CROSSING BORDERS: AMERICAS

This course cuts across the borders between North, South and Central America and the Caribbean, in a search for the ways in which literature illuminates different aspects of American identity. We see the Americas as active historical and aesthetic agents, acting and interacting with each other. We might even say that modernity, in the sense of freedom from tradition, first developed in the Americas; as a result, the literatures of the Americas are characterized by diversity and innovation from their beginning. We will devote particular attention to the roots of Modernism in North and South America at the end of the 19th century, and the development of modernism, post-modernism and post-colonialism in the 20th and early 21st centuries through the study of key novels, short stories, and poetry from North and South America and the Caribbean. By looking at these works in their historical, political and aesthetic contexts, we can grapple with the multiple formations of American identities. Though class discussions are in English, students are encouraged, to the greatest extent possible, to read the works in the original language. Latinx students are particularly welcome.