Women Writers in Greater Mexico

Is there such a thing as women's writing, and how can it be defined and analyzed? What does being Mexican mean? Is Mexicanness a specific quality, a geography, or an identity, or does it take multiple forms? This course proposes a re-reading of the Mexican literary canon by questioning two of its main guiding principles: gender and nation. Problematizing these two notions—what is a woman and how does she write? What is Mexico and how is it defined?—we read and analyze novels, short stories, poetry, and essays written by female authors in parallel to texts inserted in less canonical material spaces such as newspapers, magazines, and comics. Redrawing the borders of what Américo Paredes called Greater Mexico, this approach presents a panoramic view of Mexican literary genealogies while questioning the very way in which these cultural traditions have come to be constituted, providing the students with tools and skills for textual analysis and interpretation.