Paper SP5: Topics in Latin American Culture
  Sample Supervision Schedule - updated 07-octubre-2003

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Still from the film Íntimo terror for the Nightmares of the Urban Topic

This paper has a Learning Resources Website. It is taught by Erica Segre, Joanna Page, Steven Boldy, and Geoffrey Kantaris. The supervision schedule below is a sample only and was prepared by Geoffrey Kantaris.

A description of this Paper is available in the Handbook. This schedule has been revised to take into account the reduction in supervision load for all Spanish papers from 10 per paper to 8. Please note that it may be decided to adopt a different structure from the one below, involving use of some seminars, or students may prefer to have four supervisions in each of Michaelmas and Lent, and then only seminars in the Easter Term (no supervisions).

Important Note: This paper requires you to work in a comparative manner on the texts studied, understanding them in terms of their place within broad intellectual (and/or historical) currents within Latin America. Your essays in supervisions should for the most part be comparative and take into account at least two texts, as will be the case in examination. This will not prevent you from carrying out close analyses of texts, so long as they are with regard to the question being asked. There are no 'prescribed texts' for this paper, but instead a list of suggested reading. You are advised to cover a good proportion of the texts suggested, as these will be at the core of the teaching provided for the topics. However, you are also free to explore around the topics and discover texts which might suggest new approaches within the overall topics you are studying. You should study four topics to be adequately prepared for the examination (where you will have to answer on three). Each topic will have four questions on the examination paper, but remember that one or even two of these may be more specifically directed at historical issues. None of the either/or options below are meant to dictate a particular set of topics -- this is only a sample, and students are free to choose the topics they enjoy most.
 
 
First Term
  1. Nation and Narration (1): Esteban Echeverría, El matadero (1841), and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Facundo: civilización y barbarie (1845).
  2. Either: Labyrinths of Fiction (1): Jorge Luis Borges, Ficciones (1944) and Gabriel García Márquez, Crónica de una muerte anunciada (1981)
    Or: Charting Revolution (1): Juan Rulfo, El llano en llamas (1953), and as much as you can read of Mariano Azuela, Los de abajo (1915).
  3. Either: The Racial Other (1): Rosario Castellanos, Balún Canán (1957)
    Or:     Nightmares of the Urban (1): Eliseo Subiela, Últimas imágenes del naufragio (film, 1989) and Walter Doehner Pecanins, Íntimo terror (film, 1990).
 
Second Term
  1. Penning the Dictator (1): Marta Traba, Conversación al sur (1981) and Luisa Valenzuela, Cambio de armas (1982).
  2. Either: Charting Revolution (2): Carlos Fuentes, Gringo viejo (1986) and/or Nellie Cambobello, Cartucho (1931).
    3. Or: Nation and Narration (2): EITHER Octavio Paz, El laberinto de la soledad (1959), and Roberto Fernández Retamar, Calibán (1971) OR Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, Sab (1841). Or: Labyrinths of Fiction (2): Sergio Renán, El sueño de los héroes (film, 1997) or Julio Cortázar, Pasajes (all of the stories), in comparison with Carlos Fuentes, Aura (1962).
  3. Either: The Racial 'Other' (2): Clorinda Matto de Turner, Aves sin nido (1889) and/or Alejo Carpentier, El reino de este mundo (1949).
    4. Or: Nightmares of the Urban (2): Roberto Arlt, El juguete rabioso (1926), and Ernesto Sábato, Informe sobre ciegos (1961) or Luis Buñuel, Los olvidados (film, 1950).
 
Third Term
  1. Either: Labyrinths of Fiction (2): Sergio Renán, El sueño de los héroes (film, 1997) or Julio Cortázar, Pasajes (all of the stories), in comparison with Carlos Fuentes, Aura (1962)
    2. Or: Penning the Dictator (2): Isabel Allende, La casa de los espíritus (1982) or Miguel Ángel Asturias, El señor Presidente (1946)
    Or: any other combination.
  2. Revision.
Geoffrey Kantaris
 
 
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