The Indian Question and the Latin American Novel

The primary objective of this course is to impart a critical understanding about the intrinsic relationship between the novel and modernity in Latin America, taking as its subject matter the figure of the Indian as it has been represented diachronically in the prose fiction works of the region. Since the Independence period, literature about Indians has played an important role in the construction of national imageries in Latin America, and novels about Indians have been especially potent tools in the creation of nationalist narratives. This course will analyze the similarities and the convergences in the evolution of the Indian Novel in Latin America. The theoretical approach to the readings will encompass a comparative study of selected novels from Spanish America and Brazil. Lectures will be on the theory of the novel as well as the appropriation of indigenous culture in the nation-building projects of different Latin American countries. Student contributions will be primarily in the form of oral and written analyses of the primary texts as they relate to the themes discussed in class. As the course will pursue a historical approach to the study of the genre, the readings will be ordered more or less chronologically, with theoretical material organized around each of the principal themes t