The Meeting of Two Worlds (LAST100 wk 2)
Channel: UBC Latin American Studies
Date: 2020-11-18

1492 is a mythic story, whether the spin is positive or negative, and myths cannot easily be surrendered. It is worth asking ourselves why we are so eager to believe them. Rather than trying to replace the myth with some “truth,” perhaps it is best to acknowledge the Columbus story as an allegory, a literary genre whose true object is missing or displaced. In the end, Columbus’s journal charts not simply his way to the Americas, but also the onset of a crisis of representation that will affect modernity as a whole. (What comes to be) Latin America induces in a particular way an anxiety about our inability to communicate, even to say what things are.

0:00 Intro
0:21 Recap
1:29 When is Latin America?
2:29 1492
7:07 Columbus Perplexed
9:31 Many Narratives
11:07 Break and Questions
14:15 Columbus as Literature
15:55 Credits

Transcript: https://last100.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2020/09/2.two-worlds.pdf

#last100 #latinamerica #columbus

Video by Jon Beasley-Murray for the University of British Columbia course, LAST100, "Introduction to Latin American Studies."  See https://last100.arts.ubc.ca/syllabus/week-2/.

LAST100 Lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFjDuS6mZI_lgiq7IhOIJh4HOAiinVIUj