SPAN520A

Golden-Age Literatures and Cultures

The Global Renaissance: Hispanic Cross-Cultural Contacts

Cross-listed with SPAN495B

Las castas. A casta painting showing 16 racial groupings. Anonymous, 18th century, oil on canvas, 148×104 cm, Museo Nacional del Virreinato, Tepotzotlán, México.

The early modern period witnessed an upsurge of innovation in both drama and narrative prose reflecting an increasingly globalized world —the development of international trade, the printing press, colonial expansion, and periods of both conflict and cooperation. By reading plays and novellas that stage crossings between multicultural Spaniards, Europeans of diverse religions, Ottomans in the Mediterranean world, enslaved peoples of Africa and the Americas, and indigenous peoples, the course will investigate how and why these popular forms of entertainment became a significant space for the representation of cross-cultural encounters and the contestation of fixed categories.

Some of the questions the course will explore include: How are cross-cultural encounters represented artistically, linguistically and visually in Spanish literature and art? How do they contest fixed identity categories of self and ‘other’ in the Mediterranean, Transatlantic and Transpacific contexts? How do they build connections across shores? How and why do these representations participate in the production and re-envisioning of world views? How and why did these encounters transform the subjects portrayed and the genres that brought them to life?

In keeping with the theme of crossings, the readings will include several creative intersections between different genres, historical texts with which they were in dialogue, and visual materials. Readings will include texts by Lope de Vega, Cervantes, Sor Juana, Zayas, and others.

Language of instruction: Spanish

Instructor: Dr. Elizabeth Lagresa-González

Recommended prerequisites: SPAN_V 221; and SPAN_V 301 or equivalent expertise in written and spoken Spanish.