SPAN 597 Male Anti/Heroes in the Caribbean Archipelago

Male heroism in the Caribbean has been associated with militarized bodies in open and direct confrontation against colonialism. Revolutionaries, but also martyrs, like Toussaint Louverture, Samuel Sharpe, Segundo Ruiz Belvis, or Ernesto (el Ché) Guevara are seen as true heroes in the archipelago and internationally. In this seminar, we will examine how writers, artists, and intellectuals have represented those figures, and others, from the nineteenth century through the twenty-first. We will also identify instances of weakness or imperfection, that is, when the hero or martyr ceases to be so. These moments will be key to our consideration of how vulnerability modifies heroism in the analyzed texts, images, films, and songs. We will complicate this discussion even further by considering representations of male anti-heroes, which in the Caribbean context refer to men who do not embody or perform masculinity according to a patriarchy built on colonialism and the colonizer/colonized interaction. Homosexuality or "weak" heterosexuality, non-cisgender men, disabled bodies, the mentally ill, idle men, and men posing to be culturally foreign are some examples of Caribbean anti-heroism. How do these representations interact with those of heroes? Would it be possible to trace a history of Caribbean anti-colonialism anchored in what colonial patriarchy has determined to be odious and deficient male bodies? How would this history look? What would it tell us about the future for decolonized islands? And about what a Caribbean "sovereignty" means? The seminar will work within a comparatist methodology, taking examples from the Anglo, Hispanic, and French Caribbean, as well as their diasporas in the United States and Europe, and paying attention to historic and cultural particularities in each context. We will work with materials in English, French, and Spanish and in translation, when available. Our theoretical framework will integrate ideas coming from feminism, gender and sexuality studies, and philosophical notions on coloniality and decoloniality.