class#: 4022
Grading: yes pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: evaluation will be based on lively class participation, an oral report, short written assignments, and two papers
Extra Info: not available for the fifth course option
Extra Info 2: conducted in Spanish
Prerequisites: RLSP 105, or placement exam, or Department recommendation
Enrollment Preferences: majors in Spanish, Certificate Students in Spanish, Latino/Latina Studies students
Distributions: Division I
Attributes: LATS Countries of Origin + Transnationalism Elect

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