Latin American & Caribbean Studies Spring 2024 Courses

LACS 16300/34800 (HIST 16103/36103, SOSC 26300, ANTH 23103, CRES 16103, PPHA 39780)
Brodwyn Fischer
MW 1:30-2:20 PM

Spring Quarter course, on the series of Latin American Civilization courses, focuses on the twentieth century, with special emphasis on the challenges of economic, political, and social development in the region.

LACS 25134/35134 (LING 25134/35134)
Esmeralda Vailati Negrão
TTh 09:30-10:50 AM

Different perspectives exist regarding the origins of Brazilian Portuguese (BP): Is it the outcome of mere drift from European Portuguese? Is it the outcome of “creolization”? The main goal of this course is to present and discuss some syntactic phenomena of BP that distinguish it from European Portuguese and other Romance languages, which could be explained by BP’s emergence in an ecology of language contact between European, African and Indigenous languages spoken in colonial Brazil. A set of syntactic features of BP grammar including null subjects, verbal agreement, null objects, word order, pronominal system, voice, verbal alternations, relative clauses, wh-questions, focus constructions and negation, will be examined. These will be compared with features of Bantu and Kwa languages to show that they might to have played a critical role in the restructuring process.

LACS 12200 (PORT 12200)
Alan Parma
MWF 12:30-1:20 PM

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 14500 (PORT 14500)
Juliano Saccomani
MWF 11:30-12:20 PM

This is an accelerated language course that covers vocabulary and grammar for students interested in working in a business environment where Portuguese is spoken. The focus of this highly interactive class is to develop basic communication skills and cultural awareness through formal classes, readings, discussions, and writings.

PORT 14500 satisfies the Language Competency Requirement.

LACS 16404 (HIST 16404, GNSE 16404, RDIN 16404)
Keegan Boyar
TTh 03:30 PM-04:50 PM

Crime and policing are intensely debated today around the world, but perhaps nowhere are these debates felt more sharply than in Latin America, the site of both high rates of crime and violence and widespread distrust of the police and criminal justice institutions. This course delves into the history of these issues in the region. In the process, it sheds light on broader themes of Latin American history from the late colonial period to the present day. As the course shows through topics ranging from crimes against honor, to the policing of street vending, to the drug war, crime and policing in Latin America have been crucial spaces for the construction and contestation of social and legal hierarchies, the voicing of political protest and social critique, and the making and unmaking of citizenship. Through the use of diverse readings, including primary sources such as court records, satirical poems, and blockbuster films, students will trace how ideas of crime, and of the role of the state in attempting to define it and respond to it, changed over time with broader social, economic, and political developments. In doing so, they will examine how crime and policing have intersected with class, race, and gender, and how debates over crime and the practices of policing have shaped the boundaries of citizenship.

LACS 20310 (SPAN 20310,CHST 20310)
Maria Lozada Cerna
MW 01:30 PM-02:50 PM

Chicago is known to have multiple, diverse Spanish-speaking communities. In this course, students will use these communities as their classroom to analyze and debate current issues confronting the LatinX experience in the United States and Midwest. In parallel, class instruction will reinforce and expand students' grammatical and lexical proficiency in a manner that will allow students to engage in real-life activities involving speaking, reading, listening and writing skills. This intermediate-high language course targets the development of writing skills and oral proficiency in Spanish and is designed as an alternative to SPAN 20300. Students will review problematic grammatical structures, write a number of essays, and participate in multiple class conversations using authentic readings and listening segments as linguistic models on which to base their own production. At the end of class, students are expected to produce an individual project.

LACS 20401 (KREY 20400, KREY 20400, RDIN 20410, CHST 20400)
Gerdine Ulysse
W 04:30 PM-06:20 PM

This course will provide opportunities to promote deeper knowledge of the Haitian culture while emphasizing the development of writing skills in the Kreyòl language through the use of a variety of authentic texts and cultural experiences. Topics covered in the course will include the Haitian revolution, cuisine, and audio-visual and performing arts. Moreover, students will participate in different cultural exploration outings in the city of Chicago, which will provide additional opportunities to interpret cultural artifacts and reflect on the Haitian culture and its influence on the representation and daily lives of Haitians in the diaspora, particularly in Chicago. In this course, we will: 1) analyze different cultural artifacts in the Haitian cultures through primary and secondary texts, 2) examine the influences of these cultural phenomena on the representation of Haitians and the creation of Haitian identity in the diaspora, and 3) and reflect on the importance of cultural identity in a migration context. Those who will take the course for Kreyòl credits will also develop additional syntactic knowledge in the language through creation of diverse essays. This course will be conducted in two weekly sessions: a common lecture session in English and an additional weekly discussion session in English or Kreyòl.

LACS 21001 (SOSC 21001, HIST 29304, LLSO 21001, CHST 21001, HMRT 21001, CRES 21001)
Susan Gzesh
TTh 09:30 AM-10:50 AM

This course examines basic human rights norms and concepts and selected contemporary human rights problems from across the globe, including human rights implications of the COVID pandemic. Beginning with an overview of the present crises and significant actors on the world stage, we will then examine the political setting for the United Nations' approval of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in 1948. The post-World War 2 period was a period of optimism and fertile ground for the establishment of a universal rights regime, given the defeat of fascism in Europe. International jurists wanted to establish a framework of rights that went beyond the nation-state, taking into consideration the partitions of India-Pakistan and Israel-Palestine - and the rising expectations of African-Americans in the U.S. and colonized peoples across Africa and Asia. But from the beginning, there were basic contradictions in a system of rights promulgated by representatives of nation-states that ruled colonial regimes, maintained de facto and de jure systems of racial discrimination, and imprisoned political dissidents and journalists. Cross-cutting themes of the course include the universalism of human rights, problems of impunity and accountability, notions of "exceptionalism," and the emerging issue of the "shamelessness" of authoritarian regimes. Students will research a human rights topic of their choosing, to be presented as either a final research paper or a group presentation.

LACS 21100 (SPAN 21100)
Celia Diaz
MW 1:30-2:50 PM

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 21500 (PORT 21500)
Ana Maria Lima
MWF 1:30-2:20 PM

This course helps students develop their skills in understanding, summarizing, and producing written and spoken arguments in Portuguese through readings and debates on various issues of relevance in contemporary Luso-Brazilian societies. Special consideration is given to the major differences between continental and Brazilian Portuguese. In addition to reading, analyzing, and commenting on advanced texts (both literary and nonliterary), students practice and extend their writing skills in a series of compositions.

LACS 21900 (SPAN 21905, CRES 21950)
Agnes Lugo-Ortiz
TTh 3:30-4:50 PM

This course introduces students to the writing produced in Hispanic and Portuguese America during the period marked by the early processes of European colonization in the sixteenth century through the revolutionary movements that, in the nineteenth century, led to the establishment of independent nation-states across the continent. The assigned texts relate to the first encounters between Indigenous, Black, and European populations in the region, to the emergence of distinct ("New World") notions of cultural identity (along with the invention of new racial categories), and to the disputes over the meaning of nationhood that characterized the anti-colonial struggles for independence. Issues covered in this survey include the idea of texts as spaces of cultural and political conflict; the relationships between Christianization, secularization, and practices of racialization; the transatlantic slave trade; the uses of the colonial past in early nationalist projects; and the aesthetic languages through which this production was partly articulated (such as the Barroco de Indias, or "New World baroque," Neoclassicism, Romanticism, and Modernismo, among others). In addition to enhancing your knowledge of Latin American cultural history and improving your close reading and critical thinking skills, this course is designed to continue building on your linguistic competence in Spanish.

LACS 24524 (SPAN 24524, GNSE 23160)
Laura Colaneri
TTh 12:30-1:50 PM

Latin America has recently seen an explosion of internationally lauded literature by women writers: as one article stated, "The new Latin American Boom is here, and it is being led by women." This course focuses on Latin American women's writing from 1960 to the present, addressing both this recent boom and their literary predecessors. Students will contend with changing trends and historically and culturally specific ideas of representation, womanhood, and feminine sexuality in Latin America, analyze the roles of race, class, and ability in women's writing, and engage with legacies of authoritarianism, political violence, and femicide throughout the region. Texts traverse the region and period, ranging from the 1970s crónicas of Elena Poniatowska (Mexico, 1932-) and the short stories of Isabel Allende (Chile, 1942-) to the concept albums of Rita Indiana (Dominican Republic, 1977-) and the 2017 novel "Temporada de huracanes" by Fernanda Melchor (Mexico, 1982-).

Course taught in Spanish.

LACS 25731/35731 (ARTH 25731/35731, GNSE 20138/30138)
Claudia Brittenham
Th 2:00-4:50 PM

In this course, we will seek to test the possibilities and limits of understanding gender and sex in premodernity through an inquiry into the artistic traditions of the ancient Americas. Works of art constitute a primary means by which we can access ideas about what we call gender and sex. Based on what we can reconstruct from visual, textual, and archaeological sources, these cultures conceptualized and represented gender in ways that might seem unfamiliar, in the process putting into question our own preconceptions. Indeed, pre-modern works of art might not have served to simply record conventions of gender but also helped construct the very idea of a sexed body within a given cultural context. As we discover commonalities and divergences between these Indigenous American traditions, we will learn to think across cultural contexts and disciplinary divides, putting into question some of our own assumptions. We will see that gender is not an immutable construct but something actively brought into being in different ways in different times and places.

LACS 26386/36386 (HIST 26321, ANTH 23003, CRES 26386, RDIN 26386/36386)
Diana Schwartz Francisco
TTh 11:00-12:20 PM

What is “Latin America,” who are “Latin Americans” and what is the relationship among and between places and people of the region we call Latin America, on the one hand, and the greater Latinx diaspora in the US on the other? This course explores the history of Latin America as an idea, and the cultural, social, political and economic connections among peoples on both sides of the southern and eastern borders of the United States. Students will engage multiple disciplinary perspectives in course readings and assignments and will explore Chicago as a crucial node in the geography of Greater Latin America. Some topics we will consider are: the origin of the concept of “Latin” America, Inter-Americanism and Pan-Americanism, transnational social movements and intellectual exchanges, migration, and racial and ethnic politics.

LACS 29000/39000 (HIST 29000/39000, HCHR 39200, CRES 29000, RLST 21401, MAPS 39200)
Dain Borges
MW 1:30-2:50 PM

This course will consider select pre-twentieth-century issues, such as the transformations of Christianity in colonial society and the Catholic Church as a state institution. It will emphasize twentieth-century developments: religious rebellions; conversion to evangelical Protestant churches; Afro-diasporan religions; reformist and revolutionary Catholicism; new and New Age religions.

LACS 29106/39106 (HIST 29105/39105, CRES 29105, GNSE 20131)
Mary Hicks
MW 3:00-4:20 PM

This reading seminar will introduce students to the key questions, methods, and theories of the burgeoning field of gendered histories of slavery. Global in scope, but with a focus on the early modern Atlantic world, we will explore a range of primary and secondary texts from various slave societies. Assigned monographs will cover a multitude of topics including women and law, sexualities, kinship, and reproduction, and the intersection of race, labor, and market economies. In addition to examining historical narratives, students will discuss the ethical and methodological implications of reading and writing histories of violence, erasure, and domination. Learning to work within and against the limits imposed by hegemonic forms of representation, the fragmentary nature of the archive, and the afterlives of slavery, this course will examine how masculinity and femininity remade and were remade by bondage.

LACS 29299 (KREY 29300, FREN 29301)
Gerdine Ulysse
MW 3:00-4:20 PM

This course examines the concept of language identity (i.e., the language[s] people employ to represent themselves) in multilingual Creolophone communities, particularly in Haiti. This course also examines the relationships between language identity, learning, language use, and literacy development in these societies. By the end of the course, students will be able to explain: 1) what language identity in multilingual Creolophone community reveal about speakers and their language attitudes; 2) how context and mode of communication can impact language identity and language use; 3) literacy acquisition and achievement in Creole communities; and 4) how Creolophones' learning and literacy development are affected by language policies and ideologies. A final project will require students to design and conduct a preliminary sociolinguistic study based on students' interests in the French-Creolophone world.

Course taught in English. Knowledge of French and Kreyòl will be helpful, but not required. Students taking the course for FREN credit will read French texts in the original language and produce at least one piece of written work in the target language

LACS 29700

Students and instructors can arrange a Reading and Research course in Latin American Studies when the material being studied goes beyond the scope of a particular course, when students are working on material not covered in an existing course or when students would like to receive academic credit for independent research.

LACS 29299
Diana Schwartz Francisco
F 9:30-12:20 PM

This second part of the BA Colloquium, which is led by the LACS BA Program Adviser, continues to assist 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.

Must be a 4th year major in Latin American Studies to enroll

LACS 29900

Independent study course intended to be used by 4th year BA students who are writing the BA thesis.

LACS 40100