Pasts Present, Presents Past: Reflections on Literature and History in Latin American writing
Pasts Present, Presents Past: Reflections on Literature and History in Latin American Writing
Co-ordinated by Prof. Rory O’Bryen, Lent Term, 2026
Venue: Seminar room 204, Alison Richard Building
Time: Mondays 10:00-12:00
Module description and reading
In this course, we look at foundational issues surrounding identity, power, history and representation as they are addressed and reworked over time within key literary genres in Latin American writing. Each session takes two texts broadly pertaining to a single ‘genre’ (in 2026 these will be: the colonial chronicle, the slave (auto-)biography, the national romance, indigenismo in its written and visual articulation, the diary, and the urban chronicle), and focuses on the transhistorical dialogue established between them as they engage with significant moments in Latin American history (conquest, nation- and state-formation, abolition, revolution and urbanization). This paring of contemporary and historical narratives – from the late twentieth century and from the colonial and Independence periods – invites multi-faceted reflection on the changing relationship between literature and history over time and aims to build up a systematic interrogation of the fetish of ‘the contemporary’ that determines much current literary inquiry.