SPLT 050 A-Z - (LT) Contemporary Debates in the Spanish-Speaking WorldSemester Hours: 3
Periodically
This is a special topics course focused on specific issues, themes, genres, or authors in the Spanish-speaking world. Topics vary each time. This course is taught in English.
Current Special Topics
SPLT 050L: (LT) BANNED: Sexuality and Gender in the World of Letters
We may be tempted to think that reading and writing are almost natural skills that one easily acquires and masters, but they are social and cultural practices that have been historically informed by gender and sexuality. In this course we will read English translations of literature originally written in Spanish (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoir, from the 1600s to today), as well as critical texts that investigate the control and regulation of access to the means of literary production. Works include: the remarkable Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World (written in 1592); relevant essays and poems by the Mexican nun, poet, and scholar Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz; stories from the 1900s by Spanish women’s rights activist and novelist Emilia Pardo Bazán. We will put those works in conversation with texts by Virginia Woolf, Luce Irigaray, and more recently, trans philosopher Paul Preciado’s 2020 text, “Can the Monster Speak? Report to an Academy of Psychoanalysts.” We will focus on gender and sexuality as they intersect with identity categories such as “race”, ethnicity, and/or legal status, and will read, among others, works by Cherríe Moraga, Gloria Anzaldúa, and more recently Alan Pelaez Lopez. The course will study texts using narratology (e.g., the use of different narrative devices to create different meanings), as well as looking at the cultural, social, and historical circumstances surrounding the texts and their readership. Materials for this course are all in English, and the class is conducted in English. It carries LT distribution credit and is cross-listed with WST and LGBTQ.
Prerequisite(s)/Course Notes:
May be repeated for credit when topics vary. As individual subjects are offered, each is assigned a letter (A-Z) which is affixed to the course number. Specific titles and course descriptions for special topics courses are available in the online class schedule.
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