30326 - Hispano-American Literature 2 (2nd cycle)

Learning outcomes

The course has for object to deepen in the more interesting and meaningful themes in the Spanish American Literatures and, at the same time, to debate, with the active participation of the students, the most outstanding theoretical and methodological questions to them inherent.

El curso tiene por objeto profundizar en los temas de mayor interés y significación en las literaturas hispanoamericanas y al mismo tiempo debatir, con la activa participación de los estudiantes, las más relevantes cuestiones teóricas y metodológicas a ellos inherentes.

Course contents

Space, movement, writing: a reading of Rayuela
Cortázar himself had occasion to rule that Rayuela, besides being a novel-world, a novel that attempts to establish what "philosophers intend in metaphysical terms, the big questions," constituted a "synthesis of his ten years in Paris, more the previous years". Novel and meta-novel at the same time, seems to stand as an ideal text for investigating the forms of writing related to the representation of space: grammatical, physical or imagined; in co-texts both static and dynamic.

Readings/Bibliography

Cortázar, Julio, Rayuela; el estudiante tiene a su alcance muchas ediciones (Alfaguara, Alianza, Altaya, Colección Archivos, Plaza y Janés, Punto de Lectura, RBA Coleccionables, Suma de Letras). La más completa es, sin duda, la edición crítica al cuidado de Julio Ortega y Saúl Yurkievich (Colección Archivos, México, Conaculta, 1992), a cuyos estudios remitiremos. Junto a ésta, la más accesible - y la que se aconseja - es la edición preparada por Andrés Amorós (Madrid, Cátedra, 1984).

 

Henderson, Carlos, Estudios sobre la poética de Rayuela, Madrid, Pliegos, 1995?; 

Jones, Julie, "The City as Text: Reading Paris in Rayuela", Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, 15, 2, Winter 1991;  pp. 223-234;

Sacido Romero, Alberto, "El espacio: esqueleto representacional en la crisis lúdica de la Rayuela", Inti, 32-33, Fall-Spring 1990-1991,  pp. 79-89;

Sharkey, E. Joseph, "Rayuela's Confused Hermeneutics", Hispanic Review, 69, 4, Fall 2001;  pp. 423-442;

Zampaglione, Héctor, El París de Rayuela: homenaje a Cortázar,   Barcelona, Lunwerg, 1998; 

 

Ainsa Amiques, Fernando, Narrativa hispanoamericana del siglo XX: del espacio vivido al espacio del texto, Zaragoza, Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza, 2003;

Bachelard, Gaston, La poetica dello spazio, trad. di Ettore Catalano, rev. di Mariachiara Giovannini, Bari, Dedalo, 2006 (nuova ed.); 

Corno, Dario, Le strutture e lo spazio: notazioni di semiotica dei linguaggi spaziali, Torino, Facolta di Archittettura, 1976;

Lyons, John, "Deixis, Space and Time", in John Lyons, Semantics, 2 voll., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1977 (versión española: Barcelona, Teide, 1989);

The bibliography furnished above is to consider provisional. Ampler bibliographical indications - and also more selective - will be furnished during the course and after its conclusion.

Teaching methods

The course includes , in addition to classroom teaching, the study in depht, with seminar mode, of some issues related to the studied sources, as well as of the instruments, theoretical and methodological, most relevant for their study.

Assessment methods

Students must prepare an essay (thesis) of 15-20 sheets, on average, on the topics of the course. The methods of composition of this essay will be presented by the teacher when the lessons will be about to end.

The oral examination will consist of an interview that will focus on the deepening and extension of the content of the work presented.

From the way in which the student will illustrate the arguments made in his essay will evaluate the methodological and critical skills acquired; he will have to prove at the same time, to have reached an adequate knowledge of the texts and topics discussed during the course.

An essay coherently developed, well-written, not without a certain interpretative perspicacity, accompanied by an oral discussion that shows, in addition to the above skills, a sure grasp of the language and of the scientific metalanguage used will lead to an assessment of excellence; the lack of one or more of the mentioned qualities, will lead to assessments that will translate into marks very good, good, discrete or sufficient; the test shall be deemed below the pass mark when, in addition to the inadequacy, thematic and expressive, of the essay, also the interview will be equally disappointing, both from the point of view of the knowledge acquired, and from that of presentation skills.

An essay inconsistent, ill-developed, poorly or not at all relevant to the themes covered in the course, or manifestly the result of copying and pasting, will not allow to be admitted to the oral test.

Teaching tools

We will apply, mainly, to the projection of texts, images and videos, prepared to the computer, with the possible software employement for the textual analysis.

Office hours

See the website of Giovanni Gentile Marchetti