SPAN 316 Violence in Latin American Fiction and Film

Violence is a tragic reality in Latin America and film-makers and novelists from Latin America include representations of violence in novels films and short-stories that also depict the history of Marxist insurgency groups right-wing dictatorships paramilitary activity ongoing rural and urban poverty and the vicissitudes of the drug-trade. Key spaces and moments in Latin America's recent histories of violence include Peru's Shining Path guerrilla movement Chile's jails under Pinochet the rise of the Colombian drug cartels the mammoth Brazilian favelas (slums) and the bloodshed of the wars in Central America. Through a study of Nobel-Prize winning author Mario Vargas Llosa popular novelist Isabel Allende critically acclaimed Brazilian cinema novo Colombian novelist Fernando Vallejo and cinematic adaptations of his work and selected passages from The Autobiography of Rigoberta Menchu this course will examine questions regarding the ethical strategic and po! litical uses of violence in literature and film.