Latin American & Caribbean Studies Autumn 2025 Courses

LACS 12200 (PORT 12200)
Juliano Saccomani
MWF 11:30 – 12:20PM

This course is intended for speakers of Spanish to develop competence quickly in spoken and written Portuguese. In this intermediate-level course, students learn ways to apply their Spanish language skills to mastering Portuguese by concentrating on the similarities and differences between the two languages. Students with a placement of 20100 or higher in any of the other Romance Languages are eligible to take PORT 12200 for completion of the College Language Competency Requirement.

LACS 12201 (KREY 12201)
Gerdine Ulysse
MWF 10:30 – 11:20AM

This course is intended for speakers of other Romance Languages to quickly develop competence in spoken and written Kreyol (Kreyòl Ayisyen). In this introductory course, students learn ways to apply their skills in another Romance language to master Kreyol by concentrating on the similarities and differences between the two languages. Although familiarity with a Romance language is strongly recommended, students with no prior knowledge of a Romance Languages, and heritage learners, are also welcome.

LACS 16100 (SOSC 26100; RDIN 16100; ANTH 23101; HIST 16101)

Section 1: TR 11:00 – 12:20PM with Emilio Kourí

Section 2: TR 2:00 – 3:20PM with Emilio Kourí

Section 3: MW 1:30 – 2:50PM with Claudia Brittenham

Section 4: MW 3:00 – 4:20PM with Staff

Section 5: TR 12:30 – 1:50PM with Staff

Autumn Quarter examines the origins of Indigenous civilizations in what we now call Latin America, with a focus on the political, social, and cultural dimensions of groups including the Maya, the Inca, and the Aztecs; the causes and consequences of the Spanish and Portuguese conquests; and the construction of colonial societies and economies in the 16th century.

LACS 21100 (SPAN 21100)
Andrés Rabinovich
MW 1:30 – 2:50PM

This sociolinguistic course expands understanding of the historical development of Spanish and awareness of the great sociocultural diversity within the Spanish-speaking world and its impact on the Spanish language. We emphasize the interrelationship between language and culture as well as ethno-historical transformations within the different regions of the Hispanic world. Special consideration is given to identifying lexical variations and regional expressions exemplifying diverse sociocultural aspects of the Spanish language, and to recognizing phonological differences between dialects. We also examine the impact of indigenous cultures on dialectical aspects. The course includes literary and nonliterary texts, audio-visual materials, and visits by native speakers of a variety of Spanish-speaking regions.

LACS 21101 (KREY 21100)
Staff
MWF 12:30 – 1:20PM

This advanced-level course will focus on speaking and writing skills through the study of a wide variety of contemporary texts and audiovisual materials. It will provide students with a better understanding of contemporary Haitian society. Students will review problematic grammatical structures, write a number of essays, and participate in multiple class debates.

LACS 21600 (KREY 21600; GLST 21600; FREN 21601)
Gerdine Ulysse
MW 3:00 – 4:20PM

This course provides an interdisciplinary survey of the contemporary Francophone Caribbean. Students will study a wide range of its cultural manifestations (performing arts like music and dance, literature, cinema, architecture and other visual arts, gastronomy). Attention is also paid to such sociolinguistic issues as the coexistence of French and Kreyòl, and the standardization of Kreyòl.

LACS 22400
José Antonio Guevara Bermúdez
M 3:00 - 5:50PM

For the past 50 years, Latin America has been gripped by a cycle of dictatorships, authoritarian governments masquerading as democracies, and armed conflicts. These have facilitated the commission of atrocity crimes. In most cases, perpetrators have evaded accountability. However, thanks to the tireless efforts of victims, civil society organizations, and the international community, a measure of justice has been achieved through various truth-seeking processes and accountability mechanisms.

This course will delve into the human rights crises in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, and Mexico, exploring how they led to the commission of atrocity crimes – large-scale and systematic human rights abuses, genocide and war crimes. We will examine the political, legal, and social strategies employed by human rights organisations and victims' movements to break the cycle of impunity. We will also explore the crucial role of the United Nations and the Organization of American States, highlighting the importance of intergovernmental cooperation in transforming policies and practices for the improvement of human rights on the ground.

LACS 22500
Silvia Giorguli
T 3:30 - 6:20PM

All the countries in the Americas have a long story as highly mobile. US has been, by far and for several decades, the main magnet for international moves worldwide with more than 50 million migrants living today in the country. Canada has one of the largest proportions of foreign-born population, above 20%. Mexico is the country with the second largest stock of nationals living in another country, close to 12 million. In the cases of Jamaica and El Salvador, one of every four nationals live abroad. Central and South America have also experienced a variety of international movements related to political, environmental and economic events. The region as a whole combines documented and undocumented moves, an important flow of return migration, adult- only and family migrations, temporary-labor programs and the settlement of large communities of migrants, specially in cities. In addition, in the history of the continent one can trace rapid shifts in countries traditionally of destination to countries of origin. The case of Venezuela, where more than 7 millions (20% of its population) have outmigrated in the last decade, illustrates well how the population in the Americas uses migration as a rapid response to economic or political shocks (Giorguli, Garcí a-Guerrero and Masferrer, 2022).

This course seeks to look at the international mobility of the continent in a comprehensive way and to discuss about the management of migration and the scenarios for the next years based on what the demographic projections anticipate. For this purpose, we will analyze the historical trends of different types of mobilities and destinations, the sociodemographic characteristics of migration flows and how they are related to migration policies and how migration interacts with other economic, political and social processes in the region. We will analyze jointly the impact of migration on sending and receiving countries as well as the role that return migration plays in the whole system.

LACS 24400 (PORT 24400)
Victoria Saramago Padua
TR 2:00 – 3:20PM

During most of Brazil's colonial period and decades after its independence from Portugal, the country's labor force was primarily composed of enslaved people from Africa and of African descent. The African diaspora is a crucial component to understand Brazil's history, society, economy and culture. From the abolitionist prose of Maria Firmina dos Reis and Machado de Assis's subtle reflections on race to the exponential growth of Afro-Brazilian authors in the mainstream of contemporary literature, such as Conceição Evaristo and Itamar Vieira Jr., Brazilian literature has been shaped by the rich diversity of African diasporic cultures as well as by the numerous challenges faced by Afro-Brazilians in a society that is still today deeply unequal. In this course, we will delve into Afro-Brazilian history and culture through literature. We will cover a century and a half of Afro-Brazilian literary production and understand how its main themes, potentialities and challenges have evolved over the course of the decades. Besides the authors mentioned above, we will read works by Abdias do Nascimento, Carolina Maria de Jesus, Djamila Ribeiro and Ricardo Aleixo, among others.

LACS 24901 (PBPL 24901; SOSC 20251)
Charles (Chad) Broughton
TR 12:30 – 1:50PM

With a focus on the past two decades, this interdisciplinary course explores the impact of economic integration, urbanization, and migration on Mexico and, to a lesser extent, on the United States-in particular, working class communities of the Midwestern Rust Belt. The course will examine work and life in the borderland production centers; agriculture, poverty, and indigenous populations in rural Mexico; evolving trade and transnational ties (especially in people, food products and labor, and drugs) between the U.S. and Mexico; and trade, trade adjustment, and immigration policy.

LACS 25660/35660 (SPAN 25660/35660; TAPS 28473/38373)
Danielle Roper
TR 12:30 – 1:50PM

This course examines the ways histories of US intervention in Latin America have been engaged in cultural practice. We assess the history of US intervention by reading primary documents alongside cultural artifacts including film, performance and visual art, song, music, and poetry. The course begins with the Cuban revolution and ends with the ongoing crisis in Puerto Rico.

LACS 29801
Diana Schwartz Francisco
F 9:30 –12:20PM

This colloquium, which is led by the LACS BA Program Adviser, assists students in formulating approaches to the BA capstone project and developing their research and writing skills, while providing a forum for group discussion and critiques. Graduating students present their BA projects in a public session of the colloquium during the spring quarter.

LACS 29943/39943 (ARTH 29943/39943; RDIN 29943/39943)
Claudia Brittenham
T 2:00 – 4:50PM

This course will consider the history of exhibiting the art of the ancient Americas from the colonial period until the present. From the European Wunderkammer to the development of the modern museum, we will consider how colonial institutions and categories shaped the reception of visually elaborated objects from past Indigenous cultures. Paying close attention to the choice of objects presented in exhibitions as well as to the museographical decisions that shaped their presentation-to the extent that they can be reconstructed from archival materials-we will explore how exhibitions both reflected and shaped changing understandings of the ancient American past.