SPN 313G - Testimonial Narratives from Latin America

(Global course) This is an upper level course for majors in Spanish and qualified minors. The course explores the connections between fiction and reality, facts and representation, history and literature, in key testimonial narratives of Latin America. The term testimonio was coined in the US academia by John Beverley in reference to the kinds of contestatory narratives that were produced mainly in Central America to denounce the violation of human rights in the countries of the area that endured military dictatorships from the 1960s and through the 1980s. The course will explore theoretical debates on authority and authorship, power and marginality, rights and copyrights, indigenous and criollos voices, and access to publication as a way of legitimizing their stories.

Credits: 3