Human Rights and Cultural Representations

 

Instruction in English

 

The cultural and human responses to the violence of genocide politics in the Holocaust will serve as an excellent start point to analyze political repression in Latin America (focus on Guatemala, Uruguay, Argentina and Chile). Central to the theoretical and critical corpus of the course, is the multidisciplinary work of scholars (e.g. Soshana Feldman, Cathy Caruth, Dominick La Capra, Astrid Erll, Jean Amery, Giorgio Agamben). This course discusses not only the impact of trauma, the legacy of memory and the role of the national states during dictatorships in these countries, but also how to make these experiences productive to reconstruct selves and societies. The corpus includes literature, testimonies, documentary and feature film, art, oral history, journalism, poem and popular music by such authors as FrenchJewish Claude Lanzmann, Chilean film director Patricio Guzmán, documentaries by children of the argentine disappeared and literatura by novelist Laura Alcoba.

 

Following UB policies, students need a minimum of 75% of attendance to be in good standing for the final exam. Sliding the ID card is the only way to track attendance. Students are expected to do close readings, participate significantly in class and do one oral presentation. Requirements also include a mid term and final in-class exams. The exams will have essay format and students will be allowed to use class material in order to answer exam questions.Any student caught plagiarizing will be given a "no credit" for all courses taken during the semester.

 

 

Participation 20%

Mid-Term Exam 20%

Oral Presentation (1) 30%

FinalExam 30%

 

Course presentation. Characteristics, expectations and goals for the class.

Introduction to some critical and theoretical issues on memory and testimony.

The frame of the testimony - On the concept of languages and representation.

Primary source, Claude Lanzmann´s Shoa (Fragment-projection in class)

 

Cultural artifacts of the Shoa

Jean Amery, At the mind´s limits: contemplations by a survivor on Auschwitz and its realities. "At the mind´s limits" (1-20)

 

Memory in Culture Chapter 6 "Literature as a Medium of cultural Memory" (144-172)

 

Unclaimed Experience, Trauma, Narrative and History. "The wound and the voice" (1-9)

 

Introducing Latin America: blood and fire

 

A brief history of the dictatorhips in the Southern Cone. Uruguay: 1972, Chile: 1973, Argentina: 1976

 

Chile: Patricio Guzmán, The Battle of Chile (documentary, 1972-1979.Fragments)

 

Chile

 

Testimonial source: Arce, Luz. Inferno, a Story of Terror and Survival Patricio Guzmán, Chile the Obstinate Memory (documentary, 1997)

 

Testimonial source: Arce, Luz. Inferno, a Story of Terror and Survival

 

Patricio Guzmán, Nostalgia for the Light (documentary, 2010)

 

Chile: artifacts of memory.

 

Raúl Zurita´s poetry Purgatory (in class reading) and Alfredo Jaar (artist, architect, sculptor)

 

Conclusions on Chile.

 

Argentina: 1976-1983) Images of disaster/ An unimagined catastrophe

 

The conditions of a testimony: Pablo Díaz, survivor of the Night of the Pencils, September 16 1976 (La Noche de los Lápices)

 

Feitlowitz, Marguerite. A lexicon of terror: Argentina and the legacies of torture.Introduction (3-20)

 

Alicia Partnoy.The Little School, Tales of Disappearance and Survival (excerpts)

 

Review for mid-term exam

Mid-Term Exam

 

Feitlowitz, Marguerite. A lexicon of terror: Argentina and the legacies of torture. Chapter 1 (21-72)

 

Nora Strejilevich. A single, numberless death (excerpts)

 

The legacies of terror, the blood of memory. HIJOS: sons and daughters of the disappeared.

 

(Re) constructing identity(ies)

 

The Rabbit House (novel, 2009) Laura Alcoba

 

The Rabbit House (novel, 2009) Laura Alcoba - Conclusions

 

The gaze that reconstructs what has been lost: children of the disappeared as movie directors.

 

Mourning and social responsabilities/complicities

 

M (2007) Nicolás Prividera

 

About Justice and Memory

 

Juan José Campanella, Secret of their eyes (2009)

 

Jean Amery, At the mind´s limits: contemplations by a survivor on Auschwitz and its realities.

 

"Resentments" (62-81) and review for the final exam

 

Review for Final Exam

 

Final Exam

SIGNATURE OF FINAL GRADE SHEET IS MANDATORY