This course focuses on Latin American literature and film of the last half-century in which characters and storytellers grapple with questions related to ethnographic theory and practice: To what degree can an outsider understand another culture and what degree of cultural immersion is necessary for the ethnographer to produce an “authentic” account? What epistemological and ethical challenges accompany the project of cultural translation? How does one avoid the pitfalls of ethnocentrism, primitivism, and othering? How much agency and control do ethnographic subjects have when it comes to how they are portrayed? What are the challenges of “auto-ethnography,” and what degree of mediation is inevitable? What roles do language and narrative conventions play in shaping intercultural encounters? We will work through these questions by way of close analysis of a wide range of texts, including testimonio, experimental fiction, and hybrid documentaries.

Fulfills Cross Cultural Analysis.