Catalogue 2017-2018 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Latin American and Latino/a Studies Program
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Director: Leslie Offutt;
Participating Faculty: Carlos Alamo (Sociology), Michael C. Aronna (Hispanic Studies), Light Carruyob (Sociology), Colleen Ballerino Cohen (Anthropology), Brian J. Godfrey (Geography), Mihai Grünfeld (Hispanic Studies), Katherine Hite (Political Science), Tracey Holland (Education), Timothy Koechlin (International Studies), Joseph Nevins (Earth Science and Geography), Leslie Scott Offutt (History), Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert (Hispanic Studies), Sarah Pearlman (Economics), Hiram Perezb (English), Eréndira Rueda (Sociology), David Tavárezab (Anthropology), Nicolás Vivalda (Hispanic Studies), Eva Woods Peiró (Hispanic Studies).
b On leave 2017/18, second semester
ab On leave 2017/18
The Latin American and Latino/a Studies Program provides a multidisciplinary approach to the study of Latin America and the Latino/a populations of the Americas. The program allows students to explore the multiplicity of cultures and societies of Latin and Latino/a America in ways that acknowledge the permeability, or absence, of borders. The program emphasizes knowledge of global politics, economies, cultures, and nations as theorized, imagined, and practiced through Latin/Latino/a America.
Major
Correlate Sequence in Latin American and Latino/a Studies
Approved Courses
Latin American and Latino/a Studies: I. Introductory
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LALS 105 - Conceptualizing Latin and Latino/a America Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
Topic for 2017/18b: Memory, Human Rights, Politics in the Americas. This course explores historical memories, legacies and interweavings of racist, colonialist, and political violence across the Americas, as well as efforts to “come to terms with” such violations of human rights of the recent and not-so-recent past. Drawing from history, sociology, political science, museum studies, literary analysis, as well as memoirs, testimonies, and visual arts, the course examines historical injustices and struggles to address them across Latin America and the U.S. We also think about the cross-border, transterritoriality of violence and the reproduction of violence through historical memory and lived experience. Katherine Hite.
Two 75-minute periods. -
LALS 106 - Dynamic Women: From Bachelet to Ugly Betty
1 unit(s)
How do issues of inequality, social justice, representation, popular culture, migration, environmental justice and globalization look when women’s voices and gender analysis are at the center? This multidisciplinary course examines writing by and about women in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Latino/a USA. We read and write about a range of genres — from testimonio, film and fiction to social science. The goal is to develop an appreciation and understanding of the varied lives and struggles of Latinas and Caribbean women, the transnational politics of gender, key moments in the history of the hemisphere, and contemporary issues across the Americas. Light Carruyo.
Satisfies college requirement for a Freshman Writing Seminar.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods. -
LALS 107 - Popular Education and Social Struggle in Latin America Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This course examines the relationships between popular education, critical pedagogy, and social change in Latin America. Latin American educators have been responsible for introducing popular education models which challenge dominant approaches and build on the values of solidarity, inclusion and respect for human rights. The course examines the development of popular education in Latin America since 1960. Students analyze popular education’s philosophical and theoretical assumptions as well as its liberating pedagogical practices which encourage learners to problem-solve and to question the taken for granted (Jara, 2011). In addition to their reading and writing assignments, students in the class learn about popular education by watching short documentaries produced by the La Educación en Movimiento Project (http://laeducacionenmovimiento.com ) and interacting via Skype with educators, participants, and directors of these projects to learn first hand about their philosophies, pedagogies, and the social, economic, and environmental problems in the communities that these programs seek to address. Tracey Holland.
Open only to freshmen; satisfies the college requirement for a Freshman Writing Seminar.
Two 75-minute periods. -
LALS 164 - Latin American History ‘through the lens’
0.5 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 164 ) Film can be a source of entertainment, a propaganda tool, a medium of artistic expression, and a shaper and reflector of national identity. This course explores the history of specific moments and themes in twentieth-century Latin America-US perceptions of Latin America; revolution; “Dirty Wars”; the transition from authoritarianism to democracy; and Liberation Theology-that have defined the region’s recent history and been the subject of domestic film production and foreign consumption. Course readings include historical studies of the specific themes and primary materials that illuminate critical aspects of each theme. Leslie Offutt.
First and second six-week course.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods plus outside screenings.
Latin American and Latino/a Studies: II. Intermediate
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LALS 214 - Transnational Perspectives on Women and Work
1 unit(s)
(Same as SOCI 214 and WMST 214 ) This class is a theoretical and empirical exploration of women’s paid and unpaid labor. We examine how women’s experiences as workers — across space, place, and time — interact with larger economic structures, historical moments, and narratives about womanhood. We pay particular attention to the ways in which race, class, gender, sexuality and citizenship intersect and shape not only women’s relationships to work and family, but to other women workers (at times very differently geopolitically situated). We are attentive to the construction of women workers, the work itself, and the meanings women give to production, reproduction, and the global economy. Light Carruyo.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods. -
LALS 227 - Colonial Latin America Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as HISP 227 ) Studies in Latin American literary and cultural production from the European invasion to the crisis of the colonial system.
Topic for 2016/17b: The Invention of America. This course explores a variety of texts and genres that trace the process of the “invention” of the New World. We begin with the Mayan myth of creation in the Popol Vuh and examine a variety of forms of mythical, literary and historical fabrications in texts like Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s Naufragios, Bartolomé de las Casas’s Brevísima Relación, Clorinda Matto de Turner’s Aves sin nido and Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda’s Sab. In these and other texts we trace the invention and reinvention of Latin America in popular and scholarly imagination until the end of the nineteenth century. Michael Aronna
Two 75-minute periods. -
LALS 229 - Postcolonial Latin America Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as HISP 229 ) Studies in Latin American literary and cultural production from the emergence of the nation states to the present. Thematically structured, the course delves into the social, political, and institutional processes undergone by Latin America as a result of its uneven incorporation into world capitalist development.
Topic for 2017/18a: Latin American Literature and the Environment. The course explores the links between history, the environment, and literature in Latin America. It follows the environmental history of the continent from pre-Columbian societies to the present through its representation in salient works of Latin American literature, from Amerindian texts to 21st –century literature and film. Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert.
Prerequisite(s): HISP 216 or HISP 219 .
Two 75-minute periods. -
LALS 230 - Latina and Latino Literature Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ENGL 230 ) Students and instructor collaborate to identify and dialogue with the growing but still disputed archive of “Latinx Literature.” The category “Latinx” presents us then with our first challenge: exactly what demographic does “Latinx” isolate (or create)? How does it differ from the categories “Hispanic,” “Chicanx,” “Raza,” “Mestizx,” or “Boricua,” to name only a few alternatives, and how should these differences inform our critical reading practices? When and where does Latinx literature originate? Together, we work to identify what formal and thematic continuities might characterize a Latinx literary heritage. Some of those commonalities include border crossing or displacement, the tension between political and cultural citizenship, code-switching, indigeneity, contested and/or shifting racial formations, queer sexualities, gender politics, discourses of hybridity, generational conflict, and an ambivalent sense of loss (differently articulated as trauma, nostalgia, forgetting, mourning, nationalism, or assimilation). Hiram Perez.
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LALS 234 - Creole Religions of the Caribbean
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 234 and RELI 234 ) The Africa-derived religions of the Caribbean region—Haitian Voodoo, Cuban Santeria, Jamaican Obeah, Rastafarianism, and others—are foundational elements in the cultural development of the islands of the region. This course examines their histories, systems of belief, liturgical practices, and pantheons of spirits, as well as their impact on the history, literature, and music of the region. Lisa Paravisini-Gebert.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods. -
LALS 242 - Brazil in Crisis: Continuity and Change in Portuguese America
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 242 , GEOG 242 , INTL 242 ) Brazil, a giant of Latin America and the Global South, has long been known as the “land of the future.” Yet frustrating political-economic crises have repeatedly followed periods of rapid growth and social progress. Taking current crises as a point of departure, this course examines Brazil’s contemporary evolution in light of the country’s historical geography, the distinctive cultural and environmental features of Portuguese America, and the political-economic linkages with the world system. Specific topics for study include: the legacies of colonial Brazil; race relations, Afro-Brazilian culture, and ethnic identities; issues of gender, youth, violence, and poverty; processes of urban-industrial growth; regionalism and national integration; environmental devastation and sustainability; controversies surrounding the occupation of Amazonia; and long-run prospects for democracy and equitable development in Brazil. Brian Godfrey.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods. -
LALS 243 - Mesoamerican Worlds
1 unit(s)
(Same as ANTH 243 ) A survey of the ethnography, history, and politics of indigenous societies with deep historical roots in regions now located in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. This course explores the emergence of Mesoamerican states with a vivid cosmology tied to warfare and human sacrifice, the reconfiguration of these societies under the twin burdens of Christianity and colonial rule, and the strategies that some of these communities adopted in order to preserve local notions of identity and to cope with (or resist) incorporation into nation-states. After a consideration of urbanization, socio-religious hierarchies, and writing and calendrical systems in pre-contact Mesoamerica, we will focus on the adaptations within Mesoamerican communities resulting from their interaction with an evolving colonial order. The course also investigates the relations between native communities and the Mexican and Guatemalan nation-states, and examines current issues—such as indigenous identities in the national and global spheres, the rapport among environmental policies, globalization, and local agricultural practices, and indigenous autonomy in the wake of the EZLN rebellion. Work on Vassar’s Mesoamerican collection, and a final research paper and presentation is required; the use of primary sources (in Spanish or in translation) is encouraged. David Tavárez.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods. -
LALS 246 - The U.S.-Mexico Border: Capital, State, and Nation Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as GEOG 246 ) Born in large part of violence, conquest and dispossession, the United States-Mexico border region has evolved over almost two centuries into a site of intense economic growth and trade, demographic expansion, ethno-cultural interaction, and political geographic conflict. The course focuses on these processes over space and time as they relate to capitalist production, state-making, and nation-building on both sides of the international divide. In doing so, the course considers the U.S.-Mexico borderlands as a region, one characterized by dynamic transboundary ties and myriad forms of socio-spatial difference. Joseph Nevins.
Two 75-minute periods. -
LALS 248 - The Human Rights of Children - Select Issues Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as EDUC 248 and INTL 248 ) This course focuses on both theories surrounding, and practices of, the human rights of children. It starts from the foundational question of whether children really should be treated as rights-holders and whether this approach is more effective than alternatives for promoting well-being for children that do not treat children as rights holders.. Consideration is given to the major conceptual and developmental issues embedded within the framework of human rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The course covers issues in both the domestic and international arenas, including but not limited to: children’s rights in the criminal justice context including life without parole and the death penalty; child labor and efforts to ban it worldwide; initiatives intended to abolish the involvement of children in armed conflict; violence against street children; and the rights of migrant, refugee, homeless, and minority children. The course provides students with an in depth study of the Right to Education, including special issues related to the privatization of education and girls’ education. The course also explores issues related to the US ratification of the CRC, and offers critical perspectives on the advocacy and education-based work of international human rights organizations. Tracey Holland.
Two 75-minute periods. -
LALS 249 - Latino/a Formations
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 249 and SOCI 249 ) This course focuses on the concepts, methodologies and theoretical approaches for understanding the lives of those people who (im)migrated from or who share real or imagined links with Latin America and the Spanish-Speaking Caribbean. As such this course considers the following questions: Who is a Latino/a? What is the impact of U.S. political and economic policy on immigration? What is assimilation? What does U.S. citizenship actually mean and entail? How are ideas about Blackness, or race more generally, organized and understood among Latino/as? What role do heterogeneous identities play in the construction of space and place among Latino/a and Chicano/a communities? This course introduces students to the multiple ways in which space, race, ethnicity, class and gendered identities are imagined/formed in Latin America and conversely affirmed and/or redefined in the United States. Conversely, this course examines the ways in which U.S. Latina/o populations provide both economic and cultural remittances to their countries of origin that also help to challenge and rearticulate Latin American social and economic relationships. Carlos Alamo.
Not offered in 2017/18.
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LALS 251 - Development and Social Change in Latin America
1 unit(s)
(Same as SOCI 251 ) This course examines the ways in which Latin American and Caribbean nations have defined and pursued development and struggled for social change in the post World-War II era. We use country studies and development theories (including Modernization, Dependency, World-Systems, Feminist and Post-Structuralist) to analyze the extent to which development has been shaped by the tensions between local, national, and international political and economic interests. Within this structural context we focus on people and their relationships to each other and to a variety of issues including work, land, reproductive rights, basic needs, and revolution. Integrating structural analysis with an analysis of lived practice and meaning making allows us to understand development as a process that shapes, but is also shaped by, local actors. Light Carruyo.
Not Offered in 2017/18.
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LALS 253 - Children of Immigration Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as SOCI 253 ) Immigration to the U.S. since the 1970s has been characterized by a marked and unprecedented increase in the diversity of new immigrants. Unlike the great migrations from Europe in the late 1800s and early 1900s, most of the immigrants who have arrived in the U.S. in the last four decades have come from Latin America, Asia, and the Caribbean. New immigration patterns have had a significant impact on the racial and ethnic composition and stratification of the American population, as well as the meaning of American identity itself. Immigrants and their families are also being transformed in the process, as they come into contact with various institutional contexts that can facilitate, block, and challenge the process of incorporation into the U.S. This course examines the impact of these new immigration patterns by focusing on the 16.4 million children in the U.S. who have at least one immigrant parent. Since 1990, children of immigrants - those born in the U.S. as well as those who are immigrants themselves - have doubled and have come to represent 23% of the population of minors in the U.S. In this course we study how children of immigrants are reshaping America, and how America is reshaping them, by examining key topics such as the impact of immigration on family structures, gender roles, language maintenance, academic achievement, and identity, as well as the impact that immigration reforms have had on access to higher education, employment, and political participation. This course provides an overview of the experiences of a population that is now a significant proportion of the U.S. population, yet one that is filled with contradictions, tensions and fissures and defies simple generalizations. Eréndira Rueda.
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LALS 255 - Global Political Economy Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as INTL 255 ) This course explores competing visions of economic globalization, and uses these distinct frameworks to analyze the meaning, causes, extent, and consequences of globalization, with a particular focus on the relationships among global, national and local economic phenomena. What do we mean by globalization? What are the effects of globalization on growth, inequality, and the environment? How might international economic policy and the particular form(s) of globalization that it promotes help to explain the pace and form of urbanization? Who benefits from globalization, and who might be hurt? Why do economists and others disagree about the answers to these and related questions? This course explores some of the ways that interdisciplinary analysis might enrich our understanding of economic globalization. Timothy Koechlin.
Two 75-minute periods. -
LALS 258 - Latin American Politics Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as POLI 258 ) Drawing from political processes across several Latin American countries, this course will focus on conceptual debates regarding political representation and participation, political institutions, political culture, and political economy in the region. A major theme will be inequality. The course will examine historical-structural patterns, relationships among social, economic, and political conditions at the national, sub-national and regional levels, and important social and political actors and institutions. The course will also examine the evolution of US roles in Latin America. Katherine Hite.
Two 75-minute periods. -
LALS 268 - Religion, Repression, and Resistance in Latin America
1 unit(s)
(Same as ANTH 268 and HIST 268 ) What was it like to live in a society where crimes of thought and religious transgressions were prosecuted and punished? How did various populations confront and resist inquisitorial activities? What is the legacy of the Inquisition in the Americas? This course addresses these and other questions through a focus on the Latin American Inquisition and Extirpation (ecclesiastic attempts to reform or destroy Precolumbian indigenous religions). The course tracks the emergence of Inquisition tribunals in Mexico City, Lima, and Cartagena after 1571, and the Catholic Church’s prosecution of indigenous idolatry and sorcery. It focuses both on trends in prosecution, torture, and punishment, and on the dynamic responses of those who were either targets or collaborators: indigenous peoples, Jews, Africans, female healers, people of mixed descent, and Protestants. Towards the end of the course, based on students’ interests, we also review other select case studies of religious control and resistance in Latin America. Students proficient in Spanish or Portuguese are encouraged to work with primary sources. David Tavárez.
Not offered in 2017/18.
Two 75-minute periods. -
LALS 269 - Constructing School Kids and Street Kids
1 unit(s)
(Same as EDUC 269 and SOCI 269 ) Students from low-income families and racial/ethnic minority backgrounds do poorly in school by comparison with their white and well-to-do peers. These students drop out of high school at higher rates, score lower on standardized tests, have lower GPAs, and are less likely to attend and complete college. In this course we examine theories and research that seek to explain patterns of differential educational achievement in U.S. schools. We study theories that focus on the characteristics of settings in which teaching and learning take place (e.g. schools, classrooms, and home), theories that focus on the characteristics of groups (e.g., racial/ethnic groups and peer groups), and theories that examine how cultural processes mediate political-economic constraints and human action. Eréndira Rueda.
Not offered in 2017/18.
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LALS 275 - Caribbean Discourse
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 275 and ENGL 275 ) Study of the work of artists and intellectuals from the Caribbean. Analysis of fiction, non-fiction, and popular cultural forms such as calypso and reggae within their historical contexts. Attention to cultural strategies of resistance to colonial domination and to questions of community formation in the post-colonial era. May include some discussion of post-colonial literary theory and cultural studies.
Not offered in 2017/18.
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LALS 284 - Undocumented, Unapologetic, Unafraid Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as EDUC 284 and SOCI 284 ) This course places contemporary discourse about the approximately 11 million undocumented people in the U.S. in its historical, academic, legal, political, social, cultural, and economic context. The course takes a historical look at immigration law and legal enforcement, with a particular focus on the (mis)construction and criminalization of undocumented immigrants. By examining how the concept of undocumented/unauthorized has been created, we understand the ways that the assignation of immigration status excludes and exploits undocumented people. Course content considers the array of social institutions that are complicit in this work (e.g., schools, government agencies, industry, media) and how undocumented people resist these forms of oppression and dominance that are exerted by these institutions. A special focus of this course examines how undocumented students navigate K-12 schooling experiences and pathways to college. Key topics include current legislation like DACA, DREAM Act, SUCCEED Act; current campaigns like Comprehensive Immigration Reform and the Undocumented, Unapologetic, and Unafraid campaign; the privatization and expansion of immigration detention centers; unaccompanied minors; the experiences of families with mixed authorized status; the theoretical intersectionality of xenophobia and nativism with other forms of oppression; and the global capitalist economic forces that create both the need to migrate and the need for immigrant labor. Jaime Del Razo and Eréndira Rueda.
Two 75-minute periods. -
LALS 290 - Field Work Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
By special permission.
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LALS 297 - Reading Course Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 unit(s)
By special permission.
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LALS 298 - Independent Research Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
By special permission.
Latin American and Latino/a Studies: III. Advanced
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LALS 300 - Senior Thesis Semester Offered: Fall
0.5 unit(s)
Yearlong course 300-LALS 301 .
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LALS 301 - Senior Thesis Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)
Yearlong course LALS 300 -301.
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LALS 302 - Senior Thesis Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
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LALS 303 - Senior Project Semester Offered: Fall
0.5 unit(s)
US Latino/a studies programs have their origins in the joining of university students with grassroots organizers to create multidisciplinary curricula and initiatives recognizing the contributions of Latino communities. A senior project reflects that spirit. In conjunction with two faculty members, one of whom must come from the LALS steering committee, students formulate a project topic based on continuing community-based work they have done during their Vassar years. The project might be rooted in the local Latino/a community, or from sustained work in Latin America. Students submit a proposal and bibliography, develop a work plan, and follow the same schedule as thesis writers. The senior project must go beyond a fieldwork experience, and requires a well-defined written analytical component.
Yearlong course 303-LALS 304 .
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LALS 304 - Senior Project Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)
Yearlong course LALS 303 -304.
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LALS 305 - Senior Project
1 unit(s)
US Latino/a studies programs have their origins in the joining of university students with grassroots organizers to create multidisciplinary curricula and initiatives recognizing the contributions of Latino communities. A senior project reflects that spirit. In conjunction with two faculty members, one of whom must come from the LALS steering committee, students formulate a project topic based on continuing community-based work they have done during their Vassar years. The project might be rooted in the local Latino/a community, or from sustained work in Latin America. Students submit a proposal and bibliography, develop a work plan, and follow the same schedule as thesis writers. The senior project must go beyond a fieldwork experience, and requires a well-defined written analytical component.
This will serve as a 1-unit/1-semester option for a Latin American Studies Project. Special permission.
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LALS 321 - Feminism, Knowledge, Practice
1 unit(s)
(Same as SOCI 321 and WMST 321 ) How do feminist politics inform how research, pedagogy, and social action are approached? Can feminist anti-racist praxis and insights into issues of race, power and knowledge, intersecting inequalities, and human agency change the way we understand and represent the social world? We discuss several qualitative approaches used by feminists to document the social world (e.g. ethnography, discourse analysis, oral history). Additionally, we explore and engage with contemplative practices such as mediation, engaged listening, and creative-visualization. Our goal is to develop an understanding of the relationship between power, knowledge and action and to collectively envision healing forms of critical social inquiry. Light Carruyo.
Not offered in 2017/18.
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LALS 340 - Advanced Urban/Regional Studies
1 unit(s)
Previous topics include: Ethnic Geography and Transnationalism and World Cities: Globalization, Segregation, and Defensive Urbanism.
Not offered in 2017/18.
One 3-hour period. -
LALS 351 - Language and Expressive Culture
1 unit(s)
Not offered in 2017/18.
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LALS 352 - Indigenous Literatures of the Americas
1 unit(s)
(Same as AMST 352 and ANTH 352 ) This course addresses a selection of creation narratives, historical accounts, poems, and other genres produced by indigenous authors from Pre-Columbian times to the present, using historical, linguistic and ethnographic approaches. We examine the use of non-alphabetic and alphabetic writing systems, study poetic and rhetorical devices, and examine indigenous historical consciousness and sociopolitical and gender dynamics through the vantage point of these works. Other topics include language revitalization, translation issues, and the rapport between linguistic structure and literary form. The languages and specific works to be examined are selected in consultation with course participants. They may include English or Spanish translations of works in Nahuatl, Zapotec, Yucatec and K’iche’ Maya, Quechua, Tupi, Aymara, and other indigenous languages of Latin America. David Tavárez.
Not offered in 2017/18.
One 2-hour period. -
LALS 360 - Amerindian Religions and Resistance
1 unit(s)
Not offered in 2017/18.
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LALS 363 - Revolution and Conflict in Twentieth-Century Latin America
1 unit(s)
(Same as HIST 363 ) Revolution has been a dominant theme in the history of Latin America since 1910. This course examines the revolutionary experiences of three nations—Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua. It examines theories of revolution, then assesses the revolutions themselves—the conditions out of which each revolution developed, the conflicting ideologies at play, the nature of the struggles, and the postrevolutionary societies that emerged from the struggles. Leslie Offutt.
Prerequisite(s): HIST 264 or permission of the instructor.
Not offered in 2017/18.
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LALS 382 - Race and Popular Culture
1 unit(s)
(Same as AFRS 382 and SOCI 382 ) This seminar explores the way in which the categories of race, ethnicity, and nation are mutually constitutive with an emphasis on understanding how different social institutions and practices produce meanings about race and racial identities. Through an examination of knowledge production as well as symbolic and expressive practices, we focus on the ways in which contemporary scholars connect cultural texts to social and historical institutions. Appreciating the relationship between cultural texts and institutional frameworks, we unravel the complex ways in which the cultural practices of different social groups reinforce or challenge social relationships and structures. Finally, this seminar considers how contemporary manifestations of globalization impact and transform the linkages between race and culture as institutional and intellectual constructs. Carlos Alamo.
Not offered in 2017/18.
One 2-hour period. -
LALS 383 - Nation, Race and Gender in Latin America and the Caribbean - Senior Seminar Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
With a focus on Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean this course traces and analyzes the ways in which the project of nation building creates and draws upon narratives about race and gender. While our focus is on Latin America, our study considers racial and gender formations within the context of the world-system. We are interested in how a complicated history of colonization, independence, post-coloniality, and “globalization” has intersected with national economies, politics, communities, and identities. In order to get at these intersections we examine a range of texts dealing with policy, national literatures, common sense, and political struggle. Specific issues addressed include the relationship between socio-biological theories of race and Latin American notions of mestizage, discursive and material “whitening,” the myth of racial democracy, sexuality and morality, and border politics. Light Carruyo.
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LALS 384 - Native Religions of the Americas
1 unit(s)
(Same as AMST 384 and ANTH 384 ) The conquest of the Americas was accompanied by various intellectual and sociopolitical projects devised to translate, implant, or impose Christian beliefs in Amerindian societies. This course examines modes of resistance and accommodation, among other indigenous responses, to the introduction of Christianity as part of larger colonial projects. Through a succession of case studies from North America, Mesoamerica, the Caribbean, the Andes, and Paraguay, we analyze the impact of Christian colonial and postcolonial evangelization projects on indigenous languages, religious practices, literary genres, social organization and gender roles, and examine contemporary indigenous religious practices. David Tavárez.
Prerequisite(s): prior coursework in Anthropology or Latin American Latino/a Studies or permission of the instructor.
Not offered in 2017/18.
One 2-hour period. -
LALS 385 - Women, Culture and Development
1 unit(s)
(Same as INTL 385 , SOCI 385 , and WMST 385 ) This course examines the ongoing debates within development studies about how integration into the global economy is experienced by women around the world. Drawing on gender studies, cultural studies, and global political economy, we explore the multiple ways in which women struggle to secure well-being, challenge injustice, and live meaningful lives. Light Carruyo.
Not offered in 2017/18.
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LALS 386 - Ghetto Schooling
1 unit(s)
(Same as EDUC 386 and SOCI 386 ) In twenty-first century America, the majority of students attend segregated schools. Most white students attend schools where 75% of their peers are white, while 80% of Latino students and 74% of black students attend majority non-white schools. In this course we will examine the events that led to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka and the 60-year struggle to make good on the promises of that ruling. The course will be divided into three parts. In part one, we will study the Brown decision as an integral element in the fight against Jim Crow laws and trace the legal history of desegregation efforts. In part two, we will focus on desegregation policies and programs that enabled the slow move toward desegregation between 1954 and the 1980s. At this point in time, integration efforts reached their peak and 44% of black students in the south attended majority-white schools. Part three of the course will focus on the dismantling of desegregation efforts that were facilitated by U.S. Supreme Court decisions beginning in the 1990s. Throughout the course we will consider the consequences of the racial isolation and concentrated poverty that characterizes segregated schooling and consider the implications of this for today’s K-12 student population, which is demographically very different than it was in the 1960s, in part due to new migration streams from Latin America, Asia, and the Caribbean. Over the last 40 years, public schools have experienced a 28% decline in white enrollments, with increases in the number of black and Asian students, and a noteworthy 495% increase in Latino enrollments. Eréndira Rueda.
Not offered in 2017/18.
One 2-hour period. -
LALS 387 - Latin American Seminar Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
1 unit(s)
(Same as HISP 387 ) A seminar offering in-depth study of topics related to the literary and cultural history of Latin America. This course may be repeated for credit when the topic changes.Michael Aronna (a); Lisa Paravisini-Gebert (b).
Topic for 2017/18a: Detective Fiction in Latin America. This seminar examines the unique literary origins and development of detective fiction in Latin America in different national, political, and cultural contexts to inquire how specific genres of detective fiction and film correspond to particular issues of organized crime, class and ethnic difference, governability, corruption, quotidian violence, urbanization, and the media across Latin America. Michael Aronna.
Topic for 2017/18b: Art, Film, Literature and Climate Change in Latin America. This seminar addressed the toll climate change is taking on Latin America through its expression in art, film and literature. Melting glaciers, coral bleaching, changing rainfall patters, rising sea levels, water and food insecurity are among the topics addressed eloquently through the arts in the region. The course will examine the central role artists and writers have played as key environmental activists throughout LatinAmerica, focusing on literary work by Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia) and Homero Aridjis (Mexico), artists like Tomás Sánchez (Cuba), Alejandro Durán (Mexico), and Ruby Rumié (Colombia), and films like Even the Rains (2011), The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), A Place in the World (1992), The Naked Jungle (1954), and The Towrope (2012). Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert.
Prerequisite(s): HISP 216 and one course above 216.
One 2-hour period. -
LALS 388 - Latin American Economic Development Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
(Same as ECON 388 ) This course examines why many Latin American countries started with levels of development similar to those of the U.S. and Canada but were not able to keep up. The course begins with discussions of various ways of thinking about and measuring economic development and examines the record of Latin American countries on various measures, including volatile growth rates, high income and wealth inequality, and high crime rates. We then turn to an analysis of the colonial and post-Independence period to examine the roots of the weak institutional development than could explain a low growth trajectory. Next, we examine the post WWII period, exploring the import substitution of 1970s, the debt crises of the 1980s, and the structural adjustment of the 1990s. Finally, we look at events in the past decade, comparing and contrasting the experience of different countries with respect to growth, poverty and inequality. Sarah Pearlman.
Prerequisite(s): ECON 209 .
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LALS 389 - Identities and Historical Consciousness in Latin America
1 unit(s)
(Same as ANTH 389 ) This seminar explores in a strategic fashion the emergence and constant renovation of historical narratives that have supported various beliefs and claims about local, regional, national and transnational identities in Latin America and Latinx societies since the rise of the Mexica and Inca empires until the present. An important focus is the study of racial discourses and classifications, and of identities based on cultural practices and territorial origin. Through anthropological and historical approaches, we examine indigenous forms of historical consciousness and new identity discourses under colonial rule, their permutations after the emergence of independent nation-states, and crucial shifts in national, racial, and ethnic identity claims that preceded and followed revolutions and social movements. Students complete an original research project, and the use of original sources in Spanish or Portuguese is encouraged. David Tavárez.
Not offered in 2017/18.
One 2-hour period. -
LALS 399 - Senior Independent Research Semester Offered: Fall or Spring
0.5 to 1 unit(s)
By special permission.
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