This course is about the relationship between culture, crime and punishment in Latin America. Over the year, we will analyse the ways literature, genre fiction, testimonial texts, documentaries and film reflect critically upon and to an extent also play a role in the construction of the fears, desires and anxieties which arise from the predicament of Latin America today. The materials are organised according to interlinking themes: the coloniality of the prison; the mimesis of violence; detective fiction; and the war on drugs. The module will cover topics such as the race, sexuality, and gender, the police and alternative forms of justice and punishment. The material will be considered in the socio-historical context of failed and corrupt state agencies, increasing economic inequality and neo-colonial power structures. Through the study of largely fictional cultural forms, we will reflect on the extent to which notions like crime, punishment and justice are themselves fictional categories and consider who benefits from the maintenance of such fictions. 

On completion of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate knowledge of the major ways in which crime is perceived and addressed in Latin American literary and audio-visual culture.
• Discuss why crime and criminalisation unevenly affect historically disadvantaged sectors
• Analyse the ethical consequences of the perpetuation of stereotypes in the construction of criminal subjects.
• Be conversant in key terms in Latin American Cultural Studies such as coloniality, hegemony, marginality, intersectionality and subalterity.
• Deploy ideas from theories of gender, violence, and cultural criminology.

The course will be delivered through a combination of lectures, seminars, workshops, study skills sessions and individual feedback. Students are expected to prepare readings and to contribute actively to discussions in seminars. Students will be required to work together on seminar presentations, which will be a chance to receive feedback from peers. 

Students will receive continuous feedback throughout the module. There will be revision sessions, essay writing in the final weeks of the module and guidance on how to write a critically informed essay will be given throughout the year. 

. Personal transferable skills

• Communicate ideas effectively and fluently, both orally and in writing
• Use communications and information technologies for the retrieval and presentation of information
• Work independently, demonstrating initiative, self-organisation and time-management
• Collaborate with others and contribute to the achievement of common goals

2. Generic intellectual skills

• Gather, organize and deploy evidence, data and information from a variety of sources
• Develop a reasoned argument, synthesize relevant information and exercise critical judgement
• Reflect on their own learning and make use of constructive feedback
• Manage their own learning self-critically

The generic skills will be manifest in variety of activities including literature searches on the internet, research and archival training, compilation of bibliographies for essays, and the presentation of written work.

Marked draft of long essay (30%): 800-word draft including introduction of long essay and analysis of one primary text

Coursework essay (70%): 2500-word long comparative essay on at least 2 primary texts

THE OPPORTUNITY FOR REASSESSMENT IN THIS MODULE:

In the event of failing the module, the student will be able to re-sit the failed element or elements in the summer resit period.

Possible topics of Lectures and Workshops: (Students are expected to attend all lectures and workshops).

Over the two semesters a number of topics will be addressed, organised loosely around the main module themes

1. War on drugs: the narconovela vs the narcocorrido
2. War on drugs: narco-cine and the ethical representation of gangsters
3. Detective fiction: femicide, economic and border violence
4. War on drugs: subaltern perspectives on the war
5. Detective fiction: the Zapatistas and community and indigenous justice

Further guided reading for student seminar presentations are available on Learning Central. Films will be viewed in supervised sessions and research resources made available in the Special Archives and Collectons (SCOLAR) in the ASSL library

Core Texts and Reading: Note students of Spanish wiil not be required to read Brazilian materials although they may write on them if they wish.

Detective fiction

‘Soplo de vida’ Luis Ospina (1999) (Film)

Los muertos incómodos by Subcomandante Marcos and Paco Ignacio Taibo II (2005) (novel) Available online

Máscaras by Leonardo Padura 1997

Estrella distante by Roberto Bolaño (1999)

Sangre en el desierto: las muertas de Juárez by Alicia Gaspar de Alba (2008) (novel)

War on drugs

 Bajo la sombra del guamúchil by the Colectiva hermanas en la sombra (2013) (poetry and testimonio Available on Learning Central)

Fiesta en la madriguera, Juan Pablo Villalobos

Narcos Netflix series available online

Pixote (Film) Hector Bebenco

General Texts

• Comaroff, Jean, and John L. Comaroff, Law and Disorder in the Postcolony (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008) (introduction)
• Foucault, Michel, and François Ewald, ‘Society Must Be Defended’: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975-1976 (St Martins Press, 2003)
• Foucault, Michel, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977) especially part 3 
• Salvatore, Ricardo Donato, and Carlos Aguirre, The Birth of the Penitentiary in Latin America: Essays on Criminology, Prison Reform, and Social Control, 1830-1940 (University of Texas Press, 1996) (introduction)
• Salvatore, Ricardo Donato, Carlos Aguirre, and Gilbert Michael Joseph, Crime and Punishment in Latin America: Law and Society Since Late Colonial Times (Duke University Press, 2001) (Introduction and chapters 12 and 14)
• Zaffaroni, Eugenio Raúl, En busca de las penas perdidas: Deslegitimación y dogmática jurídico-penal (Editorial Temis, 1998) (introduction)
• Franco, Jean, Cruel Modernity (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2013) (introduction) –VLE

Secondary reading

• Arguelles, Lourdes, and B. Ruby Rich, ‘Homosexuality, Homophobia, and Revolution: Notes toward an Understanding of the Cuban Lesbian and Gay Male Experience, Part I’, Signs, 9 (1984), 683–99 http://www.jstor.org/stable/3173617
• Bejel, Emilio, Gay Cuban Nation (University of Chicago Press, 2001)
• Epps, Brad, ‘Proper Conduct: Reinaldo Arenas, Fidel Castro, and the Politics of Homosexuality’, Journal of the History of Sexuality, 6 (1995), 231–83 (jstor)
• Fornet, Ambrosio, ‘El quinquenio gris: revisitando el término’, Criterios, La política cultural del período revolucionario: Memoria y reflexión, 2007 http://www.criterios.es/cicloquinqueniogris.htm 
• Fouz-Hernández, Santiago, ‘Javier Bardem: Body and Space.’ 2005
• Montaner, Carlos Alberto, ‘Comment on Arguelles and Rich’s “Homosexuality, Homophobia, and Revolution: Notes toward an Understanding of the Cuban Lesbian and Gay Male Experience, Part I”’, Signs, 11 (1986), 415–16
• Ocasio, Rafael, ‘Gays and the Cuban Revolution: The Case of Reinaldo Arenas’, Latin American Perspectives, 29 (2002), 78–98
• Rich, B. Ruby, and Lourdes Arguelles, ‘Homosexuality, Homophobia, and Revolution: Notes toward an Understanding of the Cuban Lesbian and Gay Male Experience, Part II’, Signs, 11 (1985), 120–36
• Vilaseca, David, ‘“ A Boy’s Best Friend Is His (M) Other”: Melancholia, Identification, and the Question of Masculine Psychosis in Reinaldo Arenas’s Antes Que Anochezca’, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, 8 (2002), 71–85
• ———, ‘On the Constitution and Uses of Homosexuality in Reinaldo Arenas’ Antes Que Anochezca’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 74 (1997), 351–72
• Wilkinson, Stephen, ‘Homosexuality and the Repression of Intellectuals in “Fresa Y Chocolate” and “Máscaras”’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, 18 (1999), 17–33
• Zayas, Manuel, Odd People Out (Seres extravagantes) (Frameline, 2004) file://localhost/<http/::search.alexanderstreet.com:view:work:1858314>[accessed 19 August 2014]
• Monsiváis, Carlos, ‘Ustedes que jamás han sido asesinados’, Revista de la Universidad de México, 1973 file://localhost/<http/::www.revistadelauniversidad.unam.mx:ojs_rum:index.php:rum:article:view:9828>
• Braham, Persephone, Crimes Against the State, Crimes Against Persons: Detective Fiction in Cuba and Mexico (University of Minnesota Press)
• Simpson, Amelia S., Detective Fiction from Latin America (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1990)
• Wilkinson, Stephen, Detective Fiction in Cuban Society and Culture (Oxford: P. Lang, 2006)
• Craig-Odders, Renée W., Jacky Collins, and Glen S. (Glen Steven) Close. 2006. Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian detective fiction (McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers) (pp 134- 161)
• Most, Glenn W., and William W. Stowe. 1983. The Poetics of Murder
• Arriola, Elvia R. ‘Accountability for Murder in the Maquiladoras: Linking Corporate Indifference to Gender Violence at the U.S.-Mexico Border.’ Making a Killing: Femicide, Free Trade, and La Frontera. Ed. Alicia Gaspar de Alba and Georgina Guzmán. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010. 25–61.
• Fregoso, Rosa-Linda, and Cynthia Bejarano, eds. Terrorizing Women: Feminicide in the Américas. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010.
• Anzaldúa, Gloria, and Ana Louise Keating, The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009)
• Franco, Jean, When Borders Become Frontiers: Mexico as the Backyard of Fortress America file://localhost/<http/::www.norlarnet.uio.no:events:presentations-and-recordings:recordings:2013:nolan-2013.html>
• González Rodríguez, Sergio. Huesos en el desierto. Barcelona: Anagram, 2002.
• Haggery, Erica, ‘Desert Blood: A Powerful Synthesis of Narrative Strategies’, UCB Comparative Literature Undergraduate Journal http://ucb-cluj.org/announcing-clujs-fall-2011-issue/vol-22-spring-2012-special-issue/2621-2/
• Mata, Irene, ‘Writing on the Walls: Deciphering Violence and Industrialization in Alicia Gaspar de Alba’s Desert Blood’
• Messmer, Marieta, ‘Transfrontera Crimes: Representations of the Juárez Femicides in Recent Fictional and Non-Fictional Accounts’ file://localhost/<http/::www.asjournal.org:archive:57:202.html>
• Segato, Rita Laura, ‘Território, Soberania E Crimes de Segundo Estado: A Escritura Nos Corpos Das Mulheres de Ciudad Juarez’, Revista Estudos Feministas, 13 (2005), 265–85 http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0104-026X2005000200003
• Hernández, Rosalva Aída, Rachel Sieder, and María Teresa Sierra, Justicias indígenas y estado: violencias contemporáneas (FLACSO Mexico / CIESAS, 2013)
• Beverley, John, Against Literature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993)
• ———, ‘The Margin at the Center’, in The Real Thing: Testimonial Discourse and Latin America, ed. by Georg M. Gugelberger (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996)
• ———, ‘What Happens When the Subaltern Speaks?’, in The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy, ed. by Arturo Arias and David Stoll (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001)
• Hern, Aida ‘Libertad Anticipada’ <https://www.academia.edu/4624966/Libertad_Anticipada> [accessed 4 September 2014]
• Polit Dueñas, Gabriela, Narrating Narcos: Culiacán and Medellín, 2013 http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780822979098?auth=0
• Davis, Angela Y. 2011. Are Prisons Obsolete? New York: Seven Stories Press.
• Dellacioppa, Kara Zugman, This Bridge Called Zapatismo: Building Alternative Political Cultures in Mexico City, Los Angeles, and Beyond (Lexington Books, 2009)
• London, Ross, Crime, Punishment, and Restorative Justice: From the Margins to the Mainstream (First Forum, 2011)
• http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2010/03/02/la-nueva-justicia-y-la-palabra-del-ezln/
• Postay, Maximiliano E., ed., ‘El abolicionismo penal en américa latina. imaginación no punitiva y militancia’, in El abolicionismo penal en América Latina Imaginación no punitiva y militancia (Rústica, 2012) (online)
• Abriendo Brecha: Las Mujeres de La Policía Comunitaria de Guerrero, 2014 file://localhost/<http/::www.youtube.com:watch%3Fv=l6c7iNPEgtM&feature=youtube_gdata_player>[accessed 2 September 2014]
• Close, Glen S., ‘Muertos Incómodos:  The Monologic Polyphony of Subcomandante Marcos’ file://localhost/<http/::www.lehman.cuny.edu:ciberletras:v15:close.html>
• Hayden, Tom, The Zapatista Reader, Book, Whole (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press/Nation Books, 2002) (Leeds library)
• Mora, Mariana. 2015. ‘The Politics of Justice: Zapatista Autonomy at the Margins of the Neoliberal Mexican State.’ Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies 10 (1): 87–106. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17442222.2015.1034439