Syllabus: Latino and Caribbean Cultural Studies (Spring 2021)

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey Program in Comparative Literature Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies 01:195:295/01:595:295 Latino and Caribbean Cultural Studies Tuesdays and Thursdays 1:10pm-2:30pm (Zoom; synchronous) Instructor: Amanda González Izquierdo Office Hours: Wednesdays, 11am-12pm and by appointment Email: [email protected] Course Description This course provides a comparative perspective of theoretical and cultural production in the postColumbian Caribbean and Latin America, as well as of their diasporic populations in the United States. We will study philosophical and literary works and will treat the latter not as representations of theoretical debates but as themselves forms of knowledge production. We will be discussing themes of history, language, colonialization and coloniality, decolonization and decoloniality, and migration to explore the process of identity formation. Department Learning Goals Students will... • • • be familiar with several of the disciplines that comprise the field of Latino and Caribbean studies, including but not limited to history, literature, and philosophy. develop critical thinking skills and the ability to speak and write clearly and analytically. employ different research methodologies and interdisciplinary approaches in the humanities, demonstrating proficiency in one or more of the following areas: historical, • political, sociological, philosophical, literary, visual, cinematic, musical, and/or performative analysis. develop multi- and inter-cultural competence and sensitivity to issues particular to Latino and Caribbean experience(s). A complete description of LHCS Department Learning Goals can be found here. Students will analyze literatures in themselves and in relation to specific histories, values, languages, cultures, and technologies, in compliance with the SAS Core Curriculum Arts and Humanities [AHp] requirement. Students will communicate complex ideas effectively, in standard written English, to a general audience, and respond effectively to editorial feedback from peers and instructors through successive drafts and revision, in compliance with the SAS Core Curriculum Writing and Communication [WCr] requirement. With just 3 LCS (595) courses, students may earn the Certificate in Multicultural Competence. Mode of Instruction In Spring 2021, Latino and Caribbean Cultural Studies is being offered online synchronously. We will be using Canvas to organize our readings and assignments. If you’re not familiar with Canvas, please see The Rutgers Canvas Help site (under “Students”), which will show you how to locate modules and readings, find course apps and submit assignments, meet your instructor during office hours, and communicate with other students. To report problems or for technical matters, call the Canvas Helpdesk at (877) 361-1134 or write to [email protected]. We will be meeting on Zoom and the information to join class sessions will be on Canvas. If you’re not familiar with Zoom, please see the Rutgers Information Technology site for help. You may also visit the Zoom Help Center site for more information. For all your technology-related needs, contact the OIT Help Desk. Technology Requirements Note that because of the demands of remote learning, in order to succeed in this course, you will need stable access to a laptop/computer/tablet and internet connection. Please visit the Rutgers Student Tech Guide page for resources available to all students. If you do not have the appropriate technology for financial reasons, please email the Dean of Students at [email protected] for assistance. If you are facing other financial hardships, please visit the Office of Financial Aid. Required Readings All required readings are available on Canvas, sometimes through links to the Rutgers Library’s online collection. Several of the works we will be reading are translations of texts originally written in French or Spanish. Students are welcome to read these in their original languages if they wish to do so. Evaluation 2 creative exercises 10% 7 discussion posts 25% 6 workshops and peer reviews 15% 4 essays 50% Grades 3.5-4.0 A 3.25-3.49 B+ 3.0-3.24 B 2.5-2.99 C+ 2.0-2.49 C 1.0-1.99 D 0.0-0.99 F Requirements Creative Exercises: Students will complete 2 creative exercises, each worth 5% of the final course grade. Instructions are on Canvas. Discussion Posts: Students will write 7 discussion posts, with responses to peers, which will collectively be worth 25% of the final course grade. These posts are intended to help you work through and reflect on the material. Workshops: Students will complete 3 individual workshop assignments, which will collectively be worth 10% of the final course grade. These workshops are intended to help you improve your writing. Peer Reviews: Students will participate in 3 peer review sessions (scheduled into class time) which will collectively be worth 5% of the final course grade. In these sessions, you will meet in Zoom breakout rooms and read rough drafts with your peers, providing constructive feedback. Essays: Students will write 4 essays. The first constitutes 5%, the second 10%, the third 15%, and the final 20% of the overall course grade. The first three papers will be 2-3 pages, while the final paper will be 3-5 pages. Paper topics will be provided closer to the due date. You are free to come up with your own paper topic, but it must be approved by me. Essays must be typed in Times New Roman font 12, double-spaced, and adhere to MLA format. Rubrics for all assignments can be found on the Canvas site. Extra Credit You may complete one extra discussion post and/or attend events related to our course for extra credit. Information is on Canvas. Late Work This course moves at a rapid pace. Deadlines are in place to help you move through the course without falling behind and for this reason, work is expected on the due dates listed on this syllabus. If you need an extension, please contact me as soon as you can so we can arrange a plan for you to submit work past its deadline. Plagiarism Academic integrity requires the acknowledgement and proper citation of all intellectual production that has inspired your work. Plagiarism, or the failure to adhere to academic integrity, will not be tolerated and can have serious academic consequences (including but not limited to failing the course and academic suspension or expulsion). You are responsible for being familiar with the university’s policy on plagiarism: http://academicintegrity.rutgers.edu/. By submitting any assignment, you are automatically certifying that you have neither received nor given any unauthorized assistance. Please be familiar with this Rutgers page about plagiarism and this guide from the Rutgers Libraries on how to document your research. Protecting Intellectual Property Almost all original work is the intellectual property of its authors. These works may include syllabi, lecture slides, recorded lectures, homework problems, exams, and other materials, in either printed or electronic form. The authors may hold copyrights in these works, which are protected by U.S. statutes. Copying this work or posting it online without the permission of the author may violate the author’s rights. More importantly, these works are the product of the author’s efforts; respect for these efforts and for the author’s intellectual property rights is an important value that members of the university community take seriously. For more instructions on copyright protections at Rutgers University, please refer to the Rutgers Libraries. Accommodations and Accessibility Students who need any accommodations should notify me as soon as possible. In order to officially receive consideration for accommodations, students must follow the procedures outlined at https://ods.rutgers.edu/students/getting-registered. Full disability policies and procedures are at https://ods.rutgers.edu/. If for any reason you are not able to go through the office of disability services but still need accommodations, please speak to me as soon as possible. Student Wellness Services Counseling, ADAP & Psychiatric Services (CAPS) (848) 932-7884 / 17 Senior Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901 CAPS is a University mental health support service that includes counseling, alcohol and other drug assistance, and psychiatric services staffed by a team of professionals within Rutgers Health services to support students’ efforts to succeed at Rutgers University. CAPS offers a variety of services that include: individual therapy, group therapy and workshops, crisis intervention, referral to specialists in the community, and consultation and collaboration with campus partners. Crisis Intervention: http://health.rutgers.edu/medical-counselingservices/counseling/crisis-intervention/ Report a Concern: http://health.rutgers.edu/do-something-to-help/ Violence Prevention & Victim Assistance (VPVA) (848) 932-1181 / 3 Bartlett Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901 The Office for Violence Prevention and Victim Assistance provides confidential crisis intervention, counseling and advocacy for victims of sexual and relationship violence and stalking to students, staff and faculty. To reach staff during office hours when the university is open or to reach an advocate after hours, call 848-932-1181. Disability Services (848) 445-6800 / Lucy Stone Hall, Suite A145, Livingston Campus, 54 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ 08854 Rutgers University welcomes students with disabilities into all of the University's educational programs. In order to receive consideration for reasonable accommodations, a student with a disability must contact the appropriate disability services office at the campus where you are officially enrolled, participate in an intake interview, and provide documentation: https://ods.rutgers.edu/students/documentation-guidelines. If the documentation supports your request for reasonable accommodations, your campus’s disability services office will provide you with a Letter of Accommodations. Please share this letter with your instructors and discuss the accommodations with them as early in your courses as possible. To begin this process, please complete the Registration form on the ODS web site at: https://ods.rutgers.edu/students/registration-form. For a comprehensive list of student support and resources, please see the Canvas site. Additional Information • • • • • • For all kinds of email communication, give me at least 48 hours to respond before sending a follow-up email. I reserve the right to not reply on weekends and holidays (this means that if you send me an email on a Friday, I might not reply until Tuesday). If you are unsatisfied with your grade, wait at least 24 hours from the time you first see your grade to contact me. This is so you can take some time to ponder how you are going to bring up your thoughts calmly and kindly. Get through the initial upset and proceed with respect. Online instruction can pose a range of challenges for students if they are required to keep their camera on. For this reason, you are not required to have your camera on during class meetings. If you plan to have your camera off, please set a profile picture. If you plan to have your camera on and use a virtual background, please use one that is not distracting (i.e., no moving image, no bright colors/patterns). To help keep background noise to a minimum, mute your microphone when you are not speaking during Zoom meetings. In an attempt to alleviate Zoom fatigue, there will be several classes when we will not meet. You are to use this time to read and/or work on the workshops and papers. Students are urged, though not required, to attend all class meetings. All class recordings will be made available through Box. If you do not come to class, you are responsible with catching up with any information given during class time through the lecture recordings. Week-by-Week Schedule WEEK 1––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Tuesday, January 19: Introduction • No required texts. Thursday, January 21: Post/Colonial Identity • Edouard Glissant, “Creolisation and the Americas” (pp. 11-20) • • Hau Hsu, “Stuart Hall and the Rise of Cultural Studies” (The New Yorker) Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora” (pp. 222-237) Sunday, January 24: Discussion due. WEEK 2––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Tuesday, January 25: Creating a Caribbean Reality • • • Gabriel García Márquez Nobel Lecture (5 pp.) Derek Walcott Nobel Lecture (261-267) Stuart Hall, “Negotiating Caribbean Identities” (pp. 3-14) Thursday, January 28: Creating a Caribbean Reality (cont.) • • • • Edouard Glissant, “The Unknown, the Uncertain,” Caribbean Discourse (pp. 13-26) Edouard Glissant, “History––Histories––Stories,” Caribbean Discourse (ONLY pp. 6167) Abdul JanMohamed, “The Economy of the Manichean Allegory” (6 pp.) Wilson Harris, “Limbo Gateway” (5 pp.) Sunday, January 31: Discussion due. WEEK 3–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Tuesday, February 2: The Atlantic Ocean Bleeds into the Caribbean Sea • • • NourbeSe Philip, “Notanda,” Zong! (pp. 189-207) Gregson v. Gilbert court case (2 pp.) NourbeSe Philip, “Os,” Zong! (pp. 3-45) (pay particular attention to Zong # 4, Zong # 5, Zong # 11, Zong # 12, Zong # 19, and Zong # 24) Thursday, February 4: The Horror of the Deed, the Injustice of the Deed • Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place (pp. 3-37) Sunday, February 7: Creative Exercise due. WEEK 4––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Tuesday, February 9: The Horror of the Deed, the Injustice of the Deed (cont) • Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place (38-81) Thursday, February 11: Verbal Crippling • • Michael Dash. “Introduction.” Caribbean Discourse. pp. xx-xxviii Frantz Fanon, “The Black Man and Language” (16 pp.) Sunday, February 14: Discussion due. WEEK 5–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Tuesday, February 16: Verbal Crippling (cont) • NourbeSe Philip, She Tries Her Tongue; Her Silence Softly Breaks (selections) Thursday, February 18: Workshop (no class meeting) • • Video Lecture: How to Write about Literature Work on paper Sunday, February 21: Paper 1 due. WEEK 6–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Tuesday, February 23: Violence • • • Pramond Nayar, “On Violence I: The Destruction of the Self,” Frantz Fanon (pp. 69-82) Pramond Nayar, “On Violence II: The Reconstruction of Selfhood,” Frantz Fanon (pp. 83-93) American Gods Nancy monologue (online) Thursday, February 25: Decolonialization • • • • Nelson Maldonado-Torres, “Colonialism, Neocolonial, Internal Colonialism, the Postcolonial, Coloniality, and Decoloniality,” Critical Terms in Latin American Thought (pp. 67-78) Pramond Nayar, “Decolonization,” Frantz Fanon (pp. 95-108) Subcomandante Marcos and the Zapatistas, “Old Antonio Dreams” Jose Martí, “Our America” (pp. 378-383) Sunday, February 28: Discussion due. WEEK 7––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Tuesday, March 2: No class. Reading Day Thursday, March 4: The Haitian Revolution • Alejo Carpentier, The Kingdom of this World, Part I and Part II Sunday, March 7: Discussion due. WEEK 8–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Tuesday, March 9: No class. Reading Day Thursday, March 11: The Haitian Revolution (cont) • Alejo Carpentier, The Kingdom of this World, Part III and Part IV Because of Spring Break, the discussion post that would normally be due on Sunday, March 14 will be due on Monday, March 22 SPRING BREAK WEEK 9–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Tuesday, March 23: Workshop (No class meeting) • • Individual Workshop: Using evidence Workshop assignment due. Thursday, March 25: Peer Review • • Peer Review: Rough Drafts Rough Draft due by noon. Sunday, March 28: Paper 2 Due. WEEK 10–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Tuesday, March 30: Decolonial Consciousness • • • Andrea Pitts, “Gloria Anzaldúa’s Autohistoria-teoría as an Epistemology of SelfKnowledge/Ignorance” (pp. 352-366) Gloria Anzaldúa, “The Homeland, Aztlán/El otro México” (pp. 1-13) Gloria Anzaldúa, “La herencia de Coatlicue,” Borderlands/La Frontera (pp. 41-51) Thursday, April 1: Embodied Theorizing • • • Gloria Anzaldúa, “La conciencia de la mestiza,” Borderlands/La Frontera (pp. 77-91) Gloria Anzaldúa, “Tlilli, Tlapalli,” Borderlands/La Frontera (pp. 65-75) Gloria Anzaldúa, “Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to 3rd World Women Writers” (pp. 165-173) Sunday, April 4: Creative Exercise due. WEEK 11–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Tuesday, April 6: Postcolonial Interpretations • • • • Alejo Carpentier, “Prologue,” The Kingdom of this World (5 pp.) Daniel Salvo, “The First Peruvian in Space” (pp. 59-61) Gabriel García Márquez, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” (4 pp.) (Optional) Gabriel García Márquez, “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” (4 pp.) Thursday, April 8: Spitting English and Chewing Spanish • • Josefina Baez, Dominicanish Richard Blanco, “América” Sunday, April 11: Discussion post due. WEEK 12––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Tuesday, April 13: Workshop (No class meeting) • • Individual Workshop: Introductions and Conclusions Workshop assignment due. Thursday, April 15: Workshop • • Peer review: Rough Drafts Rough draft due by noon. Sunday, April 18: Paper 3 Due. WEEK 13––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Tuesday, April 20- Thursday, April 22: Spectral Pasts (Asynchronous Week) • • Richard Blanco, “El Ratoncito Miguel” Ana Menéndez, “Her Mother’s House” Sunday, April 25: Discussion due. WEEK 14–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Tuesday, April 27: Workshop (No class meeting) • • Workshop: Outlines Workshop assignment due. Thursday, April 29: Workshop • • Workshop: Rough Draft Rough draft due by noon. Final essay due: Thursday, May 6. Note: This syllabus is subject to change for pedagogical or other reasons. The most up-to-date syllabus will always be the one on the Canvas home page. The image that appears on this syllabus is Teresita Fernandez's Island Universe (2019) and has been taken from the New York Times.