Winter 2025 Courses

LACS 16200/34700 (HIST 36102/16102, ANTH 23102, SOSC 26200, CRES 16102, PPHA 39770)

Section 1: TR 11:00 – 12:20PM with Diana Schwartz Francisco

Section 2: TR 2:00 – 3:20PM with Diana Schwartz Francisco

Section 3: MW 1:30 – 2:50PM with Mauricio Tenorio

Section 4: TR 11:00 – 12:20PM with Mary Hicks

May be taken in sequence or individually. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This course addresses the evolution of colonial societies, the wars of independence, and the emergence of Latin American nation-states in the changing international context of the nineteenth century.

LACS 12301 (KREY 12301)
Gerdine Ulysse
MWF 10:30-11:20 AM

This course is intended for speakers of other Romance Languages, to quickly develop competence in spoken and written Kreyol (Kreyòl Ayisyen). In this intermediate-level 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. This course offers a rapid review of the basic patterns of the language and expands on the material presented in KREY 12201. Although familiarity with a Romance language is strongly recommended, students with no prior knowledge of a Romance language, and heritage learners, are also welcome.

LACS 14100 (PORT 14100)
Staff
MWF 10:30-11:20 AM

This course helps students quickly gain skills in spoken and written Portuguese by building on their prior working knowledge of another Romance language (Spanish, French, Catalan or Italian). By relying on the many similarities with other Romance languages, students can focus on mastering the different aspects of Portuguese, allowing them to develop their abilities for further study. This class covers content from PORT 10100 and 10200.

LACS 16460 (ARTH 16460)
Megan Sullivan
TTr 11:00-12:20 PM

This course investigates the development of Latin American art from the early nineteenth century to the present. Through the study of representative artists, movements, and works, we will trace this history from the formation of art academies in newly independent Latin American nations through the region's rise to prominence in an increasingly global art world. Although we will adhere to a roughly chronological organization, a set of key themes and debates will likewise structure our investigation. Among them are: the formation of collective identities (and the intersections of race, class, and nation); the impact of social and political revolutions and counter-revolutions on artistic practices; the reception and adaptation of indigenous and European (and later U.S.) art practices; and the various national, regional, and global frameworks that have been used to think through the specificity of art production from Latin America. Special emphasis will be placed on developing the skills needed to analyze a wide variety of modern and contemporary art, including painting, sculpture, photography, performance art, and site-specific installations.

LACS 20100/40100 (ANTH 20100/40100)
Alan Kolata
TTr 9:30-10:50 AM

This course is an intensive examination of the origins, structure, and meaning of two native states of the ancient Americas: the Inca and the Aztec. Lectures and discussions are framed around an examination of theories of state genesis, function, and transformation, with special reference to the economic, institutional, symbolic, and religious bases of indigenous state development. This course is broadly comparative in perspective and considers the structural significance of institutional features that are either common to or unique expressions of these two Native American states. Finally, we consider the causes and consequences of the Spanish conquest of the Americas, and the continuing impact of the European colonial order that was imposed on and to which the Native populations adapted with different degrees of success over the course of the 16th century.

LACS 20500 (PORT 20500)
Ana Maria Lima
MWF 10:30-11:20 AM

In this course students will explore the culture of the Lusophone world through the study of a wide variety of contemporary literary and journalistic texts from Brazil, Portugal, Angola and Mozambique, and unscripted recordings. This advanced language course targets the development of writing skills and oral proficiency in Portuguese. Students will review problematic grammatical structures, write a number of essays, and participate in multiple class debates, using authentic readings and listening segments as linguistic models on which to base their own production.

LACS 20600 (PORT 20600)
Ana Maria Lima
MW 1:30-2:50 PM

The objective of this course is to help students acquire advanced grammatical knowledge of the Portuguese language through exposure to cultural and literary content with a focus on Brazil. Students develop skills to continue perfecting their oral and written proficiency and comprehension of authentic literary texts and recordings, while also being exposed to relevant sociocultural and political contemporary topics. Students read, analyze, and discuss authentic texts by established writers from the lusophone world; they watch and discuss videos of interviews with writers and other prominent figures to help them acquire the linguistic skills required in academic discourse. Through exposure to written and spoken authentic materials, students learn the grammatical and lexical tools necessary to understand such materials as well as produce their own written analysis, response, and commentary. In addition, they acquire knowledge on major Brazilian authors and works.

LACS 21001 (SOSC 21001; HIST 29304; LLSO 21001; CHST 21001; HMRT 21001; CRES 21001; DEMS 21001)
Susan Gzesh
TTr 9:30-10:50 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 21090 (CMLT 21090; RDIN 21090; GLST 21090; SPAN 22090; CMLT 31090; EALC 21090; HIST 26308; ENGL 21090; ANTH 21090; GNSE 21090)
Yunning Zhang
TTr 3:30-4:50 PM

Did Asian American literature exist before Asian America? How do we access the enslaved and indentured lives that archives have little to tell us about? Can we reimagine the unheard lives of Asian diasporas historically perceived as "diseased," inscrutable, and undesirable? What kind of interracial violence and intimacies did they form with Afro-diasporic and indigenous peoples under Spanish and British colonial occupations? To answer these questions, this course turns to the pre-twentieth-century history of Asian diasporas in the Americas, principally in the Caribbean, Mexico, and Peru. We will closely examine archival sources (inventory records, legal documents, lyrics, spiritual biography, etc.) on two historical trends of forced migration-the early modern transpacific trade of chino slaves and the nineteenth century coolie trafficking of Chinese and Indian laborers-and reflect on the constitutive limits of the archives. In addition, we will read anti-racist, feminist, and queer reimaginations of the Asian-diasporic past by contemporary authors and artists such as David Dabydeen, Michelle Mohabeer and Patricia Powell, etc. These primary sources will be supplemented by theoretical readings on Black feminism, queer of color critique, and Afro-Asian solidarity.

LACS 21150 (SPAN 21150)
Begona Arechabaleta Regulez
MW 1:30-2:50 PM

This sociolinguistic course expands understanding of both the historical and the contemporary development of Spanish in parts of the United States, and awareness of the great sociocultural diversity within the Spanish-speaking communities in the United States and its impact on the Spanish language. This course emphasizes the interrelationship between language and culture as well as ethno-historical transformations within the different regions of the United States. 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 English on dialectical aspects. The course includes sociolinguistic texts, audio-visual materials, and visits by native speakers of a variety of Spanish-speaking regions in the United States.

LACS 21200 (KREY 21200)
Gerdine Ulysse
MWF 12:30-1:20 PM

This advanced-level course will focus on speaking and writing skills through a wide variety of texts, audiovisual materials, and cultural experiences. We will study a wide range of Haitian cultural manifestations (e.g., visual arts, music, gastronomy). Students will also review advanced grammatical structures, write a number of essays, participate in multiple class debates, and take cultural trips to have a comprehensive learning experience with Haitian language and culture.

LACS 21804/31804 (CMST 21804/31804)
Salome Skvirsky
MW 1:30-2:50 PM

This course will investigate Latin American documentary by focusing on three important topics in Latin American cultural studies. We will screen recent and historical documentaries about (1) popular culture and folklore, (2) the history and memory of the Southern Cone military dictatorships, and (3) domestic service. These three topics will provide material for an investigation of documentary form. With respect to each topic, we will consider how the resources of documentary filmmaking are employed to frame the same subject matter in different ways. For the first unit, we will study films by Sergio Bravo, Eduardo Coutinho, and Jorge Prelorán; for the second, films by Patricio Guzmán, Albertina Carri, and Andrés Di Tella; and for the third, films by João Moreira Salles, Gabriel Mascaro, and Consuelo Lins.

LACS 22005 (SPAN 22005; RDIN 22205)
Danielle Roper
TTr 3:30-4:50 PM

This course will survey some of the main literary and cultural tendencies in Latin America from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present. We will pay special attention to their aesthetic dimensions, as well as the socio-historical and political conditions that made them possible, and in which they simultaneously intervened. Questions to be studied might include the innovations of the Modernist and avant-garde movements, fantastic literature, the novel of the so-called "Boom," cultural production associated with revolutionary movements, military dictatorships, and the Cold War, as well as new currents in literary and theatrical practices. Likewise, the course will foreground some of the following concepts relevant to the study of this production: modernity and modernization; development and neoliberalism; neo-colonialism and empire; cultural autonomy and ideas of poetic and cultural renewal; the epic vs. the novel; realism and non-verisimilitude; and performativity, 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 22424 (SPAN 22424; RDIN 22424)
Cristina Esteves-Wolff
TTr 11:00-12:20 PM

This course will introduce students to twentieth-century historical fiction from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. Reflecting on the ambiguous contours between history and fiction, we will use literature and film to illuminate cultural debates of Hispanic Caribbean modernity. How do literary and filmic representations of a historical past reflect on the present moment? What is fiction's relationship to archives and history? What can these fictional emplotments teach us about the crafting of national narratives? Particular attention will be given to questions of race and revolution - understood for our purposes as the constitutive vectors of Caribbean modernity - in the texts studied. Authors and filmmakers to be discussed will include Alejo Carpentier, Tomás Gutierrez Alea, Humberto Solás, Rosario Ferré, José Luis González, and Julia Álvarez, among others.

LACS 23225 (SPAN 23225)
Leora Baum
MW 3:00-4:20 PM

In this course, we will examine postcolonial performances of "classical" literary texts across the Americas that engage with transnational histories of imperialism, neoliberalism, migration, exile, and political and gendered violence. From the revolutions and dictatorships of the 1960s-70s, through the transitions to democracy, to the queer and feminist movements of the early 21st century, we will study contemporary adaptations of canonical authors such as Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. The position of these authors, texts, and characters in the literary canons of the Americas has allowed them to achieve circulation in both "high" and "low" culture, through modes of performance including film and television, live theater and dance, opera, popular music, drag, burlesque, and digital media. From the US-Mexico borderlands to the Southern Cone, these adaptations raise questions of national and postcolonial identity, gender and sexuality, and collective trauma and memory. We will use the theoretical frameworks of performance, decoloniality, and canonicity to think of adaptive performances as an act of deconstruction and remaking, and to trace how artists in the Americas respond to these historical legacies through embodied practice. The course will be taught primarily in Spanish, but will also include components in English, Spanglish, and optional readings in Portuguese.

LACS 23325 (SPAN 23325; GNSE 12127; RDIN 23325)
Andrea Reed Leal
MW 4:30-5:50 PM

This course examines how early modern visual and textual sources partook in the formation of gender and race differences in the Americas. We will explore colonial documents drawing on the work of contemporary Indigenous Feminist thinkers, such as Gloria Anzaldúa, Lorena Cabnal, Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, Yásnaya Aguilar, among others. Reading the colonial archive while thinking about contemporary Indigenous perspectives can help us bridge the past to the present and discuss issues concerning the underrepresentation of Indigenous women in the archive, language politics, communal identities, and Indigenous epistemologies while being particularly attentive to the rhetorical strategies deployed by colonial texts. Along the way, we will have in perspective how contemporary indigenous women resist, negotiate, and denounce the state, corporate, and patriarchal establishments. In this course, students will engage with primary sources of the colonial period in Latin America as they engage in debates surrounding gender and race in our present moment. Understanding these debates and the history surrounding them is crucial to participating in informed discussion, research, and activism regarding issues of colonialism, race, and gender discrimination of today. Students will participate in class discussions, write weekly responses, lead, and moderate academic-style presentations, and produce a final research paper.

LACS 25003 (SSAD 25003; PBPL 25003; CRES 25003; HMRT 25003; SOCI 28079)
Angela Garcia
TTr 2:00-3:20 PM

Law is everywhere within the social world. It shapes our everyday lives in countless ways by permitting, prohibiting, protecting and prosecuting native-born citizens and immigrants alike. This course reviews the major theoretical perspectives and sociological research on the relationship between law and society, with an empirical focus on immigrants in the United States, primarily from Mexico and Central America. To begin, we explore the permeation of law in everyday life, legal consciousness, and gap between "law on the books" and "law on the ground." The topic of immigration is introduced with readings on the socio-legal construction of immigration status, theories of international migration, and U.S. immigration law at the national and subnational levels. We continue to study the social impact of law on immigrants through the topics of liminal legality; children, families, and romantic partnerships; policing, profiling, and raids; detention and deportation; and immigrants' rights. This course adopts a "law in action" approach centered on the social, political, and cultural contexts of law as it relates to immigration and social change. It is designed to expose you to how social scientists study and think about law, and to give you the analytical skills to examine law, immigration, and social change relationally.

LACS 25005/35005 (PORT 25000/35000; ENST 25000; SIGN 26059; SPAN 25555/35555; CEGU 25000)
Victoria Saramago Padua
TTr 9:30-10:50 AM

From colonial travelers to contemporary popular culture, the Amazonian forest has been a source of endless fascination, greed and, more recently, ecological concern. The numerous actors that have been shaping the region, including artists, writers, scientists, anthropologists, indigenous peoples, and the extractive industry, among others, bring a multifaceted view of this region that has been described as the paradise on earth as much as a green hell. This course offers an overview of Amazonian history, cultures, and environmental issues that spans from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century. What are the major topics, works, and polemics surrounding the ways the Amazon has been depicted and imagined? How can the region's history help us understand the state of environmental policies and indigenous rights today? What can we learn about the Amazon from literature and film? What is the future of the Amazon in the context of Brazil's current political climate? From an interdisciplinary perspective, we will cover topics such as indigenous cultures and epistemologies, deforestation, travel writing, modern and contemporary literature, music, photography, and film, among others. Authors may include Claudia Andujar, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Euclides da Cunha, Susanna Hecht, Davi Kopenawa, the project Video in the Villages, among others.

LACS 25137/35137 (CMLT 25137/35137)
Carlos Soto Román
TTr 11:00-12:20 PM

This course will focus on literature as a tool to explore tragic and traumatic events in history, such as wars, genocides, and natural disasters, among others. Through different examples, we will review different poetic and narrative forms that delve into historical and personal memory, remembering, reflecting, and analyzing events that have marked the lives of individuals, communities, and nations. We will discuss how writing can be an effective way of coping with the painful burden of history, helping to heal the wounds of the past, as well as to reflect on the ways in which literature can serve as a way of preserving the memory of the victims of these tragic events, allowing their stories to be told, remembered and honored in order to bring us a little closer to reparation and justice.

LACS 25138/35138 (SOCI 20612/30612)
Luciana Luz and Jenny Trinitapoli
M 3:30-5:50 PM

The objective of the course is to introduce key demographic concepts and measures to analyze population size, composition, and distribution, as well as the three demographic components: fertility, mortality, and migration. The course discusses the main demographic techniques for period and longitudinal data, most frequently used in demographic analyses. The course aims at developing basic skills for population analysis, such as understanding and applying the Lexis diagram; identifying period, cohort, and age measures; calculating and interpreting main demographic indicators, to build and critically analyze life tables, and properly using standardization and decomposition methods to compare populations. The course
has a strong focus on the application of demographic techniques to census data from different Latin American countries at different points in time, which enhances comprehension over the course of the demographic transition in place in the region, and the applicability of these measures to understand recent demographic trends. Applications with be conducted using software Excel and R.

LACS 25303 (HMRT 24701; SOSC 24701; SSAD 44701; LLSO 24701; HMRT 34701; CRES 24701)
Susan Gzesh
F 9:30-12:20 PM

The fundamental principle underlying human rights is that they are inherent in the identity of all human beings, regardless of place and without regard to citizenship, nationality, or immigration status. Human rights are universal and must be respected everywhere and always. Human rights treaties and doctrines mandate that a person does not lose their human rights simply by crossing a border. While citizens enjoy certain political rights withheld from foreigners within any given nation-state, what ARE the rights of non-citizens in the contemporary world? Students will research a human rights topic of their choosing, to be presented as either a final research paper or a group presentation.

LACS 26106/36106 (HIST 26106/36106; CEGU 26106)
Rohan Chatterjee and Emilio Kouri
TTr 2:00-3:20 PM

This colloquium explores selected aspects of the social, economic, environmental, and cultural history of tropical export commodities from Latin America-- e.g., coffee, bananas, sugar, tobacco, henequen, rubber, vanilla, and cocaine. Topics include land, labor, capital, markets, transport, geopolitics, power, taste, and consumption.

LACS 26220/36220 (HIST 26220/36220)
Brodwyn Fischer
TTr 11:00-12:20 PM

Brazil is in many ways a mirror image of the United States: an almost continental democracy, rich in natural resources, populated by the descendants of three continents, shaped by colonialism, slavery, and sui generis liberal capitalism. Why, then, has Brazil's historical path been so distinct? To explore this question, this course will focus on the history of economic development, race, citizenship, urbanization, the environment, popular culture, violence, and the challenge of democracy. Assignments: Weekly reading, participation in discussions, weekly journal posts, and a final paper.

LACS 26500/36500 (HIST 26500/36500; CRES 26500)
Emilio Kouri and José Camilo Ruiz Tassinari
W 3:00-5:50 PM

From the Porfiriato and the Revolution to the present, this course is a survey of Mexican society and politics, with emphasis on the connections between economic developments, social justice, and political organization. Topics include fin de siècle modernization and the agrarian problem; causes and consequences of the Revolution of 1910; the making of the modern Mexican state; relations with the United States; industrialism and land reform; urbanization and migration; ethnicity, culture, and nationalism; economic crises, neoliberalism, and social inequality; political reforms and electoral democracy; violence and narco-trafficking; the end of PRI rule; and AMLO's new government.

LACS 26510/36510 (HIST 26511/36511; ENST 26511; ARCH 26511; CEGU 26511)
Brodwyn Fischer
MW 1:30-2:50 PM

Latin America is one of the world's most urbanized regions and its urban heritage long predates European conquest. Yet the region's urban experience has generally been understood through North Atlantic models, which often treat Latin American cities as disjunctive, distorted knockoffs of idealized US or European cities. This class interrogates and expands those North Atlantic visions by emphasizing the history of vital urban issues such as informality, inequality, intimacy, race, gender, violence, plural regulatory regimes, the urban environment, and rights to the city. Interdisciplinary course materials include anthropology, sociology, history, fiction, film, photography, and journalism produced from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuries.

LACS 28400/38400 (ANTH 28400/38800; BIOS 23247)
Maria Lozada Cerna
T 2:00-3:20 PM

This course is intended to provide students with a thorough understanding of bioanthropological, osteological and forensic methods used in the interpretation of past and present behavior by introducing osteological methods and anthropological theory. In particular, lab instruction stresses hands-on experience in analyzing human remains, whereas seminar classes integrate bioanthropological theory and its application to specific archaeological and forensic cases throughout the world. At the end of this course, students will be able to identify, document, and interpret human remains from archaeological and forensic contexts. Lab and seminar-format classes each meet weekly.

LACS 29205 (FNDL 29205; HIST 26307)
Mauricio Tenorio
M 9:30-12:20 PM

Through complex and evolving perspectives of time, reading, language, and writing, Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) developed both an "ethics" and a "technics" of the "intellectual" vis-à-vis literature, history, and philosophy. Over the 20th century, the political and cultural consideration of his ethics and technics varied depending on the moment, but the debates only increased Borges´ influence as a language crafter and as a thinker, beyond the language he chose to write (Spanish, he could have been an English writer, but he opted for Spanish). The course will seek to serve as a collective close reading of the prose works (fiction and non-fiction) by Jorge Luis Borges, relying on excellent editions and translations: J. L. Borges, Collected Fictions (Viking, Pinguin 1998), translated by Andrew Hurley, and Jorge Luis Borges, Selected Non-Fictions (Pinguin 2000), edited and translate by Eliot Weinberger, Esther Allen, Suzanne Jill Levine. Each session will consist of a short contextualization and introduction by the instructor, a general discussion, and a short dialogue especially addressing the concerns of those students who decide to read Borges´ works in the original Spanish.

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 29802
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.

Prerequisite(s): For fourth year (graduating) students majoring in Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

LACS 29900

Independent BA thesis course.

LACS 40100

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.