Fall 2019

SPN 395: Introduction to

Latin American Literature

and Cultures I

This course satisfies the SBC category

HFA+ and GLO, [DEC category J & 3]

Prof. Paul Firbas

paul.firbas@stonybrook.edu

Tu & Th: 1 to 2:20 pm in Frey Hall 226

This 2019 the world will commemorate the 500 years of the Spanish penetration in

Mesoamerica, leading to the conquest of Tenochtitlan in 1521. In this course we will

study the literature and historiography of the Spanish empire and the new Spanish

America societies, beginning with the writings of Columbus and the cartographic

imagination. The students will read texts produced during the conquest and the early

evangelization (i.e. Hernán Cortés, Cabeza de Vaca, Sahagún, etc.), leading to intense

debates on the nature of the Indians and the justice of the European occupation of the

New World (Vitoria, Las Casas, Sepúlveda). In the second part, the focus will be on

narrations of the formation of new forms of indigeneity and the new Criollo culture of the

vice-regal city. Emphasis will be on authors such as Guaman Poma de Ayala, the mestizo

Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, and the Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Contemporary

critical readings will complement class discussion.