MODERN AND MEDIEVAL LANGUAGES TRIPOS Part II
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Monday 31 May 2010 1.30 to 4.30
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Paper Sp. 13
CONTEMPORARY LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE
Answer THREE questions, AT LEAST ONE from each section. ONE OR MORE answers must contain substantial discussion of literature.
Candidates for this paper may NOT draw substantially on material from their dissertations or material which they have used or intend to use in another scheduled paper. Candidates may NOT draw substantially on the same material in more than one question on the same paper.
STATIONERY REQUIREMENTS
20 Page Answer Book x 1
Rough work pad
Tags
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You may not start to read the questions printed on the subsequent pages of this question paper until instructed that you may do so by the Invigilator
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SECTION A
Topics in Contemporary Latin-American Culture
1 ‘In its fixation on the unruliness of the written word, the novela de la dictadura dissolves the fiction of the sovereign “yo” and the fantasy of autonomous rule.’ Discuss with reference to the work of TWO OR MORE writers.
2 ‘The contemporary megacity prompts an implosion of perspective. No longer the all-seeing eye, the writer or filmmaker must learn to negotiate the risks and dangers of urban life, to forge a vision where blindness prevails.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE urban narratives OR films OR BOTH.
3 ‘Postmodern historical fiction asks its readers to question the processes by which we represent our selves and our world to ourselves, and to become aware of the means by which we make sense of and construct order out of experience in our particular culture.’ Discuss with reference to the work of TWO OR MORE writers.
4 ‘Los acontecimientos traumáticos conllevan grietas en la capacidad narrativa, huecos en la memoria. Faltan las palabras, faltan los recuerdos. La memoria queda desarticulada y sólo aparecen huellas dolorosas, patologías y silencios.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE films of the post-dictatorship period in Argentina.
5 ‘La narrativa de las mujeres sería una suerte de hemorragia menstrual derivada de su propio yo, incapaz, todavía, de proyectar su objetividad en una obra de carácter simbólico’ (Peri Rossi). Discuss this characterization with reference to narrative works by any TWO OR MORE women writers.
6 ‘Literature that engages with popular culture points to the commodification of “lo popular” as referent, whilst at the same time investing in this commodified otherness as a way of ensuring its own saleability.’ Discuss with reference to the work of TWO OR MORE writers.
7 ‘Lo queer se encuentra en una actitud de radical cuestionamiento de las jerarquías sociales, partiendo de, pero no limitándose a, la heteronormatividad.’ Discuss with reference to texts by TWO OR MORE writers of queer fiction.
8 ‘In the testimonio, truth has less to do with factual veracity than with fidelity to collective causes: it is more about “remaining true” to shared dreams and beliefs than about “telling the truth” as such.’ Discuss with reference to the work of TWO OR MORE writers.
9 ‘The fall of the lettered city brings with it the foundering of utopian projects; yet this is far from being a negative scenario, for something is still alive among the rubble if only an effort of will.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE writers.
10 ‘It seems easier for us today to imagine the thoroughgoing destruction of the earth and of nature than the breakdown of late capitalism. The contemporary interest in ecology and the natural environment is a prime example of this imaginative impasse.’ Discuss in relation to TWO OR MORE writers and artists.
11 ‘The contemporary detective novel is in the final analysis an investigation into a series of missing texts – not just the missing metatexts of the postmodern condition, but also a plethora of guiding narratives whose presence today can only be registered in the form of a loss.’ Discuss with reference to the work of TWO OR MORE writers.
12 ‘Uno de los más recurrentes esfuerzos discursivos de las producciones artísticas recientes radica en desmarcar el latinoamericanismo, en cruzar meridianos, reconfigurar mapas, romper el molde cultural del continente. En éstas la historia se deconstruye, entra en estado de turbulencia.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE artists.
SECTION B
Writers and Artists
13 ‘Puig’s novels both celebrate and denounce the formative powers of the culture industry, allowing us to think sexual and criminal deviance in new ways.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE texts.
14 ‘Las maneras de ser hombre o de ser mujer son tan múltiples y variadas que se puede admitir, sin error, que cada sexo encierra en sí mismo diversos sexos […] que por simplificación inexcusable llamamos varón o hembra’ (Peri Rossi). Discuss the relevance of this quotation to the narrative AND/OR poetry of Cristina Peri Rossi.
15 Analyse the importance of embedded narratives AND/OR the role of the media in TWO OR MORE texts by Ricardo Piglia.
16 ‘Somos manipulados por el lenguaje pero no tenemos otra forma de acceso. Así que hay que jugar con el gran manipulador y develar la multiplicidad de códigos. Mis novelas son búsquedas del conocimiento con el lenguaje y dentro del lenguaje’ (Valenzuela). How relevant is this quotation to your interpretation of the works of Luisa Valenzuela?
17 ‘Eltit’s work not only seeks to give voice to subaltern experience, but also envisions the fashioning of a new American subject out of the recycled detritus found on the margins of contemporary life.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE texts.
18 ‘Bolaño’s novels show the thesis of absolute evil to be the correlate of a de-ideologization of contemporary life.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE texts.
(TURN OVER
19 ‘César Aira’s work represents an assault not only on realism, but also on the very idea of representation.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE texts.
20 ‘Laura Restrepo’s work revisits the past to give voice to its silent witnesses whilst at the same time exposing the various levels of political, amorous and narrative desire that sustain such a project.’ Discuss.
21 ‘Whether in fiction or documentary, the characters of Solanas’s films are invariably reduced to stereotypes at the service of a satirical vision, leaving no space for character development or the serious exploration of intimate spaces.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE films.
22 ‘In some of Salcedo’s work absence is made palpable through the repudiation of the image and the installation of memory objects.’ Discuss with detailed reference to a range of works by Doris Salcedo.
23 ‘Las novelas de Fernando Vallejo oscilan entre un regionalismo perverso y un universalismo vacío. En este ambiguo espacio narrativo radica la clave de nuestra atormentada modernidad.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE texts.
END OF PAPER