HIST-LIT 90FR: Latinx, 1492 to 2022

Instructor: Thomas Conners
Meeting time: Tuesday, 9:45-11:34 am

The 530 years since Columbus’s arrival in Hispaniola have paid witness to the fall and rise of empires, the perseverance of colonial structures of power, and the construction and (re)creation of racial, sexual, and gendered identities. In the midst of such change and continuity, this course sets out to ask: what place does Latinx occupy in this long history? What does Latinidad look like when we trace it back 530 years, when we take 1492 to be its starting point instead of the 20^th century? How might this look backwards help us understand the current Latinx politics of gender (Latino vs. Latina vs. Latinx), sexuality (the place of queerness and transness in Latinx Studies), and race (Latinidad’s penchant for disavowing blackness and erasing indigeneity)? We will answer these questions as we move through different historical and literary periods, in dialogue with writing by, for example, colonial Spanish historian Bartolomé de las Casas, 19^th century Cuban intellect José Martí from exile in NY, 20^th century queer Chicana theorist Gloria Anzaldúa, and contemporary Honduran-Garifuna writer Janel Martínez. The course includes a workshop with Dr. Alán Peláez López, AfroIndigenous (Coastal Zapotec) poet, installation and adornment artist from Oaxaca, México. While the course will be conducted in English, Spanish language materials will be available for students who wish to fulfill History & Literature’s language requirement.