Roberto Marquez

Curriculum Vitae

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Courses

Courses

Latin American Studies 170

Readings in Caribbean Literature

Features comparison of selected readings in the literature of the Spanish-, French-, and English-speaking Caribbean. Introduces the literary personality of the area, the transformation of the material of Caribbean social life into formally crafted and effective literary statement, and characteristic thematic and broader cultural preoccupations. Asks primary questions, such as "How does a novel - or poem - work?" and addresses similar issues related to forms of critical thinking and literary analysis. Readings and discussion in English.
Satisfies multicultural requirement; satisfies Humanities I-A requirement

Latin American Studies 175

Historical Emergence of the Caribbean

The historical development of the Caribbean from the Conquest to the mid-twentieth century. Patterns of conquest, colonization, and settlement by European nations; the rise of plantation-dominated society; the process of insular and interregional differentiation; the emergence of American imperial designs; and the rise of anticolonial, nationalist movements. Comparative reviews of the experience of Haiti, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico highlight broader regional trends and the ways the Caribbean's major language zones have responded to the challenge of their shared history.

Latin American Studies 277

Caribbean Women Writers

Comparative examination of contemporary women's writing in the Caribbean. Emphasis will be on their engagement with issues of history, cultural articulation, race, class, gender, and nationality, including exploration of their formal procedures, individual moods, regional particularity, and general impact as writers. Rosario Ferré, Ana Lydia Vega, Julia Alvarez, Edna Brodber, Maryse Condé, Simone Schwarz-Bart, Jean Rhys, Beryl Gilroy, and Rosa Guy are among those whose works we will review.

Latin American Studies 278

The Fiction of History: Historical Truth and Imaginative Invention in the Latin American Novel

Examination of the scope, reach, and limits of the Latin American variant of the historical novel as a narrative form. The variety of ways in which it fictionally strives to recreate "certain crisis in the personal destinies of a number of human beings [which] coincide and interweave with the determining context of an historical crisis," the historical vision each writer brings to the work, will be given particular attention.