This course has two goals—to introduce you to Mexican and Latino cultural forms and theory, mostly literary, from the 18th to the 21stcentury. The second is to explore theories of information and New Realist studies, specifically, Ferraris’ theories of documentality, in order to explore the how Mexicans have engaged and been constituted by discourses of un/documentality. Learning the theory and practice of what I am calling “un/documentality,” we will engage how “acts” across historical, political and aesthetic boundaries constitute and remake an un/documented self. In doing so, we will juxtapose myriad cultural forms, mainly print narratives and some film, in order to chart the complicated ways in which Mexicans have expressed themselves in the US. Along the way, we will also locate important liminal moments in Latin@ literary, political, cinematic and cultural history. By the end of the course, I hope we will have a strong grasp of Mexican film, letters, history and the political, gendered, and racial formation of Mexicans and Latinos/as in the US.
MA-Lit Course Designation: B (Technologies/ Epistemologies), C (Bodies/Identities/Collectivities), D (Cultures/Politics/Histories), Multicultural/ Postcolonial