Description

This advanced module considers how artists, filmmakers and writers from Latin America have experimented with institutional and popular Catholicism in response to periods of intense political and social upheaval. While the Catholic Church may appear to be monolithic and immutable, students will examine some of the ways in which Catholic aesthetics, theology, doctrine and social teaching have been appropriated, contested, distorted and revolutionized in twentieth- and twenty-first-century Latin American cultural production. By studying select works of poetry, prose, theatre, film and visual art, students will develop close-reading and analytical skills in order to explore the relationship between a range of divergent, hybrid Catholicisms and contemporary culture. To meet these requirements, students will study artistic engagements with some of the following topics: Afro-Caribbean syncretism and theories of transculturation; Andean Catholicisms and modernity; Liberation Theology and revolutionary movements; the Catholic Church and dictatorship; popular religiosity and the emergence of extreme narco-violence; Catholicism, sex and gender. Specific primary texts studied may vary from year to year. While all texts will be studied in an intellectual and sympathetic manner, students should note that certain texts may prove to be distressing, due to their violent content, and/or challenging to those of firm religious beliefs.

 

Preparatory Reading:

Students should watch the film La cruz del sur (1991) by Patricio Guzmán, Available at:

https://gloria.tv/video/Jp4deye1SAPz2yC3UiDi1SHor

Students should also read chapters 11-14, 21, 24, 26, 31, 34, 38, and 39 of:

Garrard-Burnett, Virginia, Paul Freston, and Stephen C. Dove eds., The Cambridge History of Religions in Latin America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016) Especially. Available online through the UCL Library.

Some additional secondary reading:

Boff, Clodovis and Leonardo Boff, Introducing Liberation Theology (Tunbridge Wells: Burns and Oates, 1987)

Klaiber, Jeffrey L., The Church, Dictatorships, and Democracy in Latin America (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2009)

Lomnitz, Claudio, Death and the Idea of Mexico (New York: Zone Books, 2005). Especially the conclusion: ‘Conclusion: The Untamable One’, pp.483-496

Marzal, Manuel, ‘Una hipotesis sobre la aculturacion religiosa andina’, Revista de la Universidad Catolica, 2, pp.95-131

 

Set Texts:

Select stories from:

Lydia Cabrera, Cuentos negros de Cuba (La Habana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1995)

Alejo Carpentier, Guerra del tiempo y otros relatos (Madrid: Alianza, 1998)

José María Arguedas, El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo (Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada, 1971)

Claudia Llosa, Madeinusa (2005) – FILM

 

Select poems and texts from:

Ernesto Cardenal, Salmos (Madrid: Trotta, 1998)

Ernesto Cardenal, Vida en el amor (Ediciones Sígueme: Salamanca, 1987)

Ernesto Cardenal, La santidad de la revolución (Ediciones Sígueme: Salamanca, 1976)

León Ferrari, select artworks primarily from the series Nunca más, Relecturas de la Biblia, and Brailles (1980s-2010s)

Patricio Guzmán, Nostalgia de la luz (2010) – FILM

Fernando Vallejo, La Virgen de los sicarios (Madrid: Alfaguara, 2002)

Homero Aridjis, La Santa Muerte: sexteto del amor, las mujeres, los perros y la muerte (México D.F.: Alfaguara, 2004)

Santiago Loza, ‘La mujer puerca’ in Textos reunidos (Buenos Aires: Biblos, 2014)

Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, La virgen cabeza (Buenos Aires: Eterna Cadencia Editora, 2009)