This course is an overview of Colonial Latin American literature. Because it is impossible to exhaustively cover the whole literary corpus of this historical period in an academic term, we will rather focus on the canonical texts that have been (and still are) fundamental for the understanding of the cultural development of the continent. We will read some texts produced by precolumbian cultures fist. We will later move to Columbus, Cortés and other early Conquistadors and discoverers that provides us with the first images of America. In this way, we will cover almost three centuries of literary textual production, until we reach the time when the Spanish colonies are preparing to fight for their independence. Students will see how closely related literary practice and socio-political and economic issues have been throughout the colonial period. The readings will be supplemented by the viewing of films that deal with some of the issues discussed in the texts.

This course counts toward the Spanish major and as literature credit for the Spanish minor.