Twentieth Century Spanish-American Social Thought

 

Spanish 490—Selected topics in Spanish-American Literature of the Twentieth Century

Twentieth Century Spanish-American Social Thought

In this course we will explore: a) the notion of literature as hidden social theory and b) the correspondences among different “worlds of life,” as a way of understanding a historical and literary sensitivity that traces meanings linking theoretical and everyday thoughts.

We will develop our topic as a socio-historical dimension and as a literary dimension. This course will find its way where thoughts governed by fiction meet thoughts guided by historical activity in certain “written thoughts”. We will have a dialogue with this documents regarding their internal and conceptual trajectories, their social thoughts and their historical images. These three directions will help us to understand what it means to read a document and to create a theoretical, critical, historical, utopian and literary experience of reading, agitating social documents through a fictional look.

Major texts:

José E. Rodó, Ariel

Octavio Paz, El laberinto de la soledad

José C. Mariátegui, Ocho ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana

Ezequiel Martínez Estrada, Radiografía de la Pampa

José Vasconcelos, La raza cósmica