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Start date: Tuesday, January 20, 2026 |
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End date: Friday, May 8, 2026 |
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Mode of Instruction: In Person |
Course Description:
Non-Mexican authors—and Mexicans who write in English—are rarely addressing a Mexican audience when they set novels or films in Mexico. Their intended readers are “us,” elsewhere in the world, perhaps especially those of us in the Colossus of the North. Some of the last century’s greatest English-language novels—by Malcolm Lowry, Katherine Anne Porter, D.H. Lawrence, and Cormac McCarthy—depict Mexico.
This course, however, turns to works created within the urgency of now, rejecting political simplifications in favor of exploring a culture more ancient than our own, with whom we share both a border and a fraught modernity. A recurring theme through Mexican history is the tension between the "Macho" and "La Malinche" (Malintzin), the Indigenous woman who translated for Cortés—long vilified as a traitor and seductress, now reclaimed as a feminist icon of resilience and intelligence.
We begin with Camilla Townsend’s groundbreaking Malintzin’s Choices, then examine works by Cristina Rivera Garza, Roberto Bolaño, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Valeria Luiselli, Jennifer Clement, and Óscar Martínez, among others. Readings and films will explore overlapping themes—violence (political, sexual, or narco), coming of age, immigration, identity, class, and the Borderland—through multiple genres and voices. |