Literatures of the Americas before 1492

This course surveys the literatures of the Americas before the arrival of the Spanish in 1492. Proceeding from Inca political histories to Aztec poetry and philosophy to Ojibwe sacred narratives, this course offers students the opportunity to study and discuss some of the most significant and challenging literary works of the pre-Columbian Americas. Reading closely and in translation, we will consider the difficult questions posed by these texts, such as: What is the world? What is the human’s place in it? How does one find that place? And how does one lose it? Because many of these texts were transcribed during the colonial period, we will trouble the boundary line of “1492” by examining issues of translation, tradition, periodization, hybridization, appropriation, and resurgence. Throughout the semester, we will also explore recent engagements with Indigenous literary and philosophical traditions by reading contemporary poetry and scholarship by Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, David Damrosch, Louise Erdrich, Jack D. Forbes, Edgar Garcia, Beth Piatote, Arthur Sze, Cecilia Vicuña, Gerald Vizenor, and Sylvia Wynter.