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Campus | Bryn Mawr |
Semester | Spring 2024 |
Registration ID | SPANB244001 |
Course Title | Latinoamérica en shuffle |
Credit | 1.00 |
Department | Latin American, Iberian, and Latinx Studies |
Instructor | Suárez Ontaneda,Juan |
Times and Days | TTh 11:25am-12:45pm
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Room Location | TAYE |
Additional Course Info | Class Number: 2663 The sacred book of the Quiché nation (present-day Guatemala), the Popol Vuh (circa 1544), begins as follows: This is the account of how all was in suspense, all calm, in silence; all motionless, still, and the expanse of the sky was empty (Recinos 81). The soundtrack of the beginning of the world, for the Quiché people, was silence. Almost five centuries after the Popol Vuh was written, the soundtrack of the world for Ulises, the protagonist of the Mexican film a no estoy aquí" (Frías 2020), is made up of the slowed-down cumbias he listens to in his MP3 as he crosses the U.S.-Mexico border. Beginning with Popol Vuh, and ending with "Ya no estoy aquí," this class will examine the uses of sound, silence, noise, and music in Latin American literature, film, paintings, and performance. During class, we will spend time examining the creative uses of sound, and the following questions will guide our readings: What is the sound of social interactions such as protests, insults, speeches, jokes, and mockery? Is silence a tool for policing, or a tool for escaping? What is the relationship between sound and the representation of gender, race, and ethnicity? How does technology shape the way we listen? Is noise a frontier between the human and the non-human? At the end of the semester, students will choose between curating a thematic playlist in Spanish using Spotify, producing a podcast about a work of literature/film/performance not studied in the course, or adapting a work examined during the semester using the radionovela format. Prerequisites: SPAN B120. Approach: Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC), Critical Interpretation (CI); Enrollment Cap: 18. If course exceeds the enrollment cap, the lottery criteria will be Majors by class, then Minors by class. |
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