Latin American Film, Literature & Visual Culture

Film and literature and their successful symbiosis have contributed to the understanding of culture as well as national identities. In this era where communication is increasingly more visual, films based on literature, engage in a dialogue that remains as inextricable as it is fruitful, making film adaptation one of the most accessible forms of cultural diffusion. This interdisciplinary course seeks to study that strong connection mostly in the Twentieth Century. Drawing on novels, plays, and short stories and using a comparative perspective, we will review and analyze the complexity and richness of the Latin American Cultures. By examining film and literature together, we will also discuss the role of the arts in society, and the social forces shaping the Latin American Societies and their audiences. The corpus of films selected will not only provide the framework to study the social, and historical, but also we will examine the technique of each format and consider what happens when short stories, novels, or plays are adapted into film language; if we approach film and literary texts differently; and how we view and read these texts in terms of representation. We will also consider national and transnational aspects in the film industry, the effects of globalization upon the cultural and economic aspects of film. By the end of the course, students will sharpen appreciation of major works of cinema and of literary narrative and broaden their knowledge about Latin America.

The University of Belgrano utilizes a 45-minute contact hour whereas the United States higher education system utilizes a 50-minute contact hour. All University of Belgrano courses represent the 45 contact hour amount and an estimated US credit calculation based on the contact hours. Each University of Belgrano transcript will include the number of hours per week and the weeks in the semester, so US universities may calculate the appropriate number of US credits for students.