Social movements and committed writing in Mexico since 1968

This module covers Mexican political history and committed writing since 1968. You will be presented with several important and politically defining events in Mexican contemporary history: the student movement of 1968, the guerrilla movements and the guerra sucia of the 1970s, the emergence of civil society after the earthquake of 1985, the Zapatista Uprising in 1994, and the Oaxaca Uprising in 2006.

These movements and events are explored through lectures on the political context of each movement, and through a combination of fictional and non-fictional texts from a variety of genres, such as testimonial literature, the documentary novel, and communiqués. You will be analysing texts written by the most important contemporary Mexican writers and public intellectuals such as Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Elena Poniatowska, Carlos Monsivais, Carlos Montemayor, and the Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.

This module is taught in English and all texts are available in English