SPN3780

Women's writing in Hispanic America today

M Mascitti-Meuter

8 points - 2 hours per week - Second semester - Clayton

Objectives Students completing this subject should have acquired a broad awareness of the impact of critical and ideological theory on women writers in contemporary Hispanic America and an understanding of the contemporary issues that concern them.

Synopsis This subject studies the contribution made by women writers to contemporary Hispanic American culture. Centred on five key literary figures - Isabel Allende (Chile), Giaconda Belli (Nicaragua), Angeles Mastretta (Mexico)Rigoberta Menchú (Guatemala) and Luisa Valenzuela (Argentina) - the subject sets the prescribed reading materials in their historical and cultural context; surveys the changing roles of women in contemporary society, their quest for identity, and the causes and consequences of their increasing political and social activism; and seeks the sources of the literary techniques used to emphasise these concerns in surrealism, feminism, ideological and psychoanalytic theories.

Assessment One seminar paper (1500 words): 25% - One essay (1500 words): 25% - One assignment (3000 words) or one examination (3 hours): 50%

Prescribed texts

Allende I La casa de los espíritus
Belli G La mujer habitada
Manguel A Other Fires: Short Fiction by Hispanic American Women
Mastretta A Arráncame la vida
Menchú R Me llamo Rigoberta Menchú y así me nació la conciencia
Traba Marta Conversación al sur
Valenzuela L Cola de lagartija

Recommended texts

Brooksbanks Jones A Latin American women's writing: Feminist readings in theory and crisis Oxford University Press, 1996
Bautista Gutiérrez G Voces femeninas de hispanoamérica

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