date

topic

reading assigment

discussion leaders

T Jan 7

Introduction to course

Th

Jan 9

The Pre-Columbian world and the conquest of Mexico

Elena Garro, "It's the fault of the Tlaxcaltecas" (x); handouts on the Conquest (x)

T

Jan 14

Violence and trauma: the Conquest revisited

Villareal, Doctor Magdalena to end; Tal, Worlds of Hurt (R)

Th

Jan 16

Founding myths: the US and the rest of the hemisphere

Melville, Benito Cereno to at least p. 200; O'Gorman, The Invention of America (R)

T

Jan 21

US exceptionalism and the divisions of slavery

Melville, Benito Cereno to end (p. 258); Sundquist, "New World Slavery" (R)

Wednesday, Jan. 22: first paper due by noon

Th

Jan 23

Recollection, mourning, and gender

FILM SCREENING: "Daughters of the Dust" (Julie Dash, 1992)

T

Jan 28

The imperial age in the Caribbean

Ferré, House on the Lagoon, over halfway; Martí, "The Truth about the United States" (R)

Th

Jan 30

Autonomy and independence in Puerto Rico

Ferré, House on the Lagoon to end; Martí, "Our America" (R)

T

Feb 4

Burying the Southern past

Faulkner, Abasalom, Absalom! to end of chap. 4 (p. 106)

Th

Feb 6

Race and (as) repression

Faulkner to end of chap. 6 (p. 175); Morrison, "Unspeakable Things Unspoken" (R)

Monday, Feb. 10: second paper due by 5 p.m.

T

Feb 11

Faulkner to end of chap. 7 (p. 234); Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History" (R)

Th

Feb 13

Faulkner to end (p. 303)

Monday, Feb. 17: reading log from Faulkner due by noon

T

Feb 18

Inventing "magical realism" in Colombia

García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude to  p.153; Carpentier, "The Baroque and the Marvelous Real" (R)

Th

Feb 20

García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude to p. 262

T

Feb 25

Banana republics, real and imagined

García Márquez to p. 358; Quijano, "Americanity as Concept"

Th

Feb 27

García Márquez to end; Zamora, "Apocalypse and Human Time"

Monday, March 3: reading log from Faulkner due by noon

T

Mar 4

The Columbus quincentenary and indigenous insurrection

Silko, Almanac of the Dead to p.253; Limerick, "The Legacy of Conquest" (R)

Th

Mar 6

Silko, Almanac to p. 431

T

Mar 11

The Apocalypse of the Past

Silko, Almanac to p 627; White, "Fictions of Factual Representation" (R)

Th

Mar 13

Ends--and beginnings

Silko, Almanac to end; do course evaluations

Monday, March 17: reading log from Silko due by noon