Songs are effective mediums to tell stories, communicate ideas, and convey emotions. In this course we will explore the long and widespread practice of singing Spanish Songs. We will engage with a variety of sources and methodologies that trace different forms of preservation, transmission, and circulation from thirteenth-century cantigas to Billboard hits enjoyed today in personal portable devices. The song repertory will give you the opportunity to develop critical thinking and analytical writing as you engage with a variety of ideas including memory, love and desire, race and identity, power and propaganda, cultural resistance and protest. We will consider narratives of music, musicians, and musical instruments that illustrate transcultural musical encounters around the globe, covering topics from the Spanish Reconquista to the Latinx and Caribbean diasporas in the US. (Same as: MUS 1018)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2020.

Provides an introduction to the 1612 novel Don Quixote, widely celebrated as the first modern novel and translated across languages. Through study of the novel and its contemporary adaptations in literature, film, television, and popular culture, students will consider the lasting social, cultural, and political impacts of Miguel de Cervantes’s novel. Students will focus especially on the depiction of readers and books, consumption of information, and censorship. (Same as: HISP 1020)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2021.

What is social justice? What are human rights? Where did they begin and why? How do literature, art, history, and other methods of cultural production in North and South America engage with social justice and human rights discourses? How do different genres of cultural production document social justice, power, and inequity in the Americas? This course explores the concepts of social justice and human rights within the Americas. In this course we will read historical accounts, novels, poems, short stories, and critical race and gender scholarly articles, as well as view visual performances, photographs, and films. Students will learn how struggles of culture, gender, and race work to shape human rights discourse in the Americas, from colonialism to present-day immigration issues. The major goals for this seminar are to improve students’ skills in close reading, critical thinking, communication, and analytical writing and to explore the relationships between the four skills. (Same as: GSWS 1045)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022.

First-Year writing seminar. Delves into the lives of everyday people facing the Inquisition. They were accused of witchcraft, heresies, sexual deviance, and other offenses. The stories they left behind through court records offer a unique insight into the lives of everyday people who do not make it into historical records otherwise. These “microhistories” make a single individual the center of the story, placing them in their historical context, to understand social and cultural structures. Microhistories are particularly well-suited to showing how non-elite individuals understood their own place in society, how they contested existing power structures, and how their own identities were constructed in relation to those structures. Assignments include critical essays, revisions, an exploration of microhistories in the College, and a student portfolio. The course is focused on Latin America but does not require any prior knowledge of the region. (Same as: HIST 1047)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2021.

Explores how the Black Caribbean scholars transformed race, nation, and class; expanded Blackness as a political stance and identity; and brought together Black radical traditions across the globe. The trans-Atlantic slave trade and capitalist expansion in the Caribbean radically altered notions of race, class, nation, and Blackness. Since then, Caribbean scholars have contributed new social theory through their critique and engagement with race and capitalism, exchange of ideas with Black scholars in the U.S., Europe, and Africa, and commentary on events across the world. Using the Caribbean as a starting point, the class seeks to define, interrogate, and expand what is meant by race, nation, and class through the lens of Blackness and introduces Caribbean scholarship as a site of global political, social, and cultural thought. (Same as: SOC 1018, AFRS 1048)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023.

Introduces students to the processes and forces shaping the material realities and the ideas encompassed by the terms Latin America, the Caribbean and Latinidad, their geographical and symbolic boundaries, and the identities of those belonging (or not) to such spaces and concepts. Main units—race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, land and the environment, and border and migrations—guide students through key events and debates in the intellectual history of these regions. Through primary and secondary sources—from historical monographs to testimonial literature and fiction, film, music, and theory—students are exposed to main themes in regional scholarship and to the contributions that scholars in the fields of Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx studies have made to other fields (i.e. postcolonial studies, Third World feminisms, and ethnic studies).

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023.

This course introduces students to connective concepts and issues in locations throughout the region, such as Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. The course engages a combination of historical and qualitative analysis to provide a deeper understanding of the Caribbean’s complex history, cultural vibrancy, and global connections. Topics may include Indigenous and African enslavement, degrees of freedom within slave systems, rebellion and revolution, anticolonial and social movements, contemporary migration, and social justice issues. (Same as: AFRS 1215)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024.

This course is an opportunity to engage with the history, heritage, and culture of Latin America, the Caribbean, and Latin American and Caribbean communities in the US through music. We will explore issues of race, identity, religion, and politics from a broad temporal span of around five hundred years—from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century. We will cover a broad variety of regions, contexts, and musical genres from classical, folk, and popular traditions, such as salsa, Cuban son, hip-hop, Latin polyphony, rock, villancicos, protest song, chamber music, reggaeton, vallenato, and more. This course is not meant to be comprehensive but will reflect on the many ways in which music has been used in different cultural and historical contexts, offering a close examination of its characteristics, means, and meanings. (Same as: MUS 1271, AFRS 1271)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2021, Fall 2020.

A chronological survey of the arts created by major cultures of ancient Mexico and Peru. Mesoamerican cultures studied include the Olmec, Teotihuacan, the Maya, and the Aztec up through the arrival of the Europeans. South American cultures such as Chavín, Nasca, and Inca are examined. Painting, sculpture, and architecture are considered in the context of religion and society. Readings in translation include Mayan myth and chronicles of the conquest. (Same as: ARTH 1300)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021.

The study of borderlands examines areas of contested sovereignty where no single social group has political, cultural, or economic control. This seminar explores interactions between native peoples, white settlers, and the representatives of the states in the Americas between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. The "long nineteenth century" was a pivotal period for independent Indigenous groups across the western hemisphere as they faced dramatic encroachment on their territories, dispossession, cultural erasure, and genocide. This course draws examples from the Pacific Northwest to the Amazon, from Texas to Patagonia. It pays special attention to how structures of race, class, and gender were established, maintained, and negotiated at times of uncertain change and in the absence of hegemonic state practice. Note: This course is part of the following field of study: Latin America. It fulfills the non-Euro/US requirements for history majors and minors. (Same as: HIST 2900)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2020.

Since the 1980’s, Latin American countries have experienced transitions to democracy after periods of extreme violence. To deal with legacies of human rights abuses and international crimes, governments have adopted a wide range of mechanisms such as the establishment of commissions of inquiry, judicial prosecutions, and reparations of victims. This course will explore the violence that preceded these transitions in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico, as well as the different measures endorsed by these countries to combat impunity and to allow its societies to move forward. It will also analyze the efficacy of these measures, as well as the difficulties faced in its implementation. Likewise, it will study the continual demands of the victims of past atrocities for truth, justice, and reparations from the 1980s to the present.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023.

This course will study the history, politics, and culture of soccer in the Americas, from the twentieth century to the present. By selecting key moments and actors, from Pelé and Diego Maradona to Pablo Escobar and Rafael Videla, we will examine how the sport has been sometimes instrumentalized by countries, corporations and other stakeholders for political goals, military strategies, and economic profits. Indeed, because soccer cannot be extrapolated from its surrounding context, we will also analyze pivotal events in the history of the Americas, including dictatorships in Chile and Argentina, armed conflicts in El Salvador and Guatemala, and the war on drugs in Colombia, among other situations across the continent, that have shaped the way the game is played since its origins. Overall, this course will enable us not only to understand soccer as a sport, but also as a lens to learn and evaluate pressing cultural and political issues of our time.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2022.

Seminar. This course is a study of race and ethnicity in Latin America, focusing on how Latin Americans themselves have understood and articulated these categories, as well as how scholars have interpreted their articulations. We will cover topics from African slavery to indigenous activism and mass immigration. Our focus will be on peoples of indigenous and African descent—the majority of Latin Americans—which will allow us to address questions of national identity, racial mixture, and cultural exchanges. We will trace themes familiar to students of the broader Atlantic world (themes such as race and nation, freedom and slavery, citizenship, and inequality) across the less-familiar setting of modern Brazil, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, and even Argentina. This course will tackle fundamental questions about the intersection of race, identity, and power in Latin America. Besides reading some of the classic analyses, we will look at some of the cutting-edge scholarship to assess how ideas of race and national belonging have changed through the centuries and across national contexts. Note: This course is part of the following field(s) of study: Latin America. It fulfills the non-Euro/US requirement for history majors and minors. (Same as: HIST 2910)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2022.

Traditionally written history has been dictated by the victors. This statement implies that written history has been authored by the white male elites that hold power in any given territory. On the contrary, oral history compiles the voices that are often left out of the predominant narratives. This course will present students different methods developed to address and document these realities. It will introduce students to the distinct aspects of the interview process, including general oral history theory and methodology, in-person and remote interviewing techniques, legal and ethical issues, transcription practices, and other relevant topics. It will also discuss the power of testimonies when attempting to understand the world through the perspectives of the marginalized and the underprivileged. Finally, it will allow students to juxtapose dominant ideas with marginalized views to rewrite Latin American history. (Same as: HIST 2412)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024.

Seminar. Examines one of the most significant and yet neglected revolutions in history. Between the years 1791-1804, Haitian revolutionaries abolished slavery and ultimately established a free and independent nation. Explores the Revolution’s causes and trajectory and connects Haiti to the broader Atlantic world. Likewise, studies the revolution's aftermath and its impact on world history. This course is part of the following field(s) of study: Latin America, Atlantic Worlds, and Colonial Worlds. It fulfills the premodern and the non-Euro/US requirements for history majors and minors. (Same as: HIST 2862, AFRS 2862)

Prerequisites: HIST 1000 - 2969 or LAS 1000 - 2969.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2021.

This course examines the history, politics, and cultures of the Hispanic World, from the 20th century to the present. Key moments include the Mexican Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, the Cuban Revolution, dictatorships in Chile and Argentina, and Latinx movements in the US. Through the study of a wide variety of literary and cultural icons from La Malinche and Octavio Paz, Pedro Almodóvar and Carmen Laforet, to Nancy Morejón, Julio Cortazár and Luís Valdez, students will reflect on individual experiences and collective movements. The course provides students with advanced practice in grammar, reading, speaking, listening, writing and research in Spanish. (Same as: HISP 2305)

Prerequisites: HISP 2204 or Placement in HISP 2305.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2020.

Examines oral and written traditions of areas where French is spoken in Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, and North America from the Middle Ages to 1848. Through interdisciplinary units, students examine key moments in the history of the francophone world, drawing on folktales, epics, poetry, plays, short stories, essays, and novels. Explores questions of identity, race, colonization, and language in historical and ideological context. Taught in French. (Same as: FRS 2409, AFRS 2409)

Prerequisites: FRS 2305 or higher or Placement in FRS 2400 level or Placement in FRS 2305/2400 level.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2020.

This seminar examines representations of queer Latinx identities and experiences through intersectional and interdisciplinary lenses, focusing on texts crafted by US-based Latinx authors. Students develop an understanding of the aesthetic and ideological elements that inform the narrativization of queer Latinx experience and the tensions that arise through the intersection of sexuality, gender, race, and ethnicity in a variety of texts and genres. In addition to highlighting the value of reading literature written by authors who belong to the marginalized groups that they write about, this course is meant to disrupt monolithic and homogenizing understandings of what it means to be queer and Latinx. Potential topics include futurism, la familia, borderlands, machismo and patriarchy, the coming-out narrative, and memory. This course satisfies the African American, Asian American, Indigenous, Latinx, Multiethnic American, or global literature requirement for English majors. (Same as: GSWS 2704, ENGL 2904)

Prerequisites: GSWS 1000 - 2969 or GSWS 3000 or higher or ENGL 1000 - 2969 or ENGL 3000 (same as GSWS 3000) or higher.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2022.

Designed for students who were exposed to Spanish at home or had extended exposure in a Spanish-speaking community or country. Builds on the linguistic and cultural competence students already have in order to expand their language skills in a wide variety of contexts, with particular emphasis on writing skills in Spanish. Throughout the semester, students will engage in a critical exploration of the (socio)linguistic and cultural diversity of Latinx and diaspora communities in the US by looking at themes such as language and migration, language use and variation in multilingual communities, and language and identity, among other topics related to the dynamic situation of Spanish in the US Students will also strengthen their command of specific grammar points and achieve more confidence using Spanish through the implementation of projects in which they deepen their knowledge and understanding of communities while reflecting on their individual experiences. (Same as: HISP 2308)

Prerequisites: HISP 2204 or Placement in HISP 2308.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024.

Latin American philosophy is a philosophy born of struggle, a body of thought whose metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, and political identity is tied up with the problems of colonization, decolonization, and liberation in a Latin American context. This course will philosophically assess classical and contemporary thought in Latin American Philosophy, and will discuss issues such as immigration, xenophobia/racism, liberation, racial and ethnic identity, assimilation/acculturation, the black/white binary, Latinx feminisms, and the Spanish language. Our primary textbook will be Robert Eli Sanchez’s edited anthology and topical introduction, Latin American and Latinx Philosophy: A Collaborative Introduction (2020). Though the course is arranged topically, we will begin by establishing the historical context of Latin American thought. We will read excerpts from Bartolome de las Casas and Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. Classical philosophers we may read include Simon Bolivar, Leopoldo Zea, Jose Marti and Jose Vasconcelos. Contemporary scholars may include Enrique Dussel, Gloria Anzaldua, Jose Antonio-Orosco, Jorge J. E. Gracia, and Richard Delgado. (Same as: PHIL 1352)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2020.

This seminar explores diverse song traditions in Colonial Latin America. Attention will be given to manifestations of musical globalization and will incorporate the study of sources that reveal the circulation and transmission of Iberian and African musicoliterary genres in the vast transatlantic Spanish empire, including Portugal, Italy, the New World, and Asia. We will pay special attention to complex representations of ethnic and religious others (indigenous people of the Americas, African slaves, Muslims, Jews) in relation to literary conventions and early modern ideas about religious devotion and racial, gender, and class difference. We will approach these topics through a close engagement with materials in special collections and archives. This course is part of the following fields of study: Colonial Latin America, transatlantic studies, Spanish Golden Age Poetry, and early music. (Same as: MUS 2296)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2022.

How “African” is Latin American music? Although the size, nature, and significance of the Black population in Spanish America is often dismissed, the massive forced migration of African peoples to transatlantic Portuguese and Spanish dominions changed not only the soundscape but also tastes and musical practices in the entire Western Hemisphere. This course explores the legacies of Western African traditions in the music of Latin America. The scope and diversity of Afro-Latin, Afro-Caribbean, and Afro-Latinx musical traditions is immense, but we will explore specific historical narratives, regions, music genres, and sources and will engage with diverse scholarly approaches for the study of African roots in Latin American music(s). Some examples include seventeenth-century negrillas, eighteenth-century songs and dances for the Luso-Brazilian viola, Afro-Dominican salves, Mexican spirituals, Colombian vallenato, Brazilian samba, Cuban timba, Puerto Rican bomba, and Caribbean reggae, reggaetón, rap, and hip-hop. (Same as: MUS 2297, AFRS 2336)

Prerequisites: MUS 1101 or AFRS 1101.

This course examines how hierarchies of race, class, gender, and sexuality structure everyday life in Latin America's largest nation, Brazil. Twentieth century elites described Brazil as a racial democracy and a sexual paradise, but this vision is increasingly contested in the twenty-first century by Black, feminist, and LGBT social movements. Reading ethnographic accounts and watching film portrayals of daily life in Brazil across a number of case studies, we will examine how Brazilians encounter social inequality in a variety of intimate settings. Potential topics include: domestic labor, sex work, queer activism, plastic surgery and reproductive rights. Students will complete short response papers during the semester and complete a final research project on a self-selected topic that includes primary or secondary sources on Brazil. (Same as: GSWS 2345, ANTH 2345)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2021, Fall 2020.

What motivates political battles over sexuality and gender? Often described as disputes over culture, morality, family, or lifestyle, these struggles more often have to do with concerns over national belonging, distributions of care labor, and enforcement of race, class, and gender norms. In this course, we first learn about feminist and queer frameworks for studying gender and sexuality politics: culture wars, backlashes, and moral panics. We draw on case studies that outline the histories of anti-reproductive and anti-LGBT movements in Brazil and in the United States. And we will consider the social dynamics of recent “anti-gender” movements in Latin America. Over the semester, students will research a particular case study of a culture war, backlash, or moral panic, where they use journalist and NGO reporting, and write a term paper that applies the frameworks learned in class. (Same as: GSWS 2715)

Prerequisites: GSWS 1101 or ANTH 1100 or ANTH 1101 or SOC 1101.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2021.

Investigates the construction of girlhood through the lens of global feminist resistance, centering the writings and struggles of young women and femmes in the experience and practice of colonized, transnational, and refugee girlhood. With groundings in race, class, gender, ability, and sexuality, the course will engage with not only academic writing but also media and cultural production by and concerning girls. The work of this course is to interrogate (neo)colonial histories by centering not only what empire wants and takes from girls (how their images are deployed, how their reproductive labor is extracted), but also what girls want and do in the course of their living with, under, and against colonial power(s). (Same as: GSWS 2348, AFRS 2348, ASNS 2348)

This course will survey the history of modern Central America, from the Nicaraguan revolution and the Salvadoran and Guatemalan armed conflicts, through film. In addition, this class will examine broader region-wide experiences such as the ownership of the Panama Canal and the assassination of key figures in Central America including Berta Cáceres in Honduras. Mainly through a variety of film genres, including historical drama, adaptations, and documentaries, this course will analyze the role of the United States in Central America, including the long history of military occupation in Nicaragua, the CIA-backed coup in Guatemala in 1954, and the financial aid provided to El Salvador and Guatemala during their civil wars. Finally, this course will explore the legacy of the violence from the twentieth century in the present. As a result, this class will address key topics such as transitional justice, migration, gangs, drug trafficking and organized crime, gender relationships, and neopopulism. (Same as: CINE 2117)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023.

Rage is a political act. Feminists have turned to rage politics to fight against gender violence, misogyny, and institutionalized patriarchy for decades. This seminar explores when, why, and how women-identifying subjects in the Americas organize collectively to challenge political, economic, and social injustice. During the semester, students will learn how de-colonialism, civil rights and labor movements in the United States, the rise and fall of dictatorships in Latin America, and hemispheric neoliberalism continue impacting contemporary feminist cultural production and activism in the hemisphere. By exploring contemporary women-led activist movements, a wide range of contemporary feminist artistic practices, and contemporary feminist literature and film, this course asks students to consider the relationships between feminism and political activism, rage as a political act, and cultural production as a method of healing and revising history. Students who have taken this course at the 3000-level (LAS 3900 / GSWS 3900) are not eligible to take this course. (Same as: GSWS 2725)

Prerequisites: GSWS 1101 or GSWS 1000 - 2969 or GSWS 3000 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024.

What are feminisms? Is there more than one feminism? What is the relationship between feminisms and constructions of race, gender and ethnicity in Latin America? How has feminist discourse shaped human rights discourses in the region? This course explores the complex network of feminisms in 20th-21st century Latin America. It covers feminist movements, theories, and scholars/artists from a variety of Latin American countries and regions, including Guatemala, Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil. Students will learn how intersections between constructions of race and ethnicity, as well as gender, impact feminisms in the region. Students will also explore how early and more recent contributions of indigenous and women of color, continue impacting ideas, discussions, and recent debates concerning feminisms and women's social mobilizations in Latin America. Note: This course fulfills the GSWS requirement for either Queer Theory or Feminist Theory. (Same as: GSWS 2206)

Prerequisites: GSWS 1000 - 2969 or GSWS 3000 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021.

What is the relationship between activism and human rights in Latin America? How have the battling constructions of race, gender, and ethnicity sparked social justice movements in the region? This course offers a general introduction to the development of contemporary discourses and activism on human rights in Latin America. It covers activist and justice movements in a variety of Latin American countries and regions including Brazil, Guatemala, the Southern Cone, and Mexico. Students will analyze how cultural production, in the form of film, literature, testimony, and art, by Afro-Latinx and indigenous subjects, women, and members of the LQBTQI+ community led to the “making,” of human rights in the region. As an IRBW course, students in this course will also develop and practice their critical writing and research skills throughout the semester with plenty of research development writing workshops, one-on-one writing mentoring, and feedback. (IRBW) (Same as: GSWS 2705)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2021.

Dance—an art form whose medium is the body—and ethnography—the study of people and their cultures—are great tools for addressing some of the ways different dancing bodies have been historically policed for “dancing sex(y).” Other tools, such as critical dance and black theories, in addition to queer and feminist approaches, will also be utilized to comprehend the uneven ways these bodies are further racialized, sexualized, and gendered within the Americas. In particular, students will learn about various dances (such as the Brazilian samba to the Cuban rumba, Jamaican Dancehall, and the Trinidadian wine) through readings, lectures, and actual in-studio dancing. Ultimately, the intention here is to understand dancing as both a meaning-making activity and a way of understanding the world. In turn, it is an important lens for critically thinking, talking, researching, and writing about politics of identity (especially regarding nationality, gender, race, and sexuality). (Same as: DANC 2505, AFRS 2292, GSWS 2505)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2021.

A continuation of modern dance principles introduced in Dance 1211 with the addition of African-derived dance movement. The two dance aesthetics are combined to create a new form. Technique classes include center floor exercises, movement combinations across the floor, and movement phrases. Students also attend dance performances in the community. (Same as: DANC 2241, AFRS 2236)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2021.

This course introduces students to the history of Latin America from the pre-Conquest period until the consolidation of a colonial system administered by a European elite at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The course follows three interrelated stories: the establishment of colonial rule (including institutions like the church, patriarchy, and racial castes), the development of extractive economies dependent on unfree labor, and the emergence of a hybrid culture bringing together Indigenous, European, and African traditions. Introduces use of primary documents, archeological artifacts, contemporary films, and scholarly essays to learn about the period. Student begin to place themselves in historical debates, learning how historians reconstruct and interpret the past. Topics include fall of the Aztec empire, disease, Inquisition, piracy, slavery, and more. This course is part of the following field of study: Latin America. It meets the pre-modern and the non-Euro/US requirement. (Same as: HIST 2401)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2020.

This course surveys the "long nineteenth century" in Latin America. This is a period characterized by conflict, racist policies, and indigenous dispossession, but it is also a period of radical political imaginings, of economic development, and profound social change. Topics covered include the efforts by Spain and Portugal to reform their colonies in the Americas; the independence movements of the 1810s-1820s & the ensuing "post-colonial Blues"; the end of slavery & campaigns against independent indigenous peoples; the development of export-led economic models; the implementation of social policies to "whiten" the population; the US invasion of Mexico, the destruction of Paraguay by its neighbors, and a war between Peru and Chile over guano; the triumph of liberalism and the Mexican Revolution of 1910. This is the second in a series of three surveys of Latin American history, but no prior knowledge or prerequisites necessary. This course is part of the following field of study: Latin America. It fulfills the non-Euro/US requirement for history majors and minors. (Same as: HIST 2402)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2021.

Examines revolutionary change in Latin America from a historical perspective, concentrating on four successful social revolutions-- Haiti, Mexico, Cuba, and Bolivia-- as well as several revolutionary movements that did not result in social change-- including Argentina, Guatemala, Chile, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Popular images and orthodox interpretations are challenged and new propositions about these processes are tested. External and internal dimensions of each of these social movements are analyzed and each revolution is discussed in the full context of the country’s historical development. This course fulfills the non-Euro/US requirement This course is part of the following field(s) of study: Latin America. (Same as: HIST 2403)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2022.

An introduction to the cultures of various French-speaking regions outside of France. Examines the history, politics, customs, cinema, and the arts of the Francophone world, principally Africa and the Caribbean. Increases cultural understanding prior to study abroad in French-speaking regions. (Same as: FRS 2407, AFRS 2407)

Prerequisites: FRS 2305 or higher or Placement in FRS 2400 level or Placement in FRS 2305/2400 level.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2022, Spring 2021.

Examines theater and poetry in Spain and Latin America from the eleventh-century verses of Jewish and Muslim authors to the twentieth-century works of Nobel Prize winners. Through class discussions and critical analysis, students will discover how the structure, form, content, and performance of poetry and theater relate to a work’s aesthetic movement, historical context, and contemporary adaptations. Some of the topics for discussion include: religious conflicts and their influence in literary forms; the cultural and political implications of the colonization of the Americas, its legacy, and the resistance to it; the Baroque, its innovative aesthetic techniques, and its transatlantic influence; the mechanisms used by writers to subvert discourses of patriarchy; the importance of Indigenous cultures in the development of Latin American nations and cultural traditions; and the political and artistic relationships with the US and other European avant-garde movements. Conducted in Spanish. (Same as: HISP 2409, THTR 2409)

Prerequisites: HISP 2305 (same as LACL 2205) or HISP 2306 (same as LACL 2306) or HISP 2308 (same as LACL 2308) or Placement in HISP 2409 or 2410.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2020.

Examines narrative forms and essays in Spain and Latin America from pre-Conquest times until the twentieth-century works of Nobel Prize winners. Through class discussions and critical analysis, students will discover how the structure, form, and content of narratives and essays relate to a work’s aesthetic movement, historical context, and contemporary trends in Hispanic cultures. Topics include religious conflicts and their influence in literary forms; the cultural and political implications of the colonization of the Americas, its legacy, and the resistance to it; the aesthetic and social renovation of Early Modern Spain, including the first modern novel, Don Quixote; the mechanisms used by writers to subvert discourses of patriarchy; the importance of Indigenous cultures in the development of Latin American nations and cultural traditions; and the political and artistic relationships with the US and other European avant-garde movements. Conducted in Spanish. (Same as: HISP 2410)

Prerequisites: HISP 2305 (same as LACL 2205) or HISP 2306 (same as LACL 2306) or HISP 2308 (same as LACL 2308) or Placement in HISP 2409 or 2410.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2020.

An introduction to Latin American history between 1400 and the present, using the lens of gender to reinterpret the region's history. Some key events include the arrival of Europeans, mestizaje, honor and race, independence, civil wars, liberalism, populism, dictatorship, and issues of memory and redemocratization. This course works on two registers. The first is that of “women’s history.” Here, we will survey the experiences and impact of women in Latin America from the pre-conquest period to the present, through the lenses of cultural, social, and political history. In other words, we will tell the stories of Latin American women and investigate how changes small and large affected their everyday lives. The second register is “gender history.” In other words, we will not just discuss women’s experiences, but also the ways that gender ideologies have influenced Latin American history. Note: This course is part of the following field(s) of study: Latin America. It fulfills the non euro/us requirement for history majors and minors. (Same as: HIST 2430, GSWS 2430)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023.

This course explores the range of issues inspiring Latinx activism and its diverse expressions across the United States from the turn of the 20th century to the present. It introduces students to the intellectual traditions and analytical approaches that inform both Latinx and Afro-Latinx activism in the US During the course of the semester students will ‘travel’ to U.S. cities (and regions) such as San Antonio and the Texas Borderlands, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Chicago, and the Central Valley in California. As we ‘travel’ to these locations, we will explore diverse expressions of Latinx activism, including labor activism, cultural activism, political activism surrounding citizenship rights, and the struggles for gender and sexuality rights. Students will also learn about the many similarities and differences among Latinx communities in the United States, including Afo-Latinx communities, specifically Afro-Cuban in Miami, and Afro-Puerto Ricans and Afro-Domincans in New York. We will explore how these communities have used and continue to use activist practices ranging from labor strikes to literary texts, to gain visibility and negotiate their rights within the country. This course will also draw connections between Latinx and Afro-Latinx and other activist movements in the US, from civil rights to labor rights and the formation of worker’s unions. Drawing from various disciplines including history, law, literature, sociology, and cultural studies, students will explore how Latinx activism has shaped understandings of race and inclusion, gender, sexuality, and citizenship in the United States. (Same as: AFRS 2721, GSWS 2720)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2022.

Afro-Latinx are one of the fastest growing demographic groups in the United States—among the sixty million Latinos in the US, almost one quarter embrace their Blackness and identify as Afro-Latino. The course examines Afro-Latinx communities—African-descended peoples from primarily Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Latin America and the Caribbean who reside in the United States. The class begins with an overview of Afro-Latin American and Afro-Latinx studies, explores historical perspectives on African enslavement in Latin America, and examines the development of racial ideologies in post-emancipation societies. Next, the class looks at the historical relationship between the US and Latin America and how this has shaped migration. We also examine the spectrum of Black identity through the contemporary experiences of Afro-Latinxs in the US by analyzing the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, politics, and representation through historical, textual, oral, and visual sources. (Same as: AFRS 2722)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023.

Explores the nexus of food, environment, and development in global environmental politics. Examines the interconnected challenges of governing across trans-boundary socio-ecological systems amidst competing demands on scarce natural resources—to sustain a global food system, foster economic development, and promote equity and justice. Prepares students to engage with interdisciplinary scholarship from political science, international development, public policy, and food studies. Draws on comparative cases from local to global scales, with an emphasis on Maine, the U.S., and Latin America. (Same as: ENVS 2313, GOV 2492)

Prerequisites: ENVS 1101 or ENVS 2330 (same as GOV 2910).

Previous terms offered: Spring 2021.

This course explores the contemporary politics of dissent in Latin America. To do so it goes beyond conventional institutional and electoral settings, since dissent is not simply a moment of protest or resistance, nor the collective plea for rights. Instead it can be the moment when a given way of living or social order is unexpectedly modified and challenged with the introduction of a new agenda for action. Topics covered may include: Latin American intellectuals and decolonial theory, the challenges to development discourse by indigenous peoples, the role of music and the arts in resistance against political violence, the importance of social media in contemporary movements for political change, and the contestation of established notions of identity and citizenship (e.g., by queer minorities.) We will draw from cases in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Mexico, as well as including Latinx peoples and cultures in the United States. (Same as: GOV 2465)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020.

In light of the ecological crisis exacerbated by climate change, scholars in the humanities and social sciences have become increasingly preoccupied with the relationship between humans and nature, in a field of study loosely termed “political ecology.” Central to this field are critiques of the separation between humans and nature in modernity and how we should understand this relationship. This course expands the current debates in this field beyond the intellectual circles of Europe and North America—which have focused on science and technology studies and new materialisms—to consider contributions that have remained marginal (for example, indigenous political thought and decolonial theory). The course will include authors from various disciplines ranging from indigenous intellectuals and activists to academics, with a focus on the Global South, including the work of Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán, Maori scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Indian activist Vandana Shiva, and Martinican writer Édouard Glissant. (Same as: GOV 2470, ENVS 2340)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2021.

This course provides a broad exploration of contemporary Latin American politics, emphasizing critical themes, which may include but are not limited to: environment and climate change; race, gender, and identity; colonial legacies; indigeneity; challenges to democracy; social movements and human rights; political economy; and South-South relations. The course will approach these key topics from interdisciplinary perspectives in addition to those of political science, such as anthropology, environmental studies, and history. It will also use various source formats, including academic articles, ethnography, film and artwork. Focuses on in-class discussions. (Same as: GOV 2466)

What brings people of Hispanic/Latin American heritage together? What do half a billion people have in common socially and politically, and how does the political context shape how individuals place themselves in position to other groups in society? As the course title suggests, terminology can be a focal point: why do we use terms like “Hispanic,” “Latin-American,” or the more recent “Latinx” and how does that relate to the characteristics of this diverse category? This course focuses on the political experience of people who call themselves Hispanics or Latinos. We take an agnostic yet inclusive approach to the definition of this population, and explore the construction of this group as the only census-recognized ethnicity in the United States. Our course explores socio-demographic factors that lead to collective action as well as political attitudes and behaviors among this diverse group. We focus mostly on Latinos within the United States of America but also look at politics in Latin America in an effort to better understand this heterogeneous population. (Same as: GOV 2054)

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023.

Introduction to the sociological study of race and ethnicity in the contemporary United States. Examines prominent theories pertaining to the social and cultural meanings of race and ethnicity, causes and consequences of structural racism, relationships between race and class, how immigration and assimilation shape and are shaped by social constructions of race and ethnicity, dynamic representations of race and ethnicity in the media, formation and shifts of intra-group and inter-group boundaries, and more. (Same as: SOC 2208, AFRS 2208)

Prerequisites: SOC 1101 or AFRS 1101.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2021.

Religious beliefs and practices intersect with processes of social change at various historical moments, illuminating the power dynamics of (trans)cultural encounters. Using cases from the Andean and Amazonian regions of South America, explores local indigenous cosmologies, rituals, and concepts of the sacred in relation to expansive regional and global religions, including Catholicism and Protestantism. Focuses on twentieth– and twenty-first-century social issues. Includes examples from pre-Columbian, Inca, and Spanish colonial periods to highlight the continuities and transformations in local and global institutions. Forefronts religion, as a facet of identity and inequality, intersecting with gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality. Scholarly and popular texts introduce topics like religious syncretism; sacred landscapes; human-supernatural relations; religious violence and ritual protest; global capitalism and citizenship; everyday moralities, embodiment, and faith-based humanitarianism. (Same as: ANTH 2723)

Prerequisites: ANTH 1000 - 2969 or ANTH 3000 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2021.

Looks at comparative lessons in global immigration to understand the political, economic, and social causes of migration--the politics of immigrant inclusion/exclusion--and the making of diaspora communities. Specific topics will include: the politics of citizenship and the condition of illegality; the global migrant workforce; and how class, gender, race, and sexuality influence the migrant experience. (Same as: SOC 2370)

Prerequisites: SOC 1101.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2021.

Explores the legacies of colonialism in modern Latin America and archaeologists’ current efforts to decolonize Eurocentric interpretations and discourses of the colonial past. Focuses on indigenous and community archaeology as a means of reframing our understanding of the past and present. Discussions address the impact of colonialism in Latin America and the Caribbean, including how contemporary relationships in the region are structured by colonial history. Students work with case studies grounded in archaeological, ethnographic, and historical sources to learn how archaeology can help contest and subvert dominant narratives derived from colonialism. Indigenous resistance and resilience will be addressed along with cultural continuities and change. Topics may include identity and the construction of ethnicity, gender, and race; religion; slavery and diaspora; and art, architecture, and technology. (Same as: ANTH 2278)

Prerequisites: ANTH 1000 - 2969 or ANTH 3000 or higher or LACL 1000 - 2969 or LACL 3000 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023.

Explores the emergence of social complexity and state-level societies through a focus on ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica (Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador). Among the diverse peoples and cultures that populated this region prior to the Spanish invasion, the Maya and the Aztec are among the most famous. This course challenges popular misconceptions about these and other societies who occupied this region over the course of 3500 years. Asks how cities rivaling in size those of the old world rose, collapsed, and sometimes disappeared. Considers the political structure and economic systems of these societies, their technologies, and their relationships with the environment. Explores ancient worldviews, belief systems, and political and religious power. Incorporates various types of evidence, including the archaeological material record, art, monumental architecture, and ethnohistorical sources, and the ways archaeologists analyze and interpret that evidence. (Same as: ANTH 2258)

Prerequisites: ANTH 1000 - 2969 or ANTH 3000 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023, Fall 2021.

Knowledge of the history of the slave trade to the Americas has grown immensely. This course pivots from viewing the Atlantic World through the lens of the trade in slaves to how a diverse Atlantic World developed through Afro-Portuguese encounters from the age of Henry the Navigator to the formal abolition of slavery in Brazil and the extension of colonization in Portuguese-ruled Africa. How and why did early modern Africans and Portuguese participate in the Atlantic trade? What other forms of commerce, such as ivory and rubber, proliferated? What cultural systems, cosmologies, religions, and identities emerged through these Atlantic World exchanges, including the formation of Afro-Portuguese identities? What are the legacies of the early modern Afro-Portuguese Atlantic world? In exploring these and other questions, this course introduces students to the histories of Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, and Brazil. It fulfills the non-Euro/US and premodern requirements for history majors and minors. (Same as: HIST 2824, AFRS 2824)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023.

Enslaved Africans who fought against oppression through escaping the European plantation system in the Caribbean for freedom in the mountains are called maroons, and their act, marronnage. Except for Queen Nanny of the Jamaican Blue Mountains, only male names have been consecrated as maroons and freedom fighters (the Haitians Makandal or Toussaint Louverture, the Martinican Louis Delgrès, the Jamaican Cudjoe or the Cuban Coba). The course examines the fictitious treatment French-speaking Caribbean authors grant to forgotten African or Afro-descended women who historically fought against enslavement and colonization. The literary works are studied against the backdrop of “Douboutism,” a conceptual framework derived from the common perception about women in the French Caribbean as expressed in the Creole say “fanm doubout,” which means “strong woman.” Authors studied may include Evelyne Trouillot, Maryse Condé, Simone Schwarz-Bart, André Schwarz-Bart, Suzanne Dracius, and Fabienne Kanor. (Same as: FRS 3211, AFRS 3211, GSWS 3211)

Prerequisites: Two of: either FRS 2409 (same as AFRS 2409 and LAS 2209) or FRS 2410 (same as AFRS 2412 and LAS 2210) or FRS 3000 or higher and either FRS 2409 (same as AFRS 2409 and LAS 2209) or FRS 2410 (same as AFRS 2412 and LAS 2210) or FRS 3000 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2021.

Aesthetics—the critical reflection on art, taste, and culture; as much as beauty, the set of properties of an object that arouses pleasure—are central to all aspects of society-building and human life and relationships. Examines the notions of aesthetics and beauty, from precolonial to contemporary times in cultures of the African, Caribbean, and Western civilizations as expressed in thought and various humanities and social sciences texts, as well as the arts, iconography, and the media. Considers the ways Africans and Afro-descendants in the American region responded to Western notions of aesthetics and beauty and posited their own. Authors studied may include Senghor, Cheick Anta Diop, Mudimbe, Gyekye Kwame, Anténor Firmin, Jean Price Mars, Damas, Suzanne Césaire, Aimé Césaire, René Ménil, Fanon, Glissant, Socrates, Plato, Diderot, Montesquieu, Baumgarten, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Ronsard, Erasmus, de Grenailles, and Hugo. (Same as: FRS 3213, AFRS 3213)

Prerequisites: Two of: either FRS 2409 (same as AFRS 2409 and LAS 2209) or FRS 2410 (same as AFRS 2412 and LAS 2210) or FRS 3000 or higher and either FRS 2409 (same as AFRS 2409 and LAS 2209) or FRS 2410 (same as AFRS 2412 and LAS 2210) or FRS 3000 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024.

Through the exploration of art, literature, architecture and the unique worldview of the ancestral Andean societies, this course will take a look at the different ways in which the three main countries in the Andes—Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia—have dealt with processes of social, political, and cultural modernization since the late nineteenth century until the present day. Readings will include works by Peruvian, Bolivian, and Ecuadorian writers to examine modernist, avant-garde and postmodernist aesthetics. Students will analyze how internal migration to the cities of Lima, Quito and La Paz has reconfigured them, changed their urban dynamics, and impacted the economy and the natural environment. One example students will engage with includes architecture from iconic Bolivian architect Freddy Mamani ,who invented the construction of the Cholets in the city of El Alto, Bolivia. Cholets offer a unique way of connecting urban space to Aymaran identity (an identity that is very connected to the land in Boliva). Students will also address the issue of migration and the reconfigurations of Andean identities in the United States, through the works of Bolivian author Edmundo Paz Soldán and the Ecuadorian-American writer Ernesto Quiñónez and his experience living in Harlem. Taught in Spanish. (Same as: HISP 3211, URBS 3211)

Prerequisites: HISP 2409 (same as LACL 2409) or HISP 2410 (same as LACL 2410) or HISP 3200 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2022.

Examines how cinema portrays urban spaces in Latin America, Spain and USA from an aesthetic point of view that facilitates discourses on Hispanic history and identity. It looks at the city (Barcelona, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Habana, Los Angeles, Madrid, Mexico DF and New York) as a cinematic setting for narratives on crime, immigration, political activity and romance, and how it conveys utopic or distopic views of physical and social urban development. Also considers how cities lend themselves as transnational subjects for directors who cross national boundaries, such as Luis Buñuel, Woody Allen, Pedro Almodóvar and Alejandro González Iñárritu. Conducted in English. Writing assignments in Spanish. (Same as: HISP 3117)

Prerequisites: HISP 2409 (same as LACL 2409) or HISP 2410 (same as LACL 2410).

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023.

Studies the main topics, techniques, and contributions of Colombian Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez as presented in “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” Explores the actual locations and the social, cultural, and literary trends that inspired the creation of Macondo, the so-called village of the world where the novel takes place, and the universal themes to which this imaginary town relates. Contemporary authors include Fuenmayor, Rojas Herazo, and Cepeda Samudio . (Same as: HISP 3218)

Prerequisites: HISP 2409 (same as LACL 2409) or HISP 2410 (same as LACL 2410).

Previous terms offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2021.

Explores the concept of madness and the varying ways in which mental illness has been represented in twentieth-century Latin American fiction. Readings include short stories and novels dealing with the issues of schizophrenia, paranoia, and psychotic behavior by authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Carlos Fuentes, Cristina Rivera Garza, and Horacio Quiroga. . Also studies the ways in which certain authors draw from the language and symptoms of schizophrenia and paranoia in order to construct the narrative structure of their works and in order to enhance their representation of social, political, and historical conjunctures. Authors include César Aira, Roberto Bolaño, Diamela Eltit, and Ricardo Piglia, . (Same as: HISP 3219)

Prerequisites: Two of: either HISP 2409 (same as LACL 2409) or HISP 2410 (same as LACL 2410) or HISP 3200 or higher and either HISP 2409 (same as LACL 2409) or HISP 2410 (same as LACL 2410) or HISP 3200 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023.

This course explores a range of literary and cultural texts related to the theory, practice and experience of medicine, health and healing in the early modern Hispanic world. Students will analyze how early Spanish literature impacts our understanding of contemporary health practices and examine how health histories provide insight into racial and ethnic health disparities and general inequities in health care systems. Topics include drug trials, herbalists and apothecaries; health and spiritual practices; gardens and gardeners; diet and food; healer and patients; and race, ethnicity, gender and medicine. The course provides an introduction to the topics of narrative medicine and the health humanities. Course is taught in Spanish. (Same as: HISP 3220)

Prerequisites: Two of: HISP 2409 (same as LAS 2409) and HISP 2410 (same as LAS 2410).

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2021.

Who speaks in a text? What relationship exists between literature and identity? How can we portray ourselves in specific political contexts? Addresses these and other questions by studying contemporary Southern Cone literary texts that deal with problems of subjectivity and self- representation in poetry and novels. Concentrates on texts that display a literary “persona” in contexts of violence and resistance (the dictatorships of the 1970s) and in more contemporary Latin American ones. Some authors include Borges, Gelman, and Peri-Rossi. Films and contextual historical readings used. Taught in Spanish. (Same as: HISP 3225)

Prerequisites: Two of: either HISP 2409 (same as LACL 2409 and THTR 2409) or HISP 2410 (same as LACL 2410) or HISP 3200 or higher and either HISP 2409 (same as LACL 2409 and THTR 2409) or HISP 2410 (same as LACL 2410) or HISP 3200 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2021.

What kind of stories do bodies tell or conceal? How does living in a gendered and racialized body effects the stories told by women? How do bodies and their stories converge with History or complicate historical “truths”? These are some of the questions addressed in this study of contemporary writing by women from the Hispanic Caribbean and the United States Latinx/Chicana communities. Feminists of color frame the analysis of literature, popular culture and film to guide an examination of the relation of bodies and sexuality to social power, and the role of this relation in the shaping of both personal and national identities. Theorists include Alexander, Barriteau, Curiel, Mendez and Segato. Novelists include Álvarez, Buitrago, García, Indiana Hernández, and Santos-Febres. Taught in Spanish with readings in Spanish and English. (Same as: HISP 3226, AFRS 3226, GSWS 3226)

Prerequisites: Two of: either HISP 2409 (same as LAS 2409) or HISP 2410 (same as LAS 2410) or HISP 3200 or higher and either HISP 2409 (same as LAS 2409) or HISP 2410 (same as LAS 2410) or HISP 3200 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2020.

Questions what is meant by "avant-garde": how it was manifested in the Hispanic world in the first half of the twentieth century; how contemporaneous politics shaped or became shaped by it; how this relates to the world today. Focuses on poets such as Aleixandre, Garcia Lorca, Borges, Neruda, Huidobro, Storni, Lange, Novo, and Vallejo, while also considering a wide array of manifestos, literary journals, films, and other art forms from Spain, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Mexico, and Brazil. Taught in Spanish with some theoretical and historical readings in English. (Same as: HISP 3227)

Prerequisites: Two of: HISP 2409 (same as LAS 2409) and HISP 2410 (same as LAS 2410).

Previous terms offered: Fall 2020.

Did feminism exist in the early modern period? Examines key women authors from the early Hispanic World, considering the representation of gender, sexuality, race, and identity in distinct political and social contexts. Focuses on Mexican author Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651-1695) and Spanish author María de Zayas (1590-1661), alongside other prominent women writers from the period. Students read short stories, essays, poems, and personal letters. Conducted in Spanish. (Same as: HISP 3231, GSWS 3231)

Prerequisites: HISP 2409 (same as LACL 2409 and THTR 2409) or HISP 2410 (same as LACL 2410).

Previous terms offered: Fall 2022.

Why does Mexican literature have so many ghosts as characters? What distinguishes the representation of ghosts in Mexican literature from their representation in American gothic literature? In this seminar we will read contemporary Mexican literature through the figure of the ghost. I argue that the ghost in Mexican literature allows us to think and analyze a variety of topics such as immigration (US-Mexico), exile, politics, trauma, race and environment. Readings may include works by Rulfo, Fuentes, Tario, Nettel, Luiselli, Mendoza, Herrera, and Bicecci. The course is conducted in Spanish. (Same as: HISP 3234)

Prerequisites: HISP 2409 (same as LACL 2409 and THTR 2409) or HISP 2410 (same as LACL 2410).

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023.

An investigation of the short story as a literary genre, beginning in the nineteenth century, involving discussion of its aesthetics, as well as its political, social, and cultural ramifications in the Spanish-speaking world. Authors include Pardo Bazán, Borges, Cortázar, Echevarría, Ferré, García Márquez, and others. (Same as: HISP 3237)

Prerequisites: Two of: either HISP 2409 (same as LACL 2409) or HISP 2410 (same as LACL 2410) or HISP 3200 or higher and either HISP 2409 (same as LACL 2409) or HISP 2410 (same as LACL 2410) or HISP 3200 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2021.

An examination of the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges’s work, focusing not only on his short stories, poems, essays, film scripts, interviews, and cinematic adaptations, but also on the writers who had a particular influence on his work. Also studies Latin American, European, and United States writers who were later influenced by the Argentinian master. An organizing concept is Borges’s idea that a writer creates his own precursors. (Same as: HISP 3239)

Prerequisites: Two of: either HISP 2409 (same as LACL 2409) or HISP 2410 (same as LACL 2410) or HISP 3200 or higher and either HISP 2409 (same as LACL 2409) or HISP 2410 (same as LACL 2410) or HISP 3200 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2022.

How do artists distinguish their contemporary moment from the past? What challenges does it pose to literature and film? Building on ideas by Agamben, Benjamin, and Didi-Huberman, explores these questions in the context of contemporary Argentinean, Chilean, and Uruguayan poetry, short stories, novels, and films. Topics include post-dictatorship societies, text/image dynamics, new forms of subjectivity, human/post-human interactions, and economic and bio-political violence, as seen in works by Sergio Chejfec, Cristina Peri Rossi, Nadia Prado, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, Pedro Lemebel, Fernanda Trías, and others. Taught in Spanish. (Same as: HISP 3249)

Prerequisites: Two of: either HISP 2409 (same as LACL 2409) or HISP 2410 (same as LACL 2410) or HISP 3200 or higher and either HISP 2409 (same as LACL 2409) or HISP 2410 (same as LACL 2410) or HISP 3200 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2021.

In 1970, the Chilean Salvador Allende became one of the first Marxists in the world to be democratically elected president of a country. His attempted reforms led to years of social unrest. In 1973, a right-wing military coup led to what would be General Augusto Pinochet’s seventeen years of brutal dictatorship. This course discusses that period of Chilean (and Latin American) history through locally produced sources, both from the social sciences and the arts, with a focus on literature (Bolaño, Meruane, Lemebel, Neruda, Lihn) and cinema (Ruiz, Larraín), with the goal of understanding the ways in which Latin American nations deal with their historical past with regard to issues of memory, collective memory, postdictatorial political negotiations, human rights, and social reconciliation. (Same as: HISP 3252)

Prerequisites: Two of: either HISP 2409 (same as LAS 2409) or HISP 2410 (same as LAS 2410) or HISP 3200 or higher and either HISP 2409 (same as LAS 2409) or HISP 2410 (same as LAS 2410) or HISP 3200 or higher.

The 1960s Latin American Boom changed world literature, opening global book markets to writers of the postcolonial world and their distinctive styles. Yet it centered on male writers. “A New Boom?” explores the conditions favoring the last decade’s apparent “explosion” of Latin American women writers in world literature. Discussions focus on key authors and the context of their works, their themes, and aesthetic innovations, and the market forces affecting the dissemination of women’s cultural production. Topics include the ambitions of twenty-first-century women in Latin American cities, and the obstacles they face (i.e., violence and marginalization); the role of editors and other stakeholders in featuring women’s voices; the place of readers in advancing new tastes and sensitivities; and the intersection of gender with race, ethnicity, sexuality, education, and other factors fostering the inclusion of some writers over others. Readings include Melchor, Ojeda, Quintana, Reyes, and Shweblin. Course will be taught in Spanish. (Same as: HISP 3257, GSWS 3257)

Prerequisites: Two of: HISP 2409 (same as LACL 2409 and THTR 2409) and HISP 2410 (same as LACL 2410).

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024.

An introduction to some of the main intellectual productions from the French-speaking Caribbean from the nineteenth century to the present, such as the Haitian post-Revolution thought, Indigénisme and Spiralisme or Martinican Négritude, and Diversalité or Tout-monde. Examines theoretical and literary texts by Louis Joseph Janvier, Anténor Firmin, Jean Price-Mars, Frankétienne, René Depestre, Marie Chauvet, René Maran, Léon Gontran Damas, Bertène Juminer, Maryse Condé, Simone Schwarz-Bart, René Ménil, Aimé Césaire, Suzanne Césaire, Joseph Zobel, Frantz Fanon, Édouard Glissant, Vincent Placoly, or Patrick Chamoiseau. Questions addressed include history, memory, ethics, humanism, freedom, relation, Caribbean epistemology, dignity, justice, existence, political theory, identity, race, and cultural autonomy. (Same as: FRS 3219, AFRS 3219)

Prerequisites: Two of: either FRS 2409 (same as AFRS 2409 and LAS 2209) or FRS 2410 (same as AFRS 2412 and LAS 2210) or FRS 3000 or higher and either FRS 2409 (same as AFRS 2409 and LAS 2209) or FRS 2410 (same as AFRS 2412 and LAS 2210) or FRS 3000 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2023, Fall 2020.

The course is designed as a cultural history of Spanish language and cultures through its dictionaries, across time periods (early modern to more contemporary) examining questions of power and authority, collection practices, and how dictionaries change over time. The class will approach asymmetrical relationships between Spain and Latin America, Spanish and Spanglish in the US, and the political, social, and commercial value of language in these contexts. Bringing in the vocabularies of indigenous, enslaved Africans and immigrant languages, students will engage in an in-depth exploration of lexicographers including Antonio de Nebrija, Sebastián de Covarrubias, Andres Bello, and Maria Moliner. Key works include: Tesoro de la Lengua Española o Castellana, the Diccionario de Autoridades, the Diccionario de la Lengua Española, the Moliner, Larousse, and Clave. Course is taught in Spanish and will feature opportunities for collaboration with Ilan Stavans (Amherst) and his students on this topic. (Same as: HISP 3007)

Prerequisites: HISP 2409 (same as LACL 2409) or HISP 2410 (same as LACL 2410).

Previous terms offered: Fall 2021.

This course fuses Afro-Diasporan aesthetics and cultural concepts with critical dance studies and US modern/post-modern/contemporary concert dance traditions. Students will engage with various Afro-based dance practitioners (such as Jawole Willa Jo Zollar), cultural praxes (such as Sankofa), and improvisational structures (such as Jamaican Dancehall and Haitian Yanvalou) to deepen their ability to create, rehearse, and perform original choreography, specifically for the purposes of advocating for social change and cross-cultural understanding. Using virtual, archival, digital, embodied, and scholarly research, students will learn about and generate performance material that is deeply connected to the histories, spaces, and places that we remember, take-up, and occupy. Students will also be expected to execute collaborations with each other and those within their communities as they create and perform movement for their final dance projects. (Same as: DANC 3242, AFRS 3242)

Prerequisites: DANC 1213 (same as AFRS 1213) or DANC 2241 (same as AFRS 2236) or DANC 1000 - 2969 or DANC 3000 or higher.

Previous terms offered: Spring 2022, Fall 2020.

The course addresses connective topics in Afro-Latin American and Afro-Latinx studies, fields that center the historical and contemporary experiences of the African diaspora in Latin America, the Caribbean, and their transnational communities in the US Students will examine issues, dialogues, and solidarities among Afro-Latin American and Afro-Latinx communities across the hemisphere, such as invisibility, representation, civil rights, social and/or environmental justice; intersectionality, and digital spaces. (Same as: AFRS 3360)

Previous terms offered: Spring 2024.

Considers Dr. Guess’s (2021) concept and theory of a “rebel ecology '' by asking, more broadly, what other socioecological models exist? Weaves together a study of differing, yet often converging or synergistic traditions of Black/Womanist eco-feminism that often confront the social constructions of race, gender, class and sexuality, dominant religion as a means of social control, imperialism, capitalism and colonialism; Indigenous ecologies and perspectives on resistance to capitalist extraction, genocide, imperialism and colonialism; as well as eco-socialism, which often frames ecology in terms of a mode of production beyond or outside of capitalism and the prison industrial complex. Given ongoing struggles against the extraction of land and labor, the urgent calls raised in the "climate strike," the COVID-19 pandemic, Black-led pandemic rebellions, and long(er) histories of land-based peoples, globally, opposing environmental degradation, broadly defined. (Same as: ENVS 3917, AFRS 3517)

Explores research on youth as a window onto broader questions of identity, agency, inequity, and social transformation in the contemporary world. Youth and children move between families and nations; claim belonging to divergent communities; create and transform senses of self; and navigate power hierarchies related to age, race, gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, and citizenship. Highlights the experiences of young people in contexts of insecurity shaped by globalization and neoliberal capitalism. Attends to culturally specific meanings of youth and childhood. Draws on theoretical approaches to agency, subjectivity, and power in anthropology and discusses methodological and ethical issues in ethnographic research with youth. Topics may include self and personhood; labor and waithood; migration, family, and citizenship; gender, sexuality, and romance; media and activism; creativity and (re)making worlds in diverse cultural contexts including Latin America, Asia, Oceania, and Africa. (Same as: ANTH 3320)

Prerequisites: ANTH 2000 - 2969.

Previous terms offered: Fall 2023.