What do we mean when we speak of "revolution" in Spanish-American history: a time of sudden and momentous socio-political change, or a simple rotation, as the word's Latin root (revolvere: to turn over) would suggest? This year's senior seminar will investigate the literature and films that have alternately fostered, resisted and recounted the long series of revolutions that punctuate Spanish America's history from the late 1700's to the present. We will examine the connections between the region's earliest revolutions (the Haitian Revolution and the Independence Wars) and twentieth-century upheavals in Mexico, Cuba and Nicaragua, paying particular attention to the cyclical, even circular structures of many of these texts. We will explore the relationship between cultural and political discourse, in terms of both the propagandistic uses of language and the ways in which changing historical circumstances (or the desire for historical change) have prompted artists to search for new forms of creative expression. Other issues to be explored include the individual vs. collective experience of revolution, and the efforts of marginal subjects (racial minorities, women and gays) to inscribe themselves in collective narratives of social change. Writers to be considered may include: Simon Bolivar, Fray Servando Teresa de Mier, Karl Marx, V.I. Lenin, Joseph Conrad, Alejo Carpentier, Mariano Azuela, Elena Garro, Carlos Fuentes, Che Guevara, Nicolas Guillen, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ernesto Cardenal, Giaconda Belli. Films may include Vamonos con Pancho Villa (Fernando de Fuentes), De cierta manera (Sara Gomez) and Memorias del subdesarrollo (Gutierrez Alea). Format: seminar. Requirements: attendance and active participation, brief reaction papers, oral presentations, 5-page paper, proposal and 15-page paper. Prerequisites: a Spanish 300-level course excluding 303, permission of instructor, or placement via Williams College exam. Expected enrollment: 8.