This is a detailed program description.  This is a 4 week course, 4 hours per day and includes home stay.  The cost of this course is $1400. 

1.  An overview of some of the cultural texts representing America before the arrival of the Europeans and some texts of the colonial epoch.
 

a.  Textual practices in three of the principal indigenous cultures of America:  the Mayas, the Aztecs and the Incas (indigenous myths and codices.)
b.  Diaries, letters, chronics and relations of the conquest. 
c.  The illustrated epic (Alonso de Ercilla) and the illustrated poetry (Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz). 

2.   An overview of some texts respresenting the emancipation of America and its significance as a fundamental element of the Latin American identity. It emphazises the American view of the neoclassicism, romanticism, realism and naturalism.
 

a.  The essay (Simón Bolívar, Domingo Sarmiento, José Martí)
b.  The poetry (Juan Zorrilla de San Martín, Estanislao del Campo) 
c.  The tale (Esteban Echeverría, Baldomero Lillo, Manuel Payno and others)
d.  The novel (the student selects the works according to his/her interest) 
e.  The drama (according to the wishes of the student)

3.   An overview of the textual practices representing the modernity of the literature of the first half of the 20th century (modernism, ultramodern manner, regionalism and social realism).
 

a.  The essay ( José E. Rodó, José Carlos Mariátegui and others)
b.  The poetry (Rubén Darío, Vicente Huidobro, Leopoldo Lugones, Alfonsina Storni, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, César Vallejo and others)
c.  The tale (Horacio Quiroga, Ricardo Güiraldes, Miguel Angel Asturias, Juan Rulfo, Alejo Carpentier and others)
d.  The novel (the student selects the works according to his/her interest)
e.  The drama (according to the wishes of the student)

4.   The most representative texts of the new narrative of Latin America and its significance in the construction of the identity of the Latin Americans: Jorge Luis Borges, Octavio Paz, Julio Cortázar, Gabriel García Márquez, José Donoso, Carlos Fuentes, Mario Benedetti, Augusto Monterroso, etc. 

5.  Theories of genre in the Latin American literature. Re-reading of the patriarchal model starting from the construction of the female and male figures: Rosario Castellanos, Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende, Laura Esquivel, Angeles Mastretta, Reinaldo Arenas, Ana Lydia Vega, Gioconda Belli, Ana Istarú and others.

6.  Latin American literature at the end of the 20th century: Jorge Volpi, Roberto Bolaño, Fernando Contreras, Leonardo Padura, Angeles Mastretta, Ana Lydia Vega, etc.

7.  In accordance with the teacher the student also has the option to select the literary corpus of his/her interest.

8.  Specific programs about Costa Rican and Central American literature are also available upon request.