Politeja (Jul 2019)
"El ángel descuidado", de Eduardo Mendicutti, como herramienta para abordar el tema de la homosexualidad y la religión en la clase de literatura en una universidad polaca
Abstract
"El ángel descuidado" by Eduardo Mendicutti as a Tool to Address the Issue of Homosexuality and Religion in the Literature Class at a Polish University According to the new edition of ILGA-Europe’s annual review, Poland ranks second in the list of most homophobic countries in the European Union. Among the causes of this situation are reasons like ignorance, fear of the Other, multiple stereotypes based on the Polish collective imagination and religious motives. The last factor is of great significance in a country as religiously homogeneous as Poland, in which Catholic morals penetrate all spheres of life of its citizens. During my teaching career I have noticed a strong need among my students for an honest and thorough debate about homoerotic attraction, which in many of them provokes rejection or even repulsion. As a starting point for the discussion, I propose the reading of the novel El ángel descuidado by the Spanish writer Eduardo Mendicutti. The book tells the story of two young seminarians who live their first love in the bosom of a religious institution. The main objective of my text is to present the current situation of gays and lesbians in Poland along with the attitude of Polish society and politicians towards the LGBTQ community, to deliberate on a supposed conflict between Catholic morality and homosexuality, to analyze possible reactions of students of Hispanic Philology to the novel of Mendicutti and to meditate on the role of literature in the construction of a just and egalitarian society.
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