Reading the New Latin American Weird

This seminar examines how contemporary Latin American writers have reshaped fiction through what is often labeled “Gothic,” “horror,” or “Weird.” Rather than treating these as simple genre categories, we will ask how estrangement operates as a serious aesthetic mode in contemporary literature. Working with English translations of short fiction by Mariana Enríquez, Samanta Schweblin, Tomás Downey, and others, we will explore how ambiguity, monstrosity, and formal disruption challenge familiar interpretive habits. What happens when a story resists explanation? How does aesthetic difficulty reshape our experience as readers? This is a reading-heavy and discussion-driven seminar.