LITERARY THEORY (Applied to Romance Texts)
Course Description
This course examines a gamut of schools of thought that lay at the foundation of theoretical approaches to the literary text in the Western tradition. We discuss proposals and tools of each of these schools and exercise their application to Hispanic texts to prove (or not) their pertinence to critically study Hispanic literature.
Learning Goals
At the end of this class the students should be able to demonstrate:
1. General knowledge about the main Western schools of thought to study literary texts
2. Engage critically with literary texts within a specific historical context and test the applicability of theoretical tools discussed in class
3. A reflection about the “literari-ness” of a text within the Hispanic cultural and social in which such texts have been produced
4. Awareness of letting the literary text speak, and then seek the theoretical tool that may be more pertinent to its examination
Required Materials
• Aristóteles. Poética/Poetics
• Barthes, Roland. Crítica y verdad
• —. El placer del texto
• —. Fragmentos de un discurso amoroso. “Introducción” and “Espera”
• Bajtin, Mijail. La cultura popular en la Edad Media y el Renacimiento
• Bajin, Mijail. The Dialogic Imagination
• Bhabha, Homi. Nation and narration
• —. The Location of Culture
• Castro-Klarén, Sara. “Teoría poscolonial y literatura latinoamericana.” por Juan Zevallos. Revista Iberoamericana
• De Certeau, Michel. Heterologies. Discourses on the Other
• Eagleton, Mary. Feminist Literary Criticism
• Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory-An Introduction; 1983
• —. After Theory; 2003
• Franco, Jean “Apuntes sobre la crítica feminista y la literatura hispanoamericana” Theoretical Debates in Spanish American Literature
• Gilmore, David. Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity
• Kristeva, Julia. Desire in Language: a Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art
• Lyotard, Jean Francois. The postmodern condition
• Mignolo, Walter. “¿Teoría literarias o teorías de la literatura? ¿qué son y para qué sirven? Teorías Literarias en la actualidad
• — “Los estudios culturales: geopolítica del conocimiento y exigencias/necesidades institucionales.” Revista Iberoamericana
• Rodríguez, Ileana. Convergencia de Tiempos. Estudios subalternos
• —. (ed) The Latin American subaltern studies reader. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001
• Spivak, Gayatri. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture
Rocío Quispe-Agnoli 