RLSP 403(F) Senior Seminar: Power, Repression, and Dictatorship in the Latin-American Novel*
Military dictatorship is among the most crucial factors in Latin-American society and history, and some of the continent's leading novelists have taken it upon
themselves to depict the experience in their work. In this course we will examine
both the fact of dictatorship itself and the diverse representation thereof in Spanish-American fiction. Novels by Garcia Marquez, Carpentier, Fuentes, Poniatowska, and Tomas Eloy Martinez will be closely studied. Students will also
read Absalom! Absalom! by Faulkner, whose influence on Latin-American authors' techniques of representation has been decisive and profound. Conducted
in Spanish.
Requirements: three papers based on the readings, one oral report on the life and
personality of a given dictator, and a final exam.
Prerequisite: any 300-level course or two 200-level courses or permission of the
instructor.