Readings
Enrigue, Alvaro. Sudden Death
Mora, Nicolas Medina "Two Weeks in the Capital"
Ruizpalacios, Alfonso. Güeros
Possible Readings
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera
Tanaka, Kaj. "How To Love Sudden Death by Álvaro Enrigue (And Also How Not To)" Electric Literature
Saskya, Jain. "Reviews Sudden Death" Asympote
Felsenthal, Julia. "Married Mexican Álvaro Enrigue and Valeria Luiselli on Their Buzzy New Novels and New York Life" Vogue
Washington, John. "Is The US Border Patrol Committing Crimes Against Humanity." Guernica
"Child's Death Highlights Communication Barriers on the Border." Politico
Medina, Jennifer. "Anyone Speak K'iche or Mam? Immigration Courts Overwhelmed by Indigenous Languages." New York Times
Sewer, Adam. "A Crime by Any Name." The Atlantic.
Rivera, Astid. "Indigenous Due Process Anomalies." El Universal
Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Trans. Quinton Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell
Estafania, Joaquin. “La Escuela de Chicago florece en el autoritarismo.” El Pais
Montalbano, William. "Sixtus V. Dynamic Rebuilder of Rome." Los Angeles Times
Hugh. Thomas. Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes and the Fall of Old Mexico
Tracey, Caroline. "La Malinche Chicana." Nexos
Rhoads, Robert A. and Liliana Mina. "The Student Strike at the National Autonomous University of Mexico: A Political Analysis."
Altenberg, Tilman. “Bolaño against Babel: Multilingualism, Translation and Narration in 2666, ‘La parte de los criticos’”
De Bondt. Crees. "The Apollo and Hyacinth Tennis Theme in Baroque Poetry."
Enrigue, Alvaro. "Mexico's Marxist Prophet." The Paris Review
Bowles, David. "Aztlan Affirmed, Part I: Pictoiral Sources." Medium
"The BIG U: BIG's New York City Vision for "Rebuild by Design"" Archdaily
Powell, Nick. "‘Ike Dike’ creator says proposed coastal barrier must be altered to satisfy Galveston, Bolivar residents" Houston Chronicle
Class Overview
You will write one essay of more than six pages (20%) and do two of the four major projects* (20% each). You will also (1) keep a journal with questions prompted by the text or the weekly theme (10%), (2) participate in class discussion (20%) and add at least five citations and two examples of notetaking on the google doc (10%).
First Four Weeks
"Later that night, as you try to fall asleep in the polluted heat of this awful rainless season, you think of a story a friend told you about a young situationist architect from Valparaiso. She would wander aimlessly among the hills of the city, carefully noting each turn that she made, and then make maps, immense maps the size of walls, marking her routes with different colors of string. At significant points, wherever the lines intersected, she pinned photographs, newspaper clippings, note cards scribbled with street signs, graffiti, overheard conversations." Nicolas Medina Mora.
You will make a physical map that takes up three dimensions and is tactile. Unlike the cosmopolitanist Mora you will make a map that focuses on liminal or in-between spaces. First you must write a paper over what makes your space--which may be physical or linguistic, social or otherwise--liminal. If I approve, you will make a map that describes multiple modes.
Week 1
Read "Two Weeks in the Capital"
Watch Güeros
Week 2
Theme: Poioumenon
Begin Sudden Death, To P. 28
*There are two projects which would account for the two projects due throughout the semester. One (1) would be to count every fact that is stated in the text and describe if it is historically supported, unsupported, or clearly invented. The second (2) would be to reverse translate "A Really Lousy Meeting of Two Worlds" into Spanish, Mexican Spanish or Spanglish, (2.2) to write a two page paper on the differences between the reverse translation and the original text, and (2.3) attempt (and possibly fail) to find the sources (the Chroniclers Enrigue refers to) for the gifts given by Moctezuma's emissaries.
Week 3
Theme: Propaganda or Metatextuality
SD to P. 58
Week 4
Possible text: Orson Welles' F for Fake
Theme: Forgery
SD to P. 87
Week 5
Theme: Urban Design
SD to P. 118
Presentations of Maps
"In the year 1767, the French encyclopaedist François Alexandre de Garsault...still distinguished between two kinds of tennis balls: proper balls, made of batting and thread and covered with stitched white cloth, and éteufs , or skin balls—which in Spanish were called pellas well into the seventeenth century—made of lumps of lard, flour, and hair." Alvaro Enrigue
Second Project: Choose one of these two similar projects.
(1) You will make hair balls by the process described above. For the artistic or crafty types. (While tennis balls were really made this way for centuries, there is no evidence any of Bolyen's hair became part of a ball--a large portion of the novel which is invented.)
(2) You will research and reconstruct either an medieval European or indigenous Mesoamerican ball game and will present it to the class by playing it. Class will be held on a surface conducive to the sport. (Clothes I might note will be of the modern variety.)
Week 6
Theme: Language, Translation and Betrayal
SD. to P. 142
Week 7
Theme: Sport
SD to P. 171
Week 8
SD to P. 202
Presentation of Sport
Third Project: In 1501, Tenochtitlan--the largest city in the wold by some measures-- was devestated by flood. It was rebuilt even more grandly; however, the date marks one of the many incidents of great cities being destroyed by "natural" disasters.
You will either (1) Build a diorama of Tenochtitlan which demonstrates the flood of Lake Texcoco.
(2) Build a diorama of a perspective anti-climate change engineering. The "Ike Dike" in Houston or the "Big U" in New York City come to mind. Or build a diorama of cities that currently sit below sea level or prone to flooding, focusing on anti-flooding technology, dams, sewage and water technology.
Week 9
Theme: Utopia
SD to P. 228
Week 10
Theme: Cloth, International Trade and Imperialism
SD to P. 248
Week 11
Theme: Religion
SD to end
Week 12
Presentations of models.
Fourth Project: Read Utopia by Thomas More. Write a satirical short story (over five thousand words) in which you demonstrate the repercussions of modern day political decisions, a la More.
Week 13
Presentations of the historical records by the students. Project 5.1
Week 14
Readings of the translations and presentations of modus operandi.
Week 15
Readings of the various Utopias.