Climate Change and Latin American Naturecultures

In this course, we will explore fundamental concepts of the environmental humanities as they relate to the inseparable natural and cultural phenomena that constitute climate change in Latin America. The course will be structured around different ecological themes, such as energy and extractive industries, the Amazon, the desert, the Andes, the Caribbean, and urban habitats, that will be examined through twentieth- and twenty-first-century Latin American novels, films, short stories, and songs. Possible authors include Gloria Anzaldúa, Macarena Gómez-Barris, Gabriel García Márquez, and José Eustasio Rivera. We will consider the ethics and politics of climate change in the Americas, how the methodologies of literary and decolonial studies can generate insights into contemporary climate change impacts in Latin America, and what role culture has in a period defined by chronic and slow-moving environmental crisis and recovery. Taught in Spanish.