Latin American Studies 201
Folk Culture to Mass Media: Dimensions of Popular Culture and Resistance in the Southern Cone and Cuba in the 1970s and 1980s
Winter 2018
Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:00–3:20
UCLL (University Centre) 101
Instructor:
Barbara Fraser-Valencia
Office Hours: Thurs 12:30-1:30 PM, or by appointment
Office Location: BuTo 807
Evaluation:
Blog Comments 20%
Transcultural Analysis Paper 15%
Cracked Article and Presentation 20%
Research Paper 20% (Proposal 5%)
Final Exam 20%
Description:
Latin America in the 1970’s and 1980s was a ferment of social transitions and artistic negotiations. In Chile and Argentina popular culture played a significant role in the social revolutions that took place in the late sixties and early seventies, while in the eighties, mass-media and popular culture became contested territory between the countries’ dictatorships and a disperse resistance movement operating through film, literature, rock music, comic strips and ritualized protests. In Cuba, meanwhile, the Castro regime’s questionable policies against homosexuals, the unexamined sexism of revolutionary culture, and the regime’s own lack of accountability were criticized by many of the same artists, filmmakers and musicians who had supported it during the 1960s and early 1970s. The 1980s also saw the continent shift towards economic privatization, commercialism and postmodernism with its de-centering of subjectivity, collapse of artistic hierarchy, and its fundamental distrust towards totalizing truths. In this course we will explore the popular artwork created in this de-stabilized milieu and how it sought to counter the dominant discourses of the regimes in which it emerged.
Assignments
- Blog comments
Each week, you will write a 200-300 word blog contribution discussing your impression of the previous week’s readings and topics. These are due Sundays, before the beginning of the next week. Blog comments are marked as done/not done
- Transcultural Analysis In this 3-5 page paper you will choose a cultural piece from any Latin American country (please stick to 20th Century) and discuss its transcultural influences based on the theoretical readings of the first two weeks of the course. You may also choose to look at the work’s relationship to social power structures.
- Cracked Listicle Collaboration Project com is a popular culture/humor website with an intellectual bent. Their articles, many of which are reader-submissions, cover a wide-range of topics dealing with society, culture and art. In this project you will work together in groups of 4 to collaborate on a Cracked style article which you will also present in class. Cracked articles use a 5 point “listicle” format for presenting information in a condensed manner. Thus, each group member ideally should be responsible for one entry. Information included in the article must be sourced and a bibliography of sources included.
- Final Paper Length: 15 pages). For the Final Paper you have the option of choosing one artist/movement studied in class and doing an analysis of his/her work, or doing a comparison between two artists, or two countries with similar movements (Chilean vs. Argentine Rock for example). You must prepare a Final Essay Proposal to be handed to me giving me a general idea of your topic and a bibliography of some preliminary sources. (1 primary and at least 3 secondary) Prior to handing in the final paper we will also hold an in-class workshop session in which you will bring in a 3 page preliminary draft version of your paper. In your final paper, I expect at least 5 secondary sources, 3 of which were not used in class.
Requirements:
This course has no prerequisites. The course is conducted in English, though some familiarity with Spanish is recommended. Translations of course material will be provided as necessary.
Late submission penalty: Papers submitted late without proper justification will lose 2% of the final mark per day it is late. University policies: For academic honesty and standards, grading practices, policies and regulations at UBC, please visit: http://www.calendar.ubc.ca/vancouver/
Policies for Attendance and Missed or Late Assignments: Regular attendance is expected of all students. I will not accept late assignments unless you have a note from a doctor or have discussed the reason with me prior to the due date.
Blog and Texts
There is no text for this course. Readings are provided through UBC Open Access and will be uploaded to the blog the Thursday prior to the week we are discussing them. Your blog comment discussions will be held in the comment section of each weeks post. The address is https://blogs.ubc.ca/latstudies201
Schedule
Week 1 01/02- 01/05
Introduction,.
Week 2 01/08-01/12
Transculturation and Hybridity in Latin America
Readings: Ortiz, Fernando. Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995.
Cornejo Polar, Antonio. “Mestizaje, transculturación, heterogeneidad.” Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 40 (1994): 368–371.
Brunner, JJ. “ Notes on Modernity and Postmodernity in Latin American Culture”Latin American Cultural Studies Reader
Week 3 01/15-01/19.
Marxism, Postmodernism and Popular Culture
Readings: Hebdige Subculture: The Meaning of Style NY: Routledge, 1979.
Dorfman and Mattleart How to Read Donald Duck
Week 4. 01/22-01/26
Chile: Popular Culture out of Dictatorship
Readings: Marjorie Agosin: Scraps of Life: Chilean Arpilleras
Paula Thorrington Cronovich “Out of the Blackout and into the Light: How the Arts Survived Pinochet’s Dictatorship” Iberoamericana, 13:51, (2013).
Selections from Purgatorio and Canto a su amor desaparecido by Raúl Zurita. Exposition of Arpilleras, Works by CADA / Escena de Avanzada.
Week 5: 01/29-02/02
Nueva Canción to Los Prisioneros: Popular Music and Social Critique in Chile from the 1960s to the 1980s.
Readings: Robert Neustadt: “Music as Memory and Torture: Sounds of Repression and Protest
In Chile and Argentina”. Chasqui. Vol. 33, No. 1 (May, 2004),
Week 6: 02/05-02/0
The “No” campaign and the politics of Mass Media.
Caetlin Benson-Allott “An Illusion Appropriate to the Conditions No (Pablo Larraín, 2012)”. Film Quarterly Vol. 66, No. 3 (Spring 2013), pp. 61-63
Screening of No (2012 Chile) Pablo Larraín
Transcultural Analysis Paper Due February 9th
Week 7 02/12-02/16
Discussion of No
Introduction to Argentina
Week 8 02/19-02/23
Reading Week
Week 9: 02/26-03/02
Graphic Arts in Argentina: Mafalda Quino, El Eternauta II Hector Germán Ostenheld, Clemente Caloi, Bárbara Juan Zanotto. Las puertitas del Sr. López. Horacio Altuna.
Reading: Ernesto Torres “Under the Shadow of the Dictatorship: Comics and Culture During the Process of National Reorganization” http://www.camouflagecomics.com/pdf/08_torres_en.pdf
Groups for Cracked Project.
Final Paper Proposal Due
Week 10: 03/05-03/09
Popular Music in Argentina: “Nuevo Cancionero,” “Rock Nacional”, and the New Rock of the 1980’s
Reading: Pablo Vila “Rock Nacional and Dictatorship in Argentina” Popular Music Vol. 6,2. May 1987, pp 129-148
Week 11: 03/12-03/16
Argentine Film: Screening of The Official Story Luis Puenzo (Argentina 1985)
Reading: Taylor, L. “Image and Irony in The Official Story.” Literature Film Quarterly, 17 (3), 207. (1989).
Week 12: 03/19-03/23
Cuban Revolution
Readings: Ernesto Cardenal: Selections from In Cuba
Cracked Presentations
Week 13 03/26-03/30
Cuban Youth Culture and Nueva Trova Music
Readings: Robin Moore: Transformations in Cuban Nueva Trova: 1965-1995. Ethnomusicology 47:1. 2003.
Week 14 04/02-04/06
Assigned Reading: William O. Deaver Jr. Fresa y chocolate: A Subtle Critique of the Revolution in Crisis The Coastal Review. 4 (Spring-Summer 2013)
Screening and discussion of Fresa y Chocolate Tomás Gutierrez Alea: (Cuba, 1993).
Final Essays Due