The Contemporary Latin American Novel: Pacified vs Combative Fiction

Catalog description

This graduate course, taught in Spanish, surveys the Latin American novel post the Bolano-in-translation phenomenon and sets up the scaffolding for its theorization. Our point of departure is the late critic Pascale Casanova's antinomy of pacified vs combative literatures. The former sees literature as business-as-usual, copyrighted highbrow entertainment. The latter as a site for struggles of political and literary recognition. Does the latest wave of Latin American literary internationalization - brokered by agents, awards and social media - lead to a pacification of the literary field? Topics include overproduction; Netflixization; autofiction; brain drain; so-called boom femenino; boomerang effects; mainstreaming of genre fiction; translation lag; self-publishing; single-use fiction; and degrowth. We combine breadth (overview) and depth (analysis of a few works). Critical readings by Campisi, Schiffrin, Walkowitz, English, Anibal González and others, with sociologies of literature as a cum grano salis touchstone. Weekly reading pace: one work of fiction or excerpts, plus two articles. Primary author selection and Zoom guest speakers from across the region, with an emphasis on Chile, Colombia, Argentina, and (expats in) Spain. The corpus may include, in consultation with seminar participants: Javierre, Aira, García Robayo, Zambra, Volpi, Ponte, Sanín, Luiselli, Sada, Chejfec, Schweblin, Harwicz, Vieira Jr., Labatut, Rimsky, Costamagna, Tomás Gonzalez, Vasquez, Padura, Meruane, Labatut, Nieva, and Wiener - a partial list. Assessment: three critical reviews throughout or final paper. Open to all.