Department of Spanish and Portuguese

The University of Texas at Austin

ILA 387/CL 382/LAS 382S: Unsovereign Custodies: Archival Fashioning in
Caribbean Literature and Media

Spring 2018 Professor César A. Salgado

Unique Number: 45310/33211/40250 cslgd@austin.utexas.edu
TH 1-4 BEN 1.118 Office/Hrs.: Ben 3.140 T 9:30-12:30

DESCRIPTION

What does literature and film have to say about the Caribbean as a field of study and the
creation of archives? Or about how archives contribute to monumentalize or revise
Caribbean history and define its agents? What forms of archiving emerge in relationship to
the literary and cinematic definition of the Caribbean as a colonial and postcolonial region?
How have subaltern Caribbean writers and filmmakers worked as custodians of cultural
memory when territorial archives and their access remain under imperial control?

How has the relationship between literature, culture, and archiving developed during the
struggle for political sovereignty and racial and social equality in the region? How are race,
slavery and post-slave society, class, gender and other subaltern categories implicated in
these issues? How have archival politics determined the relationship between literature,
film, and historiography in the Caribbean? Why is the Caribbean such an important
source of historical fictions?

This seminar will address such questions from contemporary archival theory while
reviewing genre forms in Hispanic Caribbean literature that occupy a hybrid space
between fiction and documentation, literature and history, fantasy and fact: historical
novels, memoirs, crónicas, epistolaries, leyendas, and testimonial narratives. We will look into
several "case studies" of archival fashioning--the "archivo del 1898," “archiving” slavery,
documenting the Cuban Revolution in several media formats (including film) -- to
investigate epistemological, esthetic, and hermeneutic issues in the definition of what is
Caribbean history and literature from the sixteenth century to the present.

The course will be organized around the figures and work of "subaltern custodians" or
“archivist-intellectuals”. These are either literary writers, historians, filmmakers or
intellectual figures that have been involved in, have inspired or questioned the production,
consolidation, or theorization of important Caribbean or Caribbean-related libraries,
archives, or collections as part of a struggle for new forms of sovereignty (national, personal,
racial, sexual, etc.). In the case of some intellectuals, these archives in question may be the
background for the production of works of historical fiction that we will discuss in class
Class Materials

Historical Fictions and Testimonies:

Antonio Benitez Rojo, El mar de las lentejas
Alejo Carpentier, El reino de este mundo
Leonora Sansay, Secret History, or the Horrors of Santo Domingo
William Luis, ed. Juan Francisco Manzano: Esclavo y poeta en la isla de Cuba
Anselmo Suárez y Romero, Francisco, el ingenio, o las delicias del campo
Alejandro Tapia y Rivera, La palma del cacique, Mis memorias
Adolfo de Hostos, Tras las huellas de Hostos
Edgardo Rodríguez Julía, La renuncia del héroe Baltasar
Rosario Ferré, Maldito amor
Julia Alvarez, In the Name of Salomé
Mayra Santos, Nuestra Señora de la Noche
Marta Aponte, La muerte feliz de William Carlos Williams

Films and documentaries:

Sergio Giral, El otro Francisco (1975) and film cycle on Caribbean slavery
Tomás Gutierrez Alea, Una pelea cubana contra los demonios (1972)
Francisco Serrano, Seva vive (2008)
Tito Román, El Antillano (2010)

Theory and critical reader:

Selections from works by or about Giorgio Agamben, Jacques Derrida, Antonio Benítez Rojo,
Jossé Luis González, Georg Lukács, Michael-Rolph Trouillot, Jaennette Allis Bastian
Diana Taylor, Hayden White, Andreas Huyssen, Ann Laura Stoler, Michel de Certeau,
Pierre Nora, Paul Ricouer, Arthur A. Schomburg,

REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING:

Oral presentations (20%), short take-home exercise relating fictions and

documents (20%), participation (10%), 15-20 page term paper (50%)

The take-home exercise will consist of one 4-5 page essay questions related to
the theories, texts, and methods discussed in class.

PACKET 1 (at Jenn’s Copies) : R. González Echevarría; Seymour Menton, Linda Hutcheon,
Hayden White, Antonio Benítez Rojo, Eric Williams, Michel-Rolpn Trouillot, C.L.R.
James, Emma Susana Speratti-Piñero, Urbano Martínez Carmenate, Jose María Aguilera
Manzano, Julio Ramos, Sonia Labrador, Sergio Agamben, and others
PACKET 2 (at Jenn’s Copies 2/23): Rafael Rojas, Mario Cancel, Winston James, Jossianna
Arroyo, José Luis González, César A. Salgado, Fernando Picó, Luis López Nieves,
Guillermo Baralt and others
 Course Outline

First Unit: Fiction, Documentation, Caribbean Archival Fashioning

Jan 18: Organizational Meeting, Introduction: Colonial Archives, Questions of

Custody
Jaennette Allis Bastian, "A Question of Custody: The Colonial Archives of the United States
Virgin Islands"

Jan 23: Capitalism and Chaos as Provenance of the Caribbean according to

Antonio Benítez Rojo
Theory & Criticism:
Jaennette Allis Bastian, "Reading Colonial Records Through an Archival Lens: The Provenance of Place,
Space and Creation" (pdf Canvas)
Michel Foucault, chapter from The Archeology of Knowledge (pdf Canvas)
Eric Williams, from Capitalism and Slavery (pdf Canvas)
Antonio Benítez-Rojo, from La isla que se repite: El Caribe y la perspectiva posmoderna (pdf Canvas);
from Archivo de los pueblos del mar (pdf Canvas)
Narrative
Antonio Benítez-Rojo, El mar de las lentejas (COOP)

Feb 1: The Status of Documents in Revisionary Archival Fiction

Theory & Criticism:
Roberto González-Echevarría, from Myth and Archive: A Theory of Latin American Narrative (packet #1)
Linda Hutcheon, from A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction (pdf)
Hayden White, from Tropics of Discourse (pdfs)
Narrative:
Antonio Benítez-Rojo, El mar de las lentejas (COOP)
Documents:
Fragments from Rumeu de Armas, Los viajes de John Hawkins a América; Doctor Chanca, Relación
del segundo viaje de Colón (1493); Gonzalo Solís de Merás, Memorial de las jornadas y sucesos de Menéndez
de Avilés (1565); Duque de Medina-Sidonia, "Diario"; Fugger News-letters (1588) (packet #1)

Feb. 8: Archival Silencing and Performance in the Haitian Revolution: Vaudou

as Repertoire.

Theory, Historiography & Criticism:

Diana Taylor, from The Archive and the Repertoire
Michel-Rolph Trouillot, from Silencing the Past: Power & the Production of History (packet #2)
C.L.R. James, from Black Jacobins (packet #2)
Susan Buck-Morss, Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History (pdf Canvas)
Narrative:
Leonor Sansay, Secret History, or the Horrors of St Domingo
Alejo Carpentier, El reino de este mundo
Documents:
Emma Susana Speratti-Piñero, from Pasos hallados en El reino de este mundo (packet #2)
Unit Two: The Domingo del Monte Circle: Fiction and the Subaltern Archive in
the Cuban/Puerto Rican Nineteenth Century

Feb. 15: Documenting/Fictionalizing Slavery in 19th Century Cuba: the Domingo

del Monte Literary Circle in Cuba and Puerto Rico

Theory & Criticism:

Sergio Agamben, “The Archive and Testimony,” from Remnants of Auschwitz (Canvas)
Antonio Benítez Rojo, “Cuba: el círculo de Domingo del Monte” (Canvas)
Julio Ramos, “La ley es otra: Literatura y constitución del sujeto jurídico” (packet)
Sonia Labrador Rodríguez, “El intelectual negro en Cuba durante el siglo XIX" (packet)
Narrative/Documents:
Juan Francisco Manzano, Autobiografía de un esclavo (packet)
A. Tapia y Rivera, Alejandro Tapia y Rivera, La palma del cacique, Mis memorias (packet)
Fragments from A. Tapia y Rivera, ed. Biblioteca Histórica de Puerto Rico (packet)

Film assignment: El otro Francisco, Sergio Giral (dir.)

Twelve Years a Slave, Steven MacQueen (dir)

Feb. 22: Del Monte's Historical Romances and Giral's Counter-Archival Films

Essays, Criticism:
Carolyn Hamilton et al, eds from Refiguring the Archive
Domingo del Monte, “La novela histórica” (pdf)
Georg Lukács, from The Historical Novel
Dossier on Sergio Giral
Narrative Fiction:
Jose Antonio Echevarría, Antonelli (pdf)
Anselmo Suárez y Romero, Francisco, el ingenio y las delicias del campo (packet)
Selections from Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave
Scene clips from El otro Francisco and other Giral film projects

March 1: Betrayal at the Foundation of the Cuban National Archive

Theory & Criticism:

Paul Ricouer, from Memory, History, Forgetting (pdf)
Urbano Martínez Carmenate, from Domingo del Monte y su tiempo (packet)
José María Aguilera Manzano, from La formación de la identidad cubana (packet)
Leonardo Padura Fuentes, introduction to José María Heredia: la patria y la vida (dpfs)
Narrative:
Leonardo Padura, La novela de mi vida
Documents (dpf):
Selection of letters by Heredia and others from Domingo del Monte’s Centón Centenario

March 8: Archiving & Monumentalizing José Martí and Lola Rodríguez de Tío:
crónicas & epistolarios.
Theory & Criticism:
Oscar Montero, from José Martí, An Introduction (packet)
Julio Ramos, from Desencuentros de la modernidad (Packet)
Laura Lomas, from Translating Empire: José Martí, Migrant Latino Subjects and American Modernities
Mario R. Cancel, “Imágenes de una poeta: Un asomo a la bibliografía de Lola Rodríguez de
Tío”Josefina Toledo, Lola Rodríguez de Tío
Literary Readings:
Jose Martí, selection of crónicas and letters (pdfs)
Lola Rodríguez de Tío, selection of letters and poems

SPRING BREAK

March 22: April 10: Reconfiguring the Spanish American War Archive in post-
80s Fiction. Dossier on 1898. Theory, Historiographical & Criticism:
José Luis González, “El país de cuatro pisos” (packet)
César A. Salgado, "El entierro de González: Con(tra)figuraciones de 1898 en la narrativa
ochentista puertorriqueña" (packet)
Fernando Picó, La guerra después de la guerra (packet)
Narrative:
José Luis González, La llegada
Luis López Nieves, “Seva” (packet)
Rosario Ferré, “Maldito amor” (packe)

March 29: Refashioning the Afrodiaspora Archive: Arthur A. Schomburg

Theory & Criticism:

Critical essays on Schomburg by Jossianna Arroyo, Winston James, Lisa Sánchez-González,
Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof, & César A. Salgado (packet)
Tonia Sutherland, "Archival Amnesty: In Search of Black American Transitional and
Restorative Justice"
Chapers from Elinor Des Verney Sinnette, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg: Black Bibliophile And
Collector; Vanessa Valdés, Diasporic Blackness: The Life and Times of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg (pdf)
Literary Readings:
Arthur A. Schomburg, selection of essays (pdfs)

April 5:
The Making of San Juan as Historical Theme Park: Cayetano Coll y Toste &
Adolfo de Hostos

Historiography and Criticism:

Pierra Nora, from Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémorie
César A. Salgado, “Archivos encontrados: Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá y los diablejos de la
historiografía criolla” (pdf)
Cayetano Coll y Toste, selections from Leyendas puertorriqueñas
Adolfo de Hostos, selections fro San Juan, ciudad murada (selections) and Tras la huellas de Hostos
essays and extracts from autobiography (pdf)
Fiction:
Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá, La renuncia del héroe Baltasar and other textual selections (pdf)

April 12: Massacre in Hispaniola: Remembering the Foundations of the

Trujillato

Historiography and Criticism:

Eugenio Matibag, from Haitian-Dominican Counterpoint
Medar Serrata, from La poética del trujillismo: Epica y Romance
Fiction:
Freddy Prestol Castillo, El masacre se pasa a pie (pdf)
Edwidge Danticat, The Farming of Bones (Amazon)

April 19: Authorial Archive and Meta-archive: Julia/Salomé/Camila

Historiography and Criticism:

Dossier on Salomé and Camila Henríque Ureña
Dossier on the Mirabal Sisters
Fiction:
Julia Alvarez, In the Name of Salomé
In the Time of Butterflies

April 26: De-archiving Race, Feminism, and History in Puerto Rico

Historiography and Criticism:

Selections from Juan Pablo Rivera and Nadia Celis, ed. Lección erante: Mayra Santos Febres y el
Caribe contemporáneo
Fiction:
Mayra Santos. Fe en disfraz.
Nuestra Señora de la Noche.

May 3: Imagining Diasporic and Post-pocalyptic Archives in Puerto Rico

&/or Cuba

Marta Aponte, La muerte feliz de William Carlos Williams

&/or
Jorge Enrique Lage, Archivo

Grading System

Two book reports (oral/written), one on Caribbean Studies, the other on Archival Theory
(20%). Class participation (20%). One 20-25 page term paper (60%) due on Wed. May 10.

Students are expected to give period short presentations on particular readings assigned and an
oral presentation on a book or substantial theoretical article dealing with the issue of fiction and
historical documentation, fiction and historiography, etc., included in the selected bibliography.
This oral presentation must be regarded as an opportunity to begin developing the topic of the
term paper.
BOOKS FOR REPORT ON ARCHIVAL THEORY

Giorgio Agamben, Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive

Jacques Derrida, Mal d’archive (Archival Fever)

Andres Huyssen, Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory

Carolyn Hamilton et al, eds Refiguring the Archive

Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxities and Colonial Common

Michael-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History

Diana Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas

Hayen White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenthy Century Europe,

Tropics of History
The Content of the Form
Figural Realism: Studies in the Mimesis Effect

Michel de Certain, Ecrir l’Histoire (The Writing of History)

Paul Ricouer, La mémoire, l'histoire, l'oubli. (Memory, History, Forgetting)

Roger Chartier, Au bord de la falaise : l'histoire entre certitudes et inquiétude (On the edge of the
cliff : history, language, and practices)
Forms and meanings : text, performance, and audience
Inscription and erasure : literature and written culture from the eleventh to the eighteenth
century

Pierre Nora, Les lieux de memoir (Sites of Memory)

Antoinette Burton, ed. Archive Stories: Facts, Fictions, and the Writing of History

Julio Ramos, Desencuentros de la modernidad

Rafael Rojas, José Marti o la invención de Cuba

Islas sin fin
Tumbas sin sosiego
Motivos de Anteo

Pedro San Miguel, La isla imaginada: historia, identidad y utopía en La Española.

José Buscaglia-Salgado, Undoing Empire: Race and Nation in the Mulatto Caribbean

José Quiroga, Cuban Palimpsests