AAS 2500-002 | Black Latin America through Film and Performance

Professor Kaché Claytor

TuTh 2:00-3:15pm

This course offers an introduction to the histories, cultures, and political struggles of Black communities in Latin America through the multimedia lenses of film, performance, and music. We will examine how Black Latin Americans have used artistic expression to affirm identity, resist oppression, and reimagine collective futures. The course explores not only how Black people across borders, languages, as well as space and time have used movement, sound, art, and creativity to make meaning and challenge dominant discourses. Through a critical examination of contemporary case studies, we will analyze how Afro-descendants use the performance arts to construct identity, celebrate culture, resist oppressive systems, and envision future possibilities. This course is designed for students interested in performance, activism, environmentalism, Blackness and Indigeneity, Black feminisms, Black queer studies, Latin American politics, and Black consciousness throughout the global African diaspora. Through a mix of films, readings, music, dance, and discussions, students will gain a nuanced understanding of Black Latin America across diverse contexts. No prior experience in film, music, or performance studies is required.

AAS 3500 | The US in the Caribbean

Professor Shelby Sinclair

We 2:00-4:30pm

Why did the United States invade Caribbean countries more than two dozen times in the twentieth century? What cultural mechanisms made these invasions possible? Did Caribbeans fight back?

Using music, literature, film, newspapers, poetry, visual art, and more, we’ll investigate a series of hidden “gender wars” to discover how the tropics became a testing site for U.S. domination. Why was control of gender and sexuality always central to the ways these invasions were carried out? We will focus on Afro-Caribbean and African American experiences, cultural production, performance aesthetics, and resistance practices to analyze these hidden histories. 

ANTH 2830 | Ancient Cities of the Americas

Professor Roberto Rosado-Ramírez

TuTh 2:00-3:15pm

When colonial empires invaded the Americas in the 16th century, Europeans marveled at the Indigenous cities distributed across the continent. This course examines the ancient cities of the Americas: their origins, their configurations, their operations, and their representations. It considers how archaeologists define urbanism among ancient societies, and why not every human settlement qualifies as a city.

ANTH 3152 | Rainforests of Flesh / Peoples of Spirit

Professor George Mentore

MoWeFr 11:00-11:50am

Ethnographies of Amazonian Peoples and the new anthropological theories about their way of life.

ARTH 2559 | New Course in History of Art - American Art and Diaspora

Professor Emma Oslé 

MoWe 8:00-9:15am (Fayerweather Hall 208)

This course offers a multicultural history of American art, from the second half of the twentieth century into the present. Accordingly, we will define the field of “American art” to include works created by artists of Euro-American descent as well as by Native American, Asian, Pacific Islander, African American, Middle Eastern, and Latinx artists, as well as others who have prominent ties to the United States. This course will therefore predominantly examine the visual arts created by diaspora communities across the United States. We will use artwork as a means of understanding the lived experiences of Americans from the diaspora—that is Americans of non-European descent, whose origins are from across the world. Students will study drawing, printmaking, painting, sculpture, photography, performance, and the built world.

HILA 3051 | Modern Central America

Professor Lean Sweeney

TuTh 11:00-12:15pm

Studies the history of Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and El Salvador from 19th century fragmentation, oligarchic, foreign, and military rule, to the emergence of popular nationalisms.

MDST 3504-002 | Mexican Cinema

Professor Keara Goin

TuTh 12:30-1:45pm

This course takes a critical historical approach to investigate Mexico’s film from its inception to the present. Topics covered include major films, stars, filmmakers, and the rise of the Mexican film industry; and it aims to introduce students to doing historical research and criticism.

POTR 4270 | The Civilization of Brazil

Professor Eli Carter

TuTh 2:00-3:15pm

Introduces the development of Brazilian culture from 1500 to the present. This course is taught in English and does not fulfill the language requirement.

SPAN 3420 | Politics and Power in the Early Americas (1492-1800)

Professor Fernando Operé

TuTh 3:30-4:45pm

Este es un curso dedicado al estudio de la literatura que se escribió sobre América desde la llegada de Cristóbal Colón hasta la independencia de América Latina.

Los primeros escritos fueron crónicas y diarios de aventureros, soldados, monjes, o simplemente viajeros, que hoy nos parecen literatura fantástica. Puede citarse los fascinantes relatos del encuentro de Hernán Cortes en su llegada a México (Tenochtitlan), de Francisco Pizarro a Perú (Cusco), y las aventuras o fracasos de muchos aventureros arriba y abajo del nuevo continente (Cabeza de Vaca, Hernando de Soto ente otros). Se incluyen viajes de científicos que llegaron al continente a describir su flora y su fauna (Darwin, Humboldt) y textos que dan cuenta del modo en que España diseñó el Nuevo Mundo que consistía en la fundación de ciudades cristiana, la creación nuevas fronteras, y una sociedad integrada en un calidoscopio de razas.

SPAN 3430 | Contemporary Latin American Voices (1800 to the present)

Professor María Esparza Rodríguez

MWF 1:00-1:50pm

This course provides students with a survey of Latin American literature and the context in which it developed from 1800 to the present. This course will cover how the region's cultural production has been shaped by its cultures, peoples, and historical events, the consciousness, memory, and imagination expressed within the region's literature, and how the region's representation has been shaped by who has (and has not) had access to literature.

SPAN 4850/7850 | Romantics, Moderns, and Nations Builders

Professor Fernando Operé

MoWe 2:00-3:15pm

The 19th century was a century of great commotions and contrasts in both Americas. The vast territories of the Spanish and English Crowns saw the birth of new republics that achieved independence at the beginning of the century. The tasks of construction these new countries were numerous, beginning with the creation of national identities. Literature and art assumed part of the task through the work of the so-called Nation Builders (Echeverría, Sarmiento, Martí, Mansilla and many others).

Romantics and Modernists took on the job, using formulas that promoted their values and world views, and traveled the territory to describe it and claim it.

The century also witnessed the presence of new scientific travelers, dedicated to the task of reinvent the continent, and revaluate it based on new scientific studies and taxonomies. (Humboldt, Darwin, Moreno). It was necessary to get rid of the old concepts of the European vision. The 19th century turned out to be a fascinating century of changes and forces confronting each other. Modernity was being built.