On the Road in Latin American Film

What makes travel educational? Why does foreign travel often teach us as much about ourselves as about the regions we journey through? This Seminar examines films about fictional and historic characters whose travel in Latin America changes their understanding of the region and of themselves. Made by Latin American filmmakers, the movies feature characters ranging from a shipwrecked 16th-century explorer to two 21st-century Mexican male teens taking a young Spanish woman to the beach. While viewing these movies, we will travel vicariously through a variety of Latin American times and spaces. As we do so, we will keep “travel diaries” that reflect on the changes the movies’ characters undergo as well as on how our own perceptions and self-understanding are modified by viewing the films. We will develop four of our diary entries into more substantial papers. In class discussions, we will compare our reflections with those in published studies of the films we view.