Spanish 350QH - Advanced Studies in Concepts and Practices of Power: 'Queering the Horror: Collective Memory, Political Violence, and Dissident Sexualities in Latin American Narratives'

The bloody dictatorships that took place in the Southern Cone and the armed conflicts in Colombia, Guatemala and Peru during the 20th century left behind a legacy of political violence and collective trauma. These states themselves became sadistic death machines, where bodies became territories of punishment and discipline as well as of struggle, resistance, and difference. We will analyze how recent cultural production (film, novel, short stories, and theater) along with theoretical texts imagine and represent those "body struggles" through queer and female bodies, and how they replace the masculine icons of the left-wing militants and the state military terrorists.

Prereq: Two 200-level Spanish courses above SPAN-212.