Unit information: From Frontiers to Football: Nations in Latin America in 2012/13

Unit name	From Frontiers to Football: Nations in Latin America
Unit code	HISP20070
Credit points	20
Level of study	I/5
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
Unit director	Professor. Brown
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	none
Co-requisites	none
School/department	Department of Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

The course uses the theme of national identity to examine the profound changes in Latin America culture and society over the last two centuries. Beginning with a discussion of elite attempts to 'write the nation' in the first half of the nineteenth-century, it moves on to examine the 'civilisation-barbarism' debate and civil wars of the mid-to-late-nineteenth century, and the attempts of turn-of-the-century intellectuals to found a strong idea of the nation-state. It considers how boom novelists attempted to recast the nation in the 1950s and 1960s, and how by the end of the twentieth-century, football, telenovelas, music and migration were just as important to ideas of national identity as 'national' culture, high art and disputes over geographical frontiers.

Aims:

• To introduce students to a significant body of knowledge of a complexity appropriate to second year level. The content matter will normally include one or more of the following: literature; social, cultural or political history; linguistics; cultural studies; film, television or other media.

• To facilitate students’ engagement with a body of literature, including secondary literature, texts, including in non-print media, primary sources and ideas as a basis for their own analysis and development. Normally many or most of these sources will be in a language other than English and will enhance the development of their linguistic skills.

• To develop further skills of synthesis, analysis and independent research, building on the skills acquired in units at level C.

• Some options may prepare students for the experience of the Year Abroad.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Successful students will:

• be knowledgeable about a significant cultural, historical or linguistic subject related to the language they are studying;

• be skilled in the selection and synthesis of relevant material;

• be able to evaluate and analyse relevant material from a significant body of source materials, usually in a foreign language, at a high level;

• be able to respond to questions or problems by presenting their independent judgements in an appropriate style and at an high level of complexity;

• be able to transfer these skills to other working environments, including study at a foreign university and on work placements during the year abroad.

Teaching Information

Normally one lecture hour and one seminar hour per week across one teaching block (22 contact hours), often with student presentations. In units with a smaller number of students the lecture hour may be replaced by a second seminar or a workshop. Units involving film may require students to view films outside the timetabled contact hours.

Assessment Information

One of the following:

a) A written assignment of 2000 words and a two hour exam (50% each)

b) A written assignment of 2000 words (25%) and a three hour exam (75%)

c) Two written assignments of 2000 words (50% each)

d) One written assignment of 4000 words

e) One oral presentation (25%) and one written assignment of 2500 words (75%)

Reading and References

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (1983)

John Charles Chasteen, Born in Blood and Fire (2001)

Jorge Icaza, Huasipungo (1934)

Eduardo Galeano, El fútbol a sol y sombra (1994)

Fernando Vallejo, La virgen de los sicaros (1994)