MALS 303 Latin America and the Caribbean: Race, Discourse and the Origin of the Americas

The Martinican writer Edouard Glissant asserts that the West is not in the west, rather the West is a project.  Starting with a consideration of Columbus's "Letter to Santangel" and the reporter Caminha's letter from the Brazilian coast to the Portuguese King Manuel, through the European Enlightenment, the concept of Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine, one aim of this course is to delineate the vision, project and worldview at the origins of social, political and race discourse and tensions in the Americas today.

From Christopher Columbus' journey accounts to Aime Cesaire's "Discourse on Colonialism", from early indigenous accounts of the Conquest to 1994 Guatemalan Nobel Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu's testimony on modern colonization writings have justified or condemned the colonization of the Americas.  The course will focus on the Caribbean and Latin America and the challenges that beset attempts at definitions of these dynamic socio-politico economic cultural realities.  Our primary activity will be a close reading of representative letters, testimonies, novels, histories, poetry, films and essays from and about the Caribbean and Latin America.

Instructor

Raul Bueno; Keith Walker