Paper Topics | Spring 2019 | Paper 2
Due: Saturday, March 16 at 5:00 PM in your conference leader’s Eliot Hall mailbox
Target length: 1700–2000 words
1. The mixing of peoples of African, American, and European ancestry has been seen as a defining aspect of mexicanidad since the eighteenth century. Carefully analyzing the composition of one of the Casta paintings, Orozco’s “Cortés y la Malinche,” or Rivera’s National Palace mural, consider how the work treats the interaction of race, gender, and power. If you write on the National Palace mural, you should focus your discussion on one section or “scene.”
2. The genre of the manifesto has played a central role in Mexican politics for the past two centuries. Analyze the understanding of citizenship and the state’s proper role in society in two of the following: Morelos’ “Sentiments,” “The Plan of Iguala,” “The Plan of Ayala,” or the “6th Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle.” How do generic conventions such as the listing of demands, claiming of authorship, or use of preambles relate to, or even shape, the political ideals being presented?
3. Do a close reading of one sentence from Sor Juana’s “First Dream,” focusing on how the form and content are interrelated. You may want to consider the grammar, particularly the ordering of the phrases and clauses, as well as the metaphysical conceits, sensory imagery, and other rhetorical elements. How do these features of the sentence inform its significance for the larger meaning of the poem?
4. Analyze the angel’s speeches at the beginning and end of “The Sacrifice of Isaac” and consider their ambiguity in relation to the purpose of morality plays or neixcuitilli. It may prove helpful to discuss: 1) the types of educational relationships modeled by the text; 2) the various lessons it teaches; and 3) its imagined or anticipated audience.
5. When a male superior, writing under the name Sor Filotea de la Cruz, criticizes Sor Juana for engaging in theological debates as a woman, Sor Juana invokes patriarchal authorities to defend herself. Write on A or B:
- How does Sor Juana use autobiography and intellectual self-portrait to problematize a male/female binary? Arguing from specific passages, show where the text locates the “author” in relation to this binary and how this relationship changes in the course of the letter. Does the letter treat gender as a essential part of the self or as a secondary attribute?
- Sor Juana makes a scholastic, legalistic argument in defense of her right to study and speak as a woman. Analyze how the individual claims of a particular passage are justified, taking care to situate the passage within the trajectory of the larger argument. The letter is an explicit defense of the female voice, but does it nonetheless affirm—or even create—some limits on women’s speech?
6. Looking at either Buñuel’s Los Olvidados or Poniatowska’s Massacre in Mexico, discuss how film or testimonio is used to launch a critique of the modern state, paying particular attention to how the formal features of the work’s genre make its argument possible.
7. In consultation with your conference leader, develop your own topic.