Inter-American Literature

PRT 3930 (3490) Special Topics in Lusophone Culture and Civilization (in Translation)

cross listed as LAS 4935 (1796) Latin American Studies Senior Seminar

 

Spring 2010; Tuesday 7th hour (in WM 202), Thursday 7th& 8th hours (in AND 21)

Prof. Charles A. Perrone, Office: Grinter Hall 335, 392-2100; message 392-2017 or 392-0375

email: perrone@ufl.edu; web: http://plaza.ufl.edu/perrone for syllabi, new and old

 

Course description and objectives:

This course concerns wide-angle modes of cultural critique in the extreme western hemisphere conceived under the rubrics of inter-American literature, New World Studies, hemispheric American cultural studies, and transamerican poetics. The first part of the course examines the emergence and evolution of those approaches as well as of related concepts of "America" and "Latin America." Subsequent modules treat of comparative topics, such as Modernism, vanguardism, and "magic realism" in the Americas. The second part of the course looks specifically at relations between Brazil and neighboring nations in the hemisphere though the prism of contem-porary lyric, in a broad sense encompassing conventional discursive poetry, concrete/visual varieties, and song.

 

Required work / Grading:

Class performance, i.e. faithful attendance, evidence of preparedness, and active participation, including an oral presentations =14%; activities reports (13 one-pg. written summaries of readings and discussion, drop lowest) = 36%; a Term Project / Paper= 50%. Instructions to follow in class and by email. NB: an excellent evaluation is necessary in all three categories in order to merit an A grade, good in all for B grade, or adequate in all for C. Scale:  A = 93-99.9, A- = 90-92.9; B+ = 87-89.9, B = 83-86.9, B- = 80-82.9; C+ = 77-79.9, C = 73-76.9, C- = 70-72.9; D+ = 67-69.9, D = 63-66.9; D- = 60-62.9. UF Academic Honesty Policy will be enforced.
Students using this course for POR major/minor credit should write weekly Reports in Portuguese.

 

Texts:

The following titles should be acquired at local bookstores or from on-line vendors (price / availability vary). They will also be on reserve in Library West, along with critical sources. Students using this course for POR major/minor credit should read texts in the original where relevant; use the library, read or purchase on line.

 

--Walter Mignolo, The Idea of Latin America (Blackwell, 2005)

--Alejo Carpentier, The Kingdom of this World / El reino de este mundo (prefer edition with 1949 preface)

-- Earl E. Fitz, Rediscovering the New World: Inter-American Literature in a Comparative Context. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1991. (e-book access via UF library on-line; used copies available)

--Charles A. Perrone, Brazil, Lyric, and the Americas (UPFlorida, 2010) (abbreviated below BLA)

-- Copies of critical and creative selections (hand-outs and/or pdfs.)

-- On-line readings: e-books, journal segments via UF library / open-access web sites of presses or authors

 

Inter-American Literature

PRT 3930 (3490) Special Topics in Lusophone Culture and Civilization (in Translation)

cross listed as LAS 4935 (1796) Latin American Studies Senior Seminar

 

Schedule:       refer to readings list below for location of each assignment

 

January          5          Introduction / sites, sources, nomenclature; Read: Eakin

            7/         Background, foundations, geography. Read: Morse "language in america"

 

12        The place of Latin American discourse. Read: Mignolo 1994 and 1995

14/       Read: Mignolo The Idea of Latin America, preface, chapters 1 - 2                     Report 1

 

19        Read: Mignolo The Idea of Latin America, chapter 3, postface. Mart, "Nuestra Amrica"

21/       First Approaches. Read: Kutzinski; Chavigny&La Guardia, Fernndez; Prez-Firmat/
*Co-sponsored Guest Speaker: Karen Pea, University of Glasgow*               Report 2

 

26        Inter-American Literature. Read: Fitz New World, Intro, chapters 1, 2, 7, 10; Cowan

28/       Read: Fitz 2000; New World Studies. Read: Greene 1998, 2000; Livn-Grosman

Global / Regional. Read: Gunn 2001, McClennen & Fitz 2002                          Report 3

 

February        2          Expansions. Read: Kadir 2003, Taylor 2007

4/         Read: Handley 2007; Read 2008; Bauer, Zamora & Spitta 2009                        Report 4

 

9          Comparative Modernism-os, Spanish, Portuguese, English, Read: Fitz New World Ch. 6

11/       Continued. Read: Morse, "Triangulating" Additional TBD.                            Report 5

 

16        lo real maravilloso; intro Carpentier; Haiti; Read: Fitz chapters 4, 8; Gonzlez-Echevarra

18/       Read: El reino de este mundo / The kingdom of this world                                 Report 6

 

23        Continue: El reino / The kingdom  Suggested: intro to  Zamora et al. on Reserve

25/       Magic Realism Brazil? Read: J.G. Rosa "So Marcos"-"Woodland Witchery" Report 7

 

March            2          Read: J. G. Rosa, "Meu tio, o iauaret"-"The Jaguar" / Read: Perrone in Johnson

4/         NewWorldVanguard; Perrone 7 Faces, chapter 2; See: Solt, Poesia Concreta VVV 2008

 

< Mar 6-13  Spring Break >

 

                        16        Read: BLA, Preface, Intro, begin Chapter 1. The Island of Brazil

18/       Ch.1 Columbus, Caminha; Leminski "Ler pelo no"/"Reading by what's not"    Report 8

 

23        BLA Chapter 2 Inter-American Language and Literature

25/       BLA Chapter 2 Inter- American Language and Literature                                    Report 9

 

30        BLA Chapter 3 Media Lore

                        4/1       BLA Chapter 3 Media Lore                                                                               Report 10

 

April              6          BLA Chapter 4 Neo-Epic; Fitz New World Chapter 3

8/         BLA Chapter 4 Neo-Epic 2, 3                                                                           Report 11

 

13        BLA Chapter 5 Banda Hispnica I; Sp Am- BR, Read: Fitz 2004, Schwartz

15/       Evaluation; BLA Chapter 5, Banda Hispnica II                                                Report 12

 

20        BLA Ch. 6 Tropiclia; BLA Ch. 7 Inters-. Read: Perrone 2000

[22/      Discretionary review day]
extra: transnational eco-zoo-justice, Rheda "The Sanctuary", "The Front"        Report 13

 

Readings in order of assignment and locations

 

Marhsall Eakin, "Does Latin America Have a Common History?" Vanderbilt e-Journal of Luso-Hispanic Studies 1, http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/spanport/ejournal or
http:// ejournals.library.vanderbilt.edu/lusohispanic/index.php, archives volume one (2004). Open access.

Richard Morse, "language in america." Chapter 1 of New World Soundings: Culture and Ideology in the Americas. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989, 11-60; Chapter 2 (partial) "Triangulating Two Cubists." 61-69. First in Latin American Literary Review 14, no. 27 (1986): 175-83. Reserve. PDF.

Walter Mignolo, "Loci of Enunciation and Imaginary Constructions:  the Case of (Latin) America." Editor's introduction, Poetics Today 15. 4 (1994): 505-21. UF library on line access. PDF.

------. "Afterword: Human Understanding and (Latin) American Interests--the Politics and Sensibilities of Geocultural Locations." Poetics Today 16. 1 (1995): 171-214. UF library on line access. PDF.

-----. The Idea of Latin America. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. Required and Reserve.

Jos Mart, "Nuestra Amrica" "Our America" "Nossa Amrica". PDF and/or any number of open access sites.

Vera M. Kutzinski, Against the American Grain: Myth and History in William Carlos Williams, Jay Wright, and Nicols Guilln. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1987. Preface ix-xii. Copy. Reserve.

Gale Chevigny & Gari Laguardia, eds. Intro. to Reinventing the Americas: Comparative Studies of Literature of the United States and Spanish America, Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 1986. 3-33. Copy. Reserve.

Pablo Armando Fernndez, "Dreams of Two Amricas." 122-38, in Chevigny & Laguardia, ed. Copy. Reserve.

Gustavo Prez Firmat, ed. Intro. to Do the Americas Have a Common Literature? Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990. Copy. Reserve.

Earl E. Fitz, Rediscovering the New World: Inter-American Literature in a Comparative Context. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1991. e-book UF library. (acquire if you see available).

-----. "The Theory and Practice of Inter-American Literature." In Beyond the Ideal: Pan Americanism in Inter-American Affairs, ed. David Sheinin, 153-65. Westport, Conn.: Praeger-Greenwood Press, 2000. Copy. Reserve.

Bainard Cowan & Jefferson Humphries, eds. Poetics of the Americas: Race, Founding, and Textuality, Cowan Intro. 1-13. Baton Rouge: LSU University Press, 1997. Copy. Reserve.

Roland Greene, "New World Studies & the Limits of National Literatures." Stanford Humanities Review 6.1 (1998): 88-110. Open access: <www.stanford.edu/group/SHR/6-1/html/greene.html>.

-----. "Wanted: A New World Studies." American Literary History 1&2 (2000): 337-47.  UF library on line.

Ernesto Livn-Grosman, "A Poetics of the Americas," CiberLetras 2 (2000). <www.lehman.cuny.edu/ciberletras/ v01n02/Livon-Grosman.htm>.

Giles Gunn. "Globalizing Literary Studies." PMLA 116.1. (2001): 16-31. ON LINE UF.

Sophia McClennen and Earl E. Fitz, eds. Into to CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture: A WWWeb Journal 4.2 (2002). Open access. http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol4/iss2/

Djelal Kadir. "America and Its Studies." Introduction to "America, the Idea, the Literature," PMLA 118.1. (Jan. 2003), 9-24. ON LINE UF library.

Diana Taylor. "Remapping Genre through Performance: from American to Hemispheric Studies." PMLA 122.5 (October 2007)1416-30. ON LINE UF library.

George Handley, New World Poetics: Nature and the Adamic Imagination of Whitman, Neruda, and Walcott.  Athens: U Georgia P, 2007. Intro. 19-41. Copy. Reserve.

Justin Read, Hemispheric American Cultural Studies. Albany: SUNY P, 2008. Preface xi-xxix. Copy. Reserve.

Ralph Bauer, "Hemispheric Studies". PMLA 124 (Jan. 2009), 234-50. UF library on line access.

Lois P. Zamora and Silvia Spitta, intro. and eds. "The Americas, Otherwise" Comparative Literature 61.3 (Summer 2009), open access: <complit.dukejournals.org/content/vol61/issue 3>.

Roberto Gonzlez Echevarra, Latin American and Comparative Literatures. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture: A WWWeb Journal 4.2 (2002). URL above. Rpt. from Cowan and Jeffries.

Alejo Carpentier, El reino de este mundo / The kingdom of this world. Acquire and/or Reserve. Spanish PDF.

Joo Guimares Rosa, "Woodland Witchery," in Sagarana. Copy or PDF. Reserve; original in Sagarana (Rio de Janeiro: Jos Olympio, 1947), Reserve. "The Jaguar," in The Jaguar and Other Stories. Copy of PDF. Reserve; original "Meu tio o iauaret" in Estas estrias (Rio de Janeiro: Jos Olympio, 1967). Reserve.

Charles A. Perrone " Joo Guimares Rosa through the Prism of Magic Realism," in Randal Johnson, ed. Tropical Paths. New York: Routledge, 1990. Reserve and/or pdf.

Mary Ellen Solt, ed., Concrete Poetry: A World View. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1970. Reserve. Many parts on line at <www.ubuweb.com>.

Poesia concreta: o projeto verbivocovisual. Reserve.

Charles A. Perrone, Brazil, Lyric, and the Americas. Gainesville: U P Florida, 2010. Required and Reserve.

------. Seven Faces: Brazilian Poetry Since Modernism. Durham: Duke University Press, 1996. Reserve.

------. Topos and Topicalities: the Tropes of Tropiclia and Tropicalismo." Studies in Latin American Popular Culture 19 (2000): 1-20; on line at <www.tropicalia.com.br> and/or pdf.

Earl E. Fitz . "Spanish American and Brazilian Literature in Inter-American Perpsective: The Comparative Approach." http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/spanport/ejournal or
http:// ejournals.library.vanderbilt.edu/lusohispanic/index.php, archives volume one (2004).

Jorge Schwartz, "Down with Tordesillas!" 277-93 in Portuguese Literary and Cultural Studies 4/5 (2000). Reserve; also as Abaixo Tordesilhas! Revista de estudos avanados 7, no. 17 (1993): 185-200. PDF.

Regina Rheda, "The Front, "The Sanctuary," in First World Third Class and Other Tales of the Global Mix, Austin: U Texas Press, 2005. Reserve.

A few other items on reserve. Check ARES list. Some pertinent items under POW 4930/6930 as well.