mejia CARLOS

"Negociación de diferencia en el mundo hispano" is a writing course for students moving from elementary level courses to upper division courses, but is also an exploration of issues of difference in Latin America. When I teach this course, I focus the writing and cultural analytic elements using the novel El rumor del astracán by Colombian writer Azriel Bibliowicz. This novel allows students to consider issues of migration not from Latin America, but into Latin America... in this particular case, that of  Azkenazi Jewish immigration to Colombia in the 1930s-1940s. We use the adventures of Jacob, Saúl, and Ruth as a starting point for descriptive, narrative, expository, and argumentative writing, and at the same time to ask ourselves how the characters embody the search for cultural integration without assimilation.

Azriel Bibliowicz visited the Gustavus Adolphus campus in the Spring of 2017 and students were able to interact with him and inquire about the writing process of the novel, and about some of the themes we discussed in the class  based on the novel.