All Program Dates
October 20, 2026 | 7:30pm - 9:00pm ET
October 27, 2026 | 7:30pm - 9:00pm ET
November 3, 2026 | 7:30pm - 9:00pm ET
November 10, 2026 | 7:30pm - 9:00pm ET
November 17, 2026 | 7:30pm - 9:00pm ET
Registration
Tuition for this course is $300. Members receive exclusive discounts on our programs and courses. Not a member? Learn more.
Please check your spam folder for your email confirmation. If you have questions, please call (215) 732-1600 or email rsvp@rosenbach.org.
To promote access to onsite and virtual Rosenbach experiences, we offer scholarships for each Signature Program. To inquire, email Sunstein Senior Manager of Digital Initiatives Edward G. Pettit at epettit@rosenbach.org.
This program is for those 18 and older.
Registration opens for Delancey Society members on Thursday, August 27, for Rosenbach members on Thursday, September 3, and for the general public on Thursday, September 10.
Description
This course explores Gabriel García Márquez’s seventh novel—his self-proclaimed masterpiece and his only work devoted entirely to love. Moving away from magical realism and solitude, this novel is a grounded meditation on the many dimensions of love: romantic, platonic, and mature traced across decades of longing, separation, and reunion. Through the lives of Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza, we will examine the "cholera" of passion, the passage of time, and the dignity of aging (la vejez).
Set in a Caribbean port city at the end of the 19th century, the novel reflects García Márquez’s deliberate effort to recover the customs, social rituals, and atmosphere of the era. In writing it, he sought to employ the techniques of the 19th-century sentimental novel, preparing himself through a close reading of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. The result is a richly textured work that combines historical detail, psychological insight, humor, and profound emotional depth.
Through close reading and discussion, participants will explore how García Márquez reimagines the great love story, creating a timeless meditation on perseverance, memory, aging, and the enduring power of the human heart.
Instructor
Luciano Martínez is Professor of Spanish at Swarthmore College and a recent Fulbright U.S. scholar in residence (2025–26) at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan. A specialist in contemporary Latin American literature, literary pedagogy, and gender/sexuality studies, he has led Swarthmore’s Division of Arts & Humanities, the Department of Spanish, the Latin American & Latino Studies, and Gender & Sexuality Studies programs. His recent publications include essays on teaching Borges (MLA, 2024) and on literature’s role in language departments (ADFL Bulletin, 2022), and he has edited books such as 21st-Century Latin American Women Writers (Liverpool UP, 2023) and Pedro Lemebel, Savage Beauty (IILI, 2022). For the Rosenbach, he has led courses on Jorge Luis Borges, García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, and Latin American short fiction.