The Latin American Boom of the 1960s and 1970s was a moment of great literary innovation, a collective drive for global impact and maximum international fame by authors who have since been canonized in the region’s literature: Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes and Julio Cortázar, among others.  This course will examine the work of these Boom legends, contextualizing them among the predecessors who laid the groundwork for their experimental approaches (Jorge Luis Borges, Alejo Carpentier, Juan Rulfo), and concluding with a look at literature after the Boom, as authors move away from the magical realist past toward an even more fragmentary future.  Literary works will be studied in combination with major texts of post-strucuralist, post-colonial, and Marxist cultural theory.

This course is a seminar in which graduate students take responsibility for independent contributions to and leadership of the group. Through intensive participation, each individual will hone his or her critical analytical skills.

Note: SPAN 875 may be repeated for credit when topics vary.