SPAN550B

SPAN550B

Porn Lit: Critical Approaches to Erotic Literature in Latin America and Spain

How do we approach a literary work that basks in an excess of erotic, even perverse, imagery? How do we think critically about bestiality, pedophilia, or chronicles of sexual escapades that, in a non‐academic setting, may be deemed gratuitous or obscene? What makes certain erotic texts literary? How do we tell the difference between a work that includes sex from one that may be analyzed as erotic (“sex text,” “porn lit,” or “porno‐erotic”)? In this course, we will inquire into these and similar questions in relation to contemporary (1980 to the present) Latin American and Spanish erotic narrative and film. Our course considers the ways in which eroticism and sexuality have been deployed in literature as a means of questioning social norms and challenging structures of power. We will attend to how authors, often from marginalized groups, have used the erotic in literature in order to destabilize systems of oppression (e.g., authoritarian rule, heteronormativity, patriarchy) and to disorder value systems and social hierarchies. Conversely, we will take seriously scholarly, juridical (obscenity laws), and public discourses that question the potential risks of hypersexualized literary representation and advocate for censorship of erotic materials.

Discussion of primary works will be informed by critical readings from philosophy, psychoanalysis, literary theory, and film studies. As the semester progresses, we will acquire a critical vocabulary (e.g., erotica, porn lit, taboo, abjection, fetish, sadism, dirty realism) for analyzing and discussing eroticism in literature and film.

CONTENT NOTE: This course will necessarily touch on sensitive, mature, and charged material, including scenes of sexual violence. You may find some readings and other content offensive or difficult.

Required Readings/Films (subject to change):
FILM: Albert Serra, Liberté (2019)
FILM: Ángel Manuel Soto, La granja (2015)
FILM: Lucrecia Martel, La niña santa (2004)
Fernanda Melchor, Temporada de huracanes (2017)
Mónica Ojeda, Nefando (2016)
Pedro Juan Gutierrez, Estoico y frugal (2019)
Gabriela Wiener, Sexografías (2008)
Horacio Castellanos Moya, Baile con serpientes (1996)
Mujeres de mucha monta(1992)
Almudena Grandes, Las edades de Lulú (1989)
Mempo Giardinelli, Luna caliente (1981)

Required Critical Readings (subject to change):
Sigmund Freud, “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality” (1905)
Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization (1955, selections)
Georges Bataille, Erotism: Death and Sensuality (1957, selections)
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality (1976, selections)
Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1980, selections)
Leo Bersani, “Representation and its Discontents” (1981)
Audre Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” Sister Outsider (1984)
Linda Williams, “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess” (1991)
Judith Butler, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (1993, selections)
bell hooks, “Eros, Eroticism, and the Pedagogical Process” (1994)
Josefina Ludmer, El cuerpo del delito (1999, selections)
José Quiroga, Tropics of Desire: Interventions from Queer Latino América (2000, selections)
Janine Rogers, “Sex and Text” (2003)
Nicholas Zurbrugg, “‘A century of hyper‐violence’ Paul Virilio: An interview” (2006)
Feona Attwood and Clarissa Smith, “Porn Studies: An Introduction” (2014)

Suggested Critical Readings:
Doris Sommer, “Love and Country in Latin América: An Allegorical Speculaon” (1990)
Ilan Stavans, “The Latin Phallus” (1995)
Vern L. Bullough, “Sex in History: A Redux” (1996)
Deborah Shaw, Erotic or political: Literary representations of Mexican Lesbians (1996)
Juan Carlos Ubilluz, Sacred Eroticism: Georges Bataille and Pierre Klossowski in the Latin American Erotic Novel (2006)
Various works by Zeb Tortorici

Suggested Primary Readings/Films:
Georges Bataille, Story of the Eye (1928)
Peter Weiss, Marat/Sade (1963)
Osvaldo Lamborghini, El fiord (1969)
Luis Buñuel, Belle de jour (1967)

Language of instruction: Spanish

Professor: Tamara Mitchell

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The Afrikaner

A hijacking in deeper Johannesburg goes horribly wrong. Zoe du Plessis, a paleontologist of Afrikaner origin, is suddenly confronted with her family’s secret, seemingly wrapped in an old Xhosa’s spell. As she heads for the Kalahari Desert in search of early human fossils, Zoe embarks on an inner journey into the unredeemable sense of guilt haunting her white tribe. She reluctantly seeks salvation in the love of a man scarred by South Africa’s darker past.

Arianna Dagnino. The Afrikaner. Guernica Editions: Oakville, 2019.
ISBN-13: 978-1771833578

Oikosophia: Quaderni di Studi Indo-Mediterranei

Why «Oikosophia», and what does this new and yet archaic word mean? Sophia in Greek means Wisdom, a knowing, or intelligence, which once used to be called “of the heart”: that is to say, an inherently relational, inborn way of being in unison with the totality of the living world, rather than the analytical approach of a discriminating intelligence that reifies. Oikos in Greek is the communal home, and this word has generated the prefix of both «eco-logy» and «eco-nomy».

This collection of essays argues that, in order to regain a meaningful connection to our “communal home”, just “caring for the environment” is simply not enough: rather, we need to recover the vision and inner presence that allows us to feel, and to inwardly know, how radically we belong to this home of ours. The wisdom necessary to achieve such a sense of interbeing —our only true being, in fact — is now urgently calling upon us, yet it comes from afar. From ancient Egypt to the Hermetic, Pythagorean, Presocratic, mysteric, Neoplatonic wisdom traditions, the vestiges of this knowing are traceable all along the history of the Indo-mediterranean world.

During the first half of the twentieth century people such as G.R.S. Mead, C. G. Jung, R. Schwaller de Lubicz, and H. Corbin clearly saw, and proclaimed, that without a reclaiming of the Intelligence of the Heart there is no future for humanity, nor for our communal home. They therefore promoted the need for an epistemological shift in our perception of reality. Today, indigenous traditions weave this same ancestral message into the ecological discourse, with the same goal of endowing environmentalism with its necessary wisdom-based foundations; hence, their voice too has been included in these pages. In the words of David Abram, one of the most distinguished contributors to the present volume: «We are fully human only in contact, and conviviality, with what is not human», that is to say with the more-than-human living world. Today more than ever we and that world depend, for our survival, on the choices we are about to make. Now.

Boccassini, Daniela. Oikosophia: dall’intelligenza del cuore all’ecofilosofia = from the Intelligence of the Heart to Ecophilosophy. Mimesis, 2018.

ISBN:978-885-755-087-9

FREN520

Écrire l’utopie en France (18e-19e siècles)

Instructor: Joël Castonguay-Bélanger
Language of instruction: French

Construction imaginaire d’une alternative face aux limites et aux vices du présent, description d’un espace idéal qui se serait développé dans les marges de l’histoire, l’utopie participe à la fois de la quête d’un monde meilleur et de la critique de l’ordre existant. Parce qu’elle se présente comme l’expression d’une réalité affranchie de la vérité historique, parce que ses auteurs la situent le plus généralement quelque part entre ailleurs et nulle part, l’utopie se retrouve souvent rangée sur le même rayon que celui des œuvres d’imagination. Depuis le début du XVIe siècle, moment où Thomas More forge le mot, son écriture emprunte les artifices de la fiction. Elle donnera lieu à une riche tradition littéraire qui se déclinera sous différentes formes : récit de voyage fantaisiste, traité politique, législation imaginaire, roman d’anticipation, etc. Si le discours utopique se donne à lire comme la projection d’un imaginaire politique et social enviable, mais le plus souvent irréalisable, celui-ci reste toutefois toujours en prise avec le réel qu’il entend réformer. Nous interroger sur ce statut ambigu de l’imaginaire utopique, tel qu’il se donne à lire sous la plume de quelques auteurs des 18e et 19e siècles, est l’objectif de ce séminaire.

Une sélection de textes et d’extraits de:
Montesquieu
Étienne-Gabriel Morelly
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Denis Diderot
Condorcet
Louis Sébastien Mercier
Saint-Simon
Charles Fourier
Étienne Cabet

Note: FREN 520 may be taken twice, with different content, for a maximum of 6 credits.

Crónica de la minería de oro en Colombia: de la montaña al texto

This article evaluates the mining literary history of the mining town of Marmato, Colombia. Starting from novels like Tierra virgen (1897) by Eduardo Zuleta, La bruja de las minas (1938) by Gregorio Sánchez, I trace a line that follows the evolution of mining literature in Colombia, tracing its historical and cultural specificities. I introduce the term “Tropical Mining” to categorize some of these particularities. I conclude with a discussion on the documentary Marmato (2014) that represents the end of the discourse of tropical mining as such and takes a turn towards more complex representational discourses revealing a series of social actors that fight for power and recognition using other means and techniques.

Este artículo evalúa la historia literaria minera del pueblo minero de Marmato, Colombia. Partiendo de novelas como Tierra virgen (1897) de Eduardo Zuleta, La bruja de las minas (1938) de Gregorio Sánchez, trazo una línea que sigue la evolución de la literatura minera en Colombia rastreando sus especificidades históricas y culturales. Introduzco el término “Minería Tropical” para categorizar algunas de estas particularidades. Concluyo con una discusión sobre el documental Marmato (2014) que representa el fin del discurso de la minería tropical como tal y toma un giro hacia discursos representacionales más complejos revelando una serie de actores sociales que luchan por poder y reconocimiento usando otros medios y técnicas.

Juan Felipe Hernández Gómez. “Crónica de la minería de oro en Colombia: de la montaña al texto.” Revista de Estudios Colombianos, Vol. 51 (2018).

Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana: Asia en América Latina

This special issue of the Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana, co-edited by Kim Beauchesne, Koichi Hagimoto, and Ineke Phaf-Rheinberger, provides a wide array of perspectives on the varied representations of Asia in Latin American literature and culture from the colonial times until today, with an emphasis on the multifaceted connections between both regions.

Its relevance lies in a broad approach that not only covers different time periods but also distinct geographical zones, from the Caribbean to Brazil. Such a scope allows for the detailed examination of a variety of issues, such as the construction of Nikkei identities and the role of Chinese immigrants in Panamanian culture, as well as genres (travel literature, poetry, and photography, among others).

Within this striking diversity, the notion that implicitly brings together the selected essays is that of “connected histories” coined by Sanjay Subrahmanyam (1997) and developed by Serge Gruzinski (2004; 2012) in order to reconsider transnational links that have been concealed by academic compartmentalization.

 

La RCLL es una publicación semestral arbitrada (“peer reviewed”), cuyo objetivo es poner en circulación los estudios recientes y los debates centrados en el conocimiento y entendimiento de la literatura y la cultura latinoamericanas en sus contextos histórico y social. Incluye textos en español y portugués.

La RCLL se publica en Tufts University con licencia especial de Latinoamericana Editores (Lima-Berkeley) sello editorial del Centro de Estudios Literarios Antonio Cornejo Polar (CELACP), bajo los auspicios del Department of Romance Languages de Tufts University y la colaboración del Dean of Arts & Sciences.

El número 87 de la Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana, con un dossier sobre “Asia en América Latina” preparado por Kim Beauchesne, Koichi Hagimoto e Ineke Phaf-Rheinberger, ya se encuentra circulando. El número 86, con un dossier sobre “Crónicas mestizas”, aún sigue disponible.

 

Kim Beauchesne, Koichi Hagimoto and Ineke Phaf-Rheinberger. “Asia in Latin America”. Revisita de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana. Año XLIV. No. 87, Lima-Perú / Boston: Centro de Estudios Literarios Antonio Cornejo Polar, 2018.

ISSN: 02528843

Tiempo del Sur

“Tiempo del Sur tells the story of a family through the voices of four women: Manuela, Titi, Elena and Elisa. Each of them, from their point of view, reveals the events that over the years have marked their path in several countries -Colombia, the United States and Canada- and the particular effect that those events have had in their lives and in their personalities. The novel creates a vivid and harmonious mosaic of female voices that is able to show both the character and feelings of the four protagonists and how they interconnect in family relationships. Through the four protagonists the reader can explore different ways of facing experiences such as illegal immigration, homosexuality, death and love.”

– Sandra Barrriales Bouche, McGill University

María Adelaida Escobar-Trujillo. Tiempo del Sur. Universidad EAFIT: Medellín, 2018.
ISBN: 978-958-720-517-6

ITST333

In Search of “Italianness” through Novellas (in English)

Like a feature film, the “novella” (longer than a short story but shorter than a novel) can be enjoyed in just one sitting.  Hence, the never-ending interest for a literary genre that dates back to Boccaccio and the Italian Renaissance. Thanks to its brevity, concrete symbolism and focus on character exploration, the novella is ideal for examining the cultural traits underpinning the notion of Italianness.

Taught in English, the course is intended as a journey into the hearts and minds of Italians through the reading of seven masterpieces of the novella. Taken and studied together, these works show how, when and where Italians are at their best, worst, and most authentic. As such, at the end of the course students will be better equipped to interpret contemporary Italy and the multifarious, highly fragmented, and viscerally regional character of its citizens.

Students will analyze Italian novellas through in-class discussions and take-home assignments. In order to stimulate classroom discussion and provide useful insight into the wide variety of Italy’s socio-cultural specificities, the texts will be supplemented with selected background information including scholarly criticism, visual media, and media reception. The course is highly interactive.

The course is taught in English by Dr. Arianna Dagnino, a creative writer and literary translator who worked for twenty years as an international reporter before re-entering academia. Feel free to email her to know more about the course.

Students from any discipline are welcome!

Language of instruction: English

Required readings
Erri de Luca, Three Horses, Other Press, New York, 2005.

Other readings will be provided by the instructor.

FREN280

Québec’s Quiet Revolution: Cultural and Political Legacies

Often used to describe the period of political and social change that took place in the province of Québec during the 1960s and the 1970s, the expression “Quiet Revolution” has become a category of mythological proportions in the Canadian collective memory. This historical period is understood as a moment of liberation during which Québec society supposedly entered modernity, leaving behind the traditional domination of the Catholic Church and la grande noirceur (the great darkness) of the conservative government of Maurice Duplessis. The persistence of this compelling – but also simplistic – narrative, which like any revolution suggests a distinction between a Before and an After, speaks as much about the period itself as the way Québec society thinks of itself today.

This course focuses on the political and cultural dimensions of the Quiet Revolution, and its perceived legacy 50 years later. We will give particular attention to the heated debates that came along with the adoption of new measures to strengthen French language and culture in the public space, and we will follow the rise of the nationalist movements that culminated in the referendums of 1980 and 1995. Through the study of music, art, works of fiction, films and documentaries, students will develop a better understanding of the transformations that paved the way to the emergence of a new Québécois identity.

Required Texts
Michel Tremblay, Les Belles Soeurs, translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco.
Michel Tremblay, Yours Forever, Marie-Lou, translated by Linda Gaboriau.
Lise Tremblay, Judith’s Sister, translated by Linda Gaboriau.

Films and Documentaries
Pierre Perrault, Pour la suite du monde (1963)
Gilles Groulx, The Cat in the Bag (1964)
Jean-Claude Labrecque, La visite du général de Gaulle au Québec (1967)
Robin Spry, Action: The October Crisis of 1970 (1973)
Robin Spry, Reaction: A Portrait of a Society in Crisis (1973)
Michel Brault, Orders (1974)
Denys Arcand, Comfort and Indifference (1982)
Jackie Corkery, Breaking Point (2005)

Prerequisite: None

Language of instruction: English

Course Registration

FREN380

What is Frenchness?

“Boy, those French, they have a different word for everything!”
                                                                            Steve Martin

From baguettes and red wine to the Eiffel Tower, we all carry around an idea of what defines « Frenchness ». In this course, we will explore the idea of Frenchness from the point of view of three key concepts that have formally shaped French national identity since the French Revolution: « universalism, » « laïcité » [secularism], and « patrimoine » [cultural heritage]. As contemporary France has evolved, socially and demographically, these three concepts have been subject to increasing pressures. We will explore the history of these concepts, as well as their evolution up to the present day in a series of readings that span two centuries. We will consider how these core concepts continue to inform the political and cultural dynamics of France as it grapples with its colonial past, its postcolonial present and its place in a changing Europe.

This course is primarily for upper-level students.

Texts:
Coursepack (available from instructor) plus texts tba

Prerequisite: Second-year standing

Note:
Not available for credit toward a Minor, Major or Honours program in French.

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