Andean Thought, Monuments and Spectacles

Catalog description

This course aims at introducing students to the core elements of the thought, praxis and way of life of one of the key bastions of indigenous resistance in the New World since Columbus's arrival in 1492: South America's Andean region. We will study the region's key cultural categories, following Cuzque?poet and thinker Odi Gonzales's claim that any study of the region requires taking these categories as starting point. These include questions of time, space, life, death, society, religion, number, and gender. We will study how these categories are formed in tension, syncretism and co-transformation with other languages and cultures-especially Spanish-over centuries of colonial and neocolonial domination. Primary material examined include films, photography, drama, novels, poetry, testimonies, and religious texts.