SPA 355-0 (Fall 2023) - IntellectualTravelsHispLit&Art

This course introduces students to fundamental and exploratory questions about (s)exiles and Latin American diasporas in relation to discourses of national identity. We will discuss how displacement in its varied forms has shaped and continues to transform Hispanic cultures and to redefine geographical borders and communities. To explore the richness of this phenomenon, this course adopts a transatlantic and hemispheric approach and looks at the socio-political and economic factors that informed intellectual travels and migratory waves in Spain and Latin America during the 20th century. We will examine the figure of the intellectual and their role in creating political consciousness, demanding social change and rethinking the relationship between freedom, nation, and power. Our classes will look into representations of the self through the voice of the exiled and the immigrant, and the complex relation between body, language and space. By analyzing different materials from literature, music, and cinema, students will learn how displacement is a recurrent but shifting trope that invokes questions of cultural identity, political reflection, intimacy, and experiences of uprooting and homesickness.

Pre-requisites: Span 200