SN2122 Rebels, Revolution & Representation in Latin America

2018-19: Term 2 only
Convenor: James Clifford Kent

Assessment:

One group presentation (10%) and two essays each worth 30% and 60% of the mark respectively.

One formative piece (0%) [Seminar contribution: Essay workshop ]
First essay: 1500-2000 words
Second essay: 2000-2500 words
Presentation

Overview: 

On this course students will study the ways in which critical historical moments in Latin America have been represented visually in a global context. We will explore how social and political unrest in Latin America has been memorialised by both filmmakers and photographers, with the aim of re-thinking the ways in which Latin American imaginaries concerning the rebel and revolution have been constructed in film and photography. The course will be divided into four blocks in which we will focus on street photography, photojournalism, revolutionary cinemas and contemporary representations of the figure of the rebel in Latin America.

Library reading lists 

The photographic texts to be studied are as follows*:

Nacho López, 'Only the humble go to hell' (1954)  
Henri Cartier-Bresson, ‘An Island of Pleasure Gone Adrift’ (1963)
Susan Meiselas, Nicaragua, June 1978 - July 1979 (1981)

The films to be studied are as follows*:

La Hora de los Hornos (The Hour of the Furnaces, dir. Getino & Solanas, 1968) 
Salvador (dir. Stone, 1986)
María, llena eres de gracia (Maria Full of Grace, dir. Marston, 2004)

*Set texts are subject to change and will be confirmed before the first taught session of the academic year.

Key Bibliography:

Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida (London: Vintage, 1993)
Michael Chanan, Cuban Cinema (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004)­­­
Edmundo Desnoes, ‘Cuba Made Me So’ in Liz Wells, The Photography Reader (London: Routledge, 2003)
Stephen Hart, A Companion to Latin American Film (Rochester, NY: Tamesis, 2004)
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1961)
Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (2003)