Spanish 226 - Caribbean As Idea

Caribbean, Antilles, West Indies.  Each of these terms carries ideological and cultural meanings that reach far beyond the geographical area they designate.  In this course we will examine how writers and artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have used them, explicitly or implicitly, to invent very different imaginaries of the region and its place in the world.  Most of the texts we will discuss will be from the Hispanic Caribbean (specifically Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Colombia), but we will also discuss texts from Antigua, Martinique, Jamaica, and the United States.  Throughout the course, we will be attentive to how representations of race, gender, and sexuality inform evolving national and pan-Caribbean identities in the context of past and ongoing colonialisms.  The course is conducted in Spanish.

Requisite: SPAN 199 or 211 or consent of the instructor.  Spring semester.  Professor Schroeder Rodríguez.