Interdisciplinary Elective Subject, topic 3: CrissCrossLatinity: cultural and linguistic contact zones between Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian

The Course idea is to examine and reflect upon historical and contemporary phenomena of encounter, dialogue and hybridization in the “Western Romance languages and cultures”. While regional languages or varieties and regional cultural expressions within each of the national and (post)-colonial spaces are contemplated in the regular curricula of EGR’s four romance study programs (spansk og latinamerikansk, fransk, italiensk, ex-portugisisk-brasiliansk), in this course teachers from these sections join to explore—with the students—the transfers across these boundaries. In these in-between spaces, national and regional cultures and languages mingle and produce fascinating crossover phenomena of shared transcultural “latinity” (as we call them in lack of a more appropriate term). Naturally, these hybrid contact zones are especially strong in the ex-colonial domains (Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa), but they are also manifest in Europe.

The overall goal is to make students familiar with both the deep variety and general similarities of the Romance languages and cultures. The objective is to develop the students’s expertise not only in their studied language but in the sense of romanister. In addition, becoming aware of these “entre espacios” will allow them to gain insights into the complexity of transnational and global cultural and linguistic dynamics.

The course builds on the three following aspects:

1) To approach transnational phenomena within “Western Latinity” through a balanced selection of historical and contemporary topics from various regions (although we will consider and depend on the students’ studied languages). These could include, for example, the Mediterranean Islamic-Christian encounters, the trajectories and diaspora of New Christians and Romani, Creolization in the Caribbean, French political and artistic Missions and Italian migration to Latin America, Chicano culture, the French-Brazilian and Brazilian-Paraguayan borders, Latino soap operas and music styles, narcocultures, life-style Mediterraneity, “Europe of the South” politics and the New Right ”Iberosfera”, dialects, interlanguages and creole such as Algherese, Niçard, Portuñol, Haitian Creole and Papiamento (depending on the students’ interest), among other topics to agree upon by the involved teachers.

2) To train the students in developing basic reading competence (med hjælpemidler) in texts written in all Western Romance languages and varieties, including—beyond the four languages taught at EGR—Catalan and Galician. Therefore, intermediate proficiency (not necessarily in the language studied at EGR) in at least one Romance language is required. Teaching will be in English (open for exchange students) with course material in several Romance languages and varieties.

3) To introduce students to concepts and theories of how cultural spaces are created, determined and subverted; hybridism, cultural flows and scapes, travelling ideas; negotiation of cultural collective identities within global asymmetric power relations, etc.