Monsters, nightmares and dystopian imagination

Elective Course

This research-led course explores manifestations of social angst in Latin American literature and film from the last 60 years. There will be 3 major thematic units: 1) Approaching uncertainty and fear, 2) Nightmares and Monsters, 3) Dystopian futurities. Unit 1 will be centred on Mexican/Chilean film The Holy Mountain (1973) by Chilean Alejandro Jodorowski and two recent (2015 onwards) short stories from Argentinian horror writer Mariana Enriquez. Unit 2 will examine the avant-garde novel The Obscene Bird of Night (1970) by Chilean novelist José Donoso and will delve deep into the figure of the monstrous mythical creature, ‘el imbunche’ from the Mapuche cosmology. Students will watch and study Guatemala film La Llorona (2019) directed by Jayro Bustamante in order to engage with the Mayan tradition. Lastly, Unit 3 will pay attention to dystopian experiments, especially in the ecocritical novel The Unworthy (2023) by Argentinian Agustina Bazterrica, and Mexican/British film Children of Men (2006) by Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón. There will be theoretical approaches from various disciplines to study the works selected for each unit stemming from psychoanalysis, film studies, philosophy, and literary studies, to name a few.