Teaching

Welcome to this page, which contains further information about my English-language SPAN 2310 class being offered in the FALL of 2024 at UT Arlington.

FALL 2024 COURSE:
SPAN 2310: HISPANIC CULTURE IN THE WORLD

Instructor: Christopher Conway (conway@uta): 

CATALOG DESCRIPTION: An overview of the cultures of the Spanish-speaking world in a global context, examining cultural products such as food, art, music, popular culture, literature, and/or film. Taught in English.

SPECIFICS:

In this class we explore the autobiographies of real people who’s can teach us about “Hispanic Culture in the World.” For example, the earliest example of autobiographical writing we will be reading is a translation of Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s account of his experiences in the New World, which was originally published in 1542! Cabeza de Vaca’s memoir tells the remarkable story of how Native Americans captured him and three others, and how he and his companions were able to gain their freedom. We will use this memoir to understand the Spanish Conquest of the New World and the issue of mestizaje.

Another example of autobiographical writing we will read is the translation of the brief autobiography of Juan Francisco Manzano, a Cuban enslaved person who was also a successful poet. Manzano’s autobiography, first published in 1840, is only one of a few first-hand testimonies we have about the experience of slavery in the Spanish speaking world. Through Manzano’s story we can come to understand how the system of slavery worked in the Spanish Caribbean and gain insight into the inner world of an enslaved person, a man of dignity and deep creativity.

A Child of the Dark (1960) by Carolina Maria de Jesús is the 1950s diary of an Afro-Brazilian inhabitant of the favelas (slums) of urban Brazil. The author and her extraordinary diary were discovered by accident by a journalist in 1958. A Child of the Dark has become one of the most famous diaries in the history of world literature. This remarkable diary will introduce us to many issues, including the topic of Brazilian culture and identity.

We will read shorter works and watch films as well. We want to learn about “Hispanic Culture in the World” through autobiographical writing but also about what it means to represent the “truth” of someone’s life through writing. We will examine concepts and categories that will help us analyze autobiographical writing. In the process we will also do some autobiographical writing of our own!