Courses of Study
Sections
An interdepartmental program in Latin American and Latino Studies
Last updated: September 3, 2009 at 10:46 a.m.
Javier Urcid, Chair
(Anthropology)
Silvia Arrom
(History)
Elizabeth Ferry
(Anthropology)
Ricardo Godoy
(Heller School)
Charles Golden
(Anthropology)
Donald Hindley
(Politics)
James Mandrell
(Romance Studies; Women's and Gender Gender Studies)
Wellington Nyangoni
(African and Afro-American Studies)
Lucia Reyes de Deu
(Romance Studies)
Fernando Rosenberg
(Romance Studies)
Laurence Simon
(Heller School)
Faith Smith
(African and Afro-American Studies; English and American Literature)
Ibrahim Sundiata
(African and Afro-American Studies; History)
Eva Thorne
(Politics)
Patricia Tovar
(Economics)
B. LALS 100a (Seminar: Topics in Latin American and Latino Studies) or another upper-level writing-intensive seminar to be designated as fulfilling the seminar requirement.
C. No more than two of the required five courses may be from the same discipline, even if offered by different departments; and no more than two courses may be electives requiring a paper to count for LALS.
D. No course with a final grade below C- can count toward the LALS minor.
B. LALS 100a (Seminar: Topics in Latin American and Latino Studies) or another upper-level writing-intensive seminar to be designated as fulfilling the seminar requirement.
C. HIST 71a or b; POL 144a or b.
D. One semester course on Caribbean, Latin American, or Latino literature (AAAS 133b, ENG 107a, ENG 127b, HECS 169a, HISP 111b, HISP 163a, HISP 164b).
E. At least six additional semester courses from the listing provided below.
F. Passing grade in any 30-level Spanish language course. This can be substituted by a reading competency examination in Spanish or Portuguese. Another foreign language spoken in Latin America or the Caribbean may be substituted with the permission of the LALS committee.
G. Candidates for the degree with honors in Latin American and Latino studies must be approved by the committee and must complete LALS 99d, a two-semester senior thesis.
H. No course with a final grade below C- can count toward the LALS major.
Courses of Instruction
(1-99) Primarily for Undergraduate Students
LALS
92a
Internship
Combines off-campus experience in a Latin America-related internship with written analysis under the supervision of a faculty sponsor. Students arrange their own internships. Counts only once toward fulfillment of requirements for the major or the minor.
Staff
LALS
98a
Independent Study
Usually offered every year.
Staff
LALS
98b
Independent Study
Usually offered every year.
Staff
LALS
99d
Senior Research
Independent research and writing, under faculty director, of a senior thesis. Usually offered every year.
Staff
(100-199) For Both Undergraduate and Graduate Students
LALS
100a
Seminar: Topics in Latin American and Latino Studies
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wi
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May be repeated for credit. Fall 2009: HIST 173b counts for LALS 100a (Ms. Arrom). Spring 2010: History 175a counts for LALS 100a (Ms. Navarro).
Examines major themes and problems in Latin American studies from an interdisciplinary perspective. Topics vary from year to year.
Staff
LALS Elective Courses
AAAS
125b
Caribbean Women and Globalization: Sexuality, Citizenship, Work
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ss
wi
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Utilizing perspectives from sociology, anthropology, fiction, and music to examine the relationship between women's sexuality and conceptions of labor, citizenship, and sovereignty. The course considers these alongside conceptions of masculinity, contending feminisms, and the global perspective. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Smith
AAAS
133b
The Literature of the Caribbean
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hum
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ss
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An exploration of the narrative strategies and themes of writers of the region who grapple with issues of colonialism, class, race, ethnicity, and gender in a context of often-conflicting allegiances to North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Smith
ANTH
119a
Conquests, Resistance, and Cultural Transformation in Mexico and Central America
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nw
ss
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Examines the continuing negotiation of identity and power that were at the heart of tragedy and triumph for indigenous peoples in colonial Mexico and Central America, and which continue in the modern states of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Golden
ANTH
131b
Latin America in Ethnographic Perspective
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ss
wi
]
Examines issues in contemporary Latin America and the Spanish Caribbean from the perspective of sociocultural anthropology, based primarily on books and articles drawing on long-term ethnographic research. Topics may include: the Zapatista Rebellion in Mexico; tin mining and religion in Bolivia; mortuary cannibalism in the Amazon; the role of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexican national identity; love and marriage among young migrants from Mexico and the United States; weaving, beauty pageants, and jokes in Guatemala; and daily life in revolutionary Cuba. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Ferry
ANTH
147b
The Rise of Mesoamerican Civilization
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nw
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Traces the development of social complexity in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, from initial colonization in the Late Pleistocene to the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century. Reviews major societal transformations like agriculture, the inception of village life, and the rise of civilizations. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Golden or Mr. Urcid
ANTH
168a
The Maya
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nw
ss
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Explores the culture of the Maya in Mexico and Central America through nearly 3000 years of history. Using archaeology, ethnohistory, and ethnography, studies their ancient past and their modern lives. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Golden
COML
108a
Creating New Histories and Identities beyond the Nation: Transnational Female Voices in the U.S.
[
hum
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Readings are in English.
An examination of literature (prose, poetry, memoirs) written by first- and second-generation immigrant women exploring the ways in which the experience of immigration shaped a new identity that simultaneously time incorporates and rejects national boundaries. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Reyes de Deu
ECON
26a
Latin America's Economy
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Prerequisite: ECON 2a.
Introductory survey of economic, financial, and institutional problems, distortions, and reforms in Latin America. Topics include the role of government, privatization, liberalization of trade and capital flows, pension funds reforms, inflation, stabilization, and international debt crisis. Current and future trends will be discussed. Usually offered every second year.
Staff
ENG
107a
Caribbean Women Writers
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hum
]
About eight novels of the last two decades (by Cliff, Cruz, Danticat, Garcia, Kempadoo, Kincaid, Mittoo, Nunez, Pineau, Powell, or Rosario), drawn from across the region, and read in dialogue with popular culture, theory, and earlier generations of male and female writers of the region. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Smith
ENG
127b
Migrating Bodies, Migrating Texts
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hum
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Beginning with the region's representation as a tabula rasa, examines the textual and visual constructions of the Caribbean as colony, homeland, backyard, paradise, and Babylon, and how the region's migrations have prompted ideas about evolution, hedonism, imperialism, nationalism, and diaspora. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Smith
FA
24b
Twentieth-Century and Contemporary Latin American Art
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ca
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This course is a selective survey of the outstanding figures and movements that have made significant contributions to the history of Latin American art. Special focus will be on Mexican, Argentinean, Brazilian, Venezuelan and Cuban artists. Usually offered every third year.
Staff
FREN
164a
Haiti, Then and Now
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hum
nw
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Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Studies Haiti's cultural history through literature, music, painting, film, and journalism. Topics include: Haiti's first inhabitants, the Arawaks and Taino; slavery and colonialism; the world's first black republic; dictators and presidents; Creole and French; Catholicism and Vaudou; the island's ecology. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Hale
HECS
169a
Travel Writing and the Americas: Columbus's Legacy
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hum
]
Open to all students. Conducted in English with readings in English translation.
Following the arrival of Columbus, the continent later known as America engaged with other continents in a mutual process of cultural, historical, geographical, and economic representation. The development of some of those representations is explored, beginning with travel writing and ending with recent images of the encounter. Usually offered every second year.
Staff
HISP
108a
Spanish for Bilingual Students
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hum
]
Designed specifically for heritage Spanish speakers who would like formal training in reading, writing, and critical thinking. Students wishing to use this course to fulfill the language requirement must pass the department exemption exam after this course. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Reyes
HISP
111b
Introduction to Latin American Literature
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fl
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Prerequisite: HISP 106b, or HISP 108a, or permission of the instructor.
The goal of this course is to recognize main trends of Latin American literary and cultural production. Examines canonical Latin American texts (poems, short stories, chronicles, and a novel) from the time of the conquest to modernity. Emphasis is placed on problems of cultural definition and identity construction as they are elaborated in literary discourse. Looks at continuities and ruptures in major themes (coloniality and emancipation, modernismo and modernity,
indigenismo, hybridity and mestizaje, nationalisms, Pan-Americanism,
etc.) throughout Latin American intellectual history. Usually offered every semester.
Mr. Rosenberg
HISP
160a
Culture and Social Change in Latin America
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fl
hum
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Prerequisite: HISP 111b.
Twentieth- and twenty-first-century Latin American literature, film, performance, and art. The cultural material to be examined addresses issues of justice and the rule of law, such as the organization of the nation-state, the rights of minorities, revolution, dictatorship and its aftermath, testimony and witnessing, and so on. Literature and the arts as agents of social change, and/or alternative tribunals where social justice is debated and adjudicated. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Rosenberg
HISP
163a
The Latin American Boom and Beyond
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fl
hum
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Prerequisite: HISP 109b, or HISP 110a, or HISP 111b, or permission of the instructor. Course may be repeated for credit.
Examines texts of the Latin American "boom" as well as contemporary narrative trends. Usually offered every year.
Staff
HISP
164b
Studies in Latin American Literature
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fl
hum
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Course may be repeated for credit.
A comparative and critical study of main trends, ideas, and cultural formations in Latin America. Topics vary year to year and have included fiction and history in Latin American literature, nation and narration, Latin American autobiography, art and revolution in Latin America, and humor in Latin America. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Rosenberg
HISP
192b
Latin American Global Film
[
hum
]
May not be repeated by students who took SPAN 193b in fall 2007. Conducted in Spanish.
An examination of films from Latin American or about Latin American topics. Considering film production and circulation, the class focuses on how images travel, how local stories and images are projected globally, and how Latin American and its "local" cultures are processed outside of their borders. Close analysis of visual representation complemented by a historically and culturally informed background. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Rosenberg
HISP
195a
Latinos in the United States: Perspectives from Literature, Film, and Performance
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hum
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Open to all students; conducted in English.
Comparative overview of Latino literature and film in the United States. Particular attention paid to how race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and concepts of "nation" become intertwined within texts. Topics include: explorations of language, autobiography and memory, and intertexuality. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Reyes
HIST
71a
Latin American History, Pre-Conquest to 1870
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hum
nw
ss
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Introduction to the historical foundations of Latin America: Amerindian civilizations, Spanish conquest, colonial economy and society, independence movements, and their aftermath. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Arrom
HIST
71b
Latin American History, 1870 to the Present
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hum
nw
ss
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Modern Latin America, with stress on the interactions of economics, politics, and external dependency in the region. Usually offered every year.
Staff
HIST
171b
Latino/a History
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ss
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History of the different Latino groups in the United States from the nineteenth century when westward expansion incorporated Mexican populations through the twentieth century waves of migration from Latin America. Explores the diversity of Latino experiences including identity, work, community, race, gender, and political activism. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Arrom
HIST
173b
Latin American Women: Heroines, Icons, and History
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nw
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Graduate students who wish to take this course for credit must complete additional assignments.
Explores Latin American women's history by focusing on female icons and heroines such as La Malinche, Sor Juana, Eva Perón, Carmen Miranda, and the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Topics include conquest, mestizaje, religion, independence, tropical exoticism, dictatorship, and social movements. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Arrom
HIST
174a
The Legacy of 1898: U.S.-Caribbean Relations since the Spanish-American War
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This seminar explores relations between the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic) and the United States during the twentieth century. Topics include interventions, cultural misunderstandings, migration, transnationalism, and Puerto Rican status. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Arrom
HIST
175a
Topics in Latin American History
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nw
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wi
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Course may be repeated for credit.
Examines a major theme or problem in Latin American history. Topics very from year to year. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Navarro
POL
130b
Women in Latin American Politics
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ss
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Examines feminism in Latin America and the meaning and role of gender and gender ideology in the principal regime types in Latin America. Topics include the interaction between gender and class, ethnicity/race, regional solidarity, and national and international and politics. Special one-time offering, spring 2010.
Ms. Thorne
POL
131b
Social Movements in Latin America
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ss
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Origins, dynamics, and social and cultural impact of movements among indigenous groups, women, peasants, and blacks in Latin America since the 1980s. Comparative study of other social movements in Latin America and elsewhere in the world. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Thorne
POL
132b
Political Economy of Latin America
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ss
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Examines the paradox that increasing economic, technological, and democratic development in Latin America has produced greater inequality and deeper economic crisis, and the popular responses to these developments. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Thorne
POL
144a
Latin American Politics I
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nw
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Revolution, order, and regime transition in northern Latin America. Specific examination of the Mexican and Cuban revolutions and their outcomes. POL 144a is independent of POL 144b. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Hindley
POL
144b
Latin American Politics II
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nw
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Emphasis on elite control, the military, the political role of populist politics, and the uncertain process of democratization. Brazil and Argentina are examined specifically. POL 144b is independent of POL 144a. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Hindley
LALS Elective Courses (requiring a substantial paper)
The following electives, which include Latin America or the Caribbean as one of the several areas studied, normally count toward the major or minor only if students write a paper on Latin America, the Caribbean, or the Latin American Diaspora.
AAAS
123a
Third World Ideologies
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nw
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Analyzes ideological concepts developed by seminal Third World political thinkers and their application to modern political analysis. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Nyangoni
AAAS
126b
Political Economy of the Third World
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nw
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wi
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Development of capitalism and different roles and functions assigned to all "Third Worlds," in the periphery as well as the center. Special attention will be paid to African and Afro-American peripheries. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Nyangoni
AAAS
134b
Novel and Film of the African Diaspora
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hum
nw
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Writers and filmmakers, who are usually examined separately under national or regional canonical categories such as "(North) American," "Latin American," "African," "British," or "Caribbean," are brought together here to examine transnational identities and investments in "authentic," "African," or "black" identities. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Smith
AAAS
158a
Theories of Development and Underdevelopment
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nw
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Humankind has for some time now possessed the scientific and technological means to combat the scourge of poverty. The purpose of this seminar is to acquaint students with contending theories of development and underdevelopment, emphasizing the open and contested nature of the process involved and of the field of study itself. Among the topics to be studied are modernization theory, the challenge to modernization posed by dependency and world systems theories, and more recent approaches centered on the concepts of basic needs and of sustainable development. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Nyangoni
AAAS
167a
African and Caribbean Comparative Political Systems
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Introduces students to the literature and method of comparative political analysis. Case studies central to the course will be Ghana, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe; and Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and Cuba. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Nyangoni
AMST
169a
Ethnicity, Immigration, and Race in the United States
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ss
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Provides an introductory overview of the study of race, ethnicity, and culture in the United States. Focuses on the historical, sociological, and political movements that affected the arrival and settlement of African, Asian, European, American Indian, and Latino populations in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Utilizing theoretical and discursive perspectives, compares and explores the experiences of these groups in the United States in relation to issues of immigration, population relocations, government and civil legislation, ethnic identity, gender and family relations, class, and community. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Davé
ANTH
55a
Anthropology of Development
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This course combines an examination of the historical development of "development" concepts and institutions with case studies of particular developmental projects in the United States and abroad. Throughout the course, we will sustain a dynamic interplay between development theory and practice. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Ferry
ANTH
136a
Archaeology of Power: Authority, Prestige, and Inequality in the Past
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ss
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Anthropological and archaeological research and theory provide a unique, long-term perspective on the development of inequality and rise of hierarchical societies, including the earliest ancient states such as the Moche, Maya, China, Sumerians, Egyptians, and others through 5000 years of human history. A comparative, multidisciplinary seminar examining the dynamics of authority, prestige, and power in the past, and the implications for understanding the present . Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Golden
ANTH
153a
Writing Systems and Scribal Traditions
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nw
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Compares graphic forms of communication, ranging from semasiographic to alphabetic systems, from archaeological and ethnographic perspectives. Explores the social functions of early writing systems, the linkage of literacy and political power, and the production of historical memory. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Urcid
ANTH
156a
Power and Violence: The Anthropology of Political Systems
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Political orders are established and maintained by varying combinations of overt violence and the more subtle workings of ideas. The course examines the relationship of coercion and consensus, and forms of resistance, in historical and contemporary settings. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Ferry
COML
135a
Before the Law: Justice in Literature and Film
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hum
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Examines works of fiction and film as a means of addressing the problem of justice, highlighting by the same token the symbolic fabric of the law and the performative elements of legal institutions. We will focus on cultural expressions from Europe and Latin America that address the problem of the state and its subjects in a context of modernity broadly defined. Usually offered every fourth year.
Mr. Rosenberg
ENG
138a
Making Modern Subjects: Caribbean/Latin America/U.S.A. 1850-1950
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hum
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Considers inflections of "the modern" across the Americas, allowing us to compare models and strategies at a historical moment when shifts from slavery to "freedom" and from Europe to the U.S.A., frame anxieties about empire, citizenship, technology, vernaculars, and aesthetics. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Smith
HISP
140a
Topics in Poetry: Hispanic Poetry of the Twentieth Century
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fl
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Prerequisite: HISP 109b, or HISP 110a, or HISP 111b, or permission of the instructor.
Topics vary from year to year, but may focus on different periods, poets, or poetics from both sides of the Atlantic. Study may include jarchas, Garcilaso de la Vega, Bécquer, the Generation of '98 or '27, Neruda, Vallejo, Rosario Castellanos, Octavio Paz, Huidobro, Borges. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Rosenberg
HIST
115a
History of Comparative Race and Ethnic Relations
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ss
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Explores and understands the origin and nature of racial and ethnic differences in the United States, South Africa, and Brazil. Explores how theoreticians explain and account for differences, and how race and ethnicity relate to economic class and social institutions. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Sundiata
POL
128a
The Politics of Revolution: State Violence and Popular Insurgency in the Third World
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Introduction to twentieth-century revolutionary movements in the Third World, focusing on the emergence of peasant-based resistance and revolution in the world beyond the West, and on the role of state violence in provoking popular involvement in protest, rebellion, and insurgency. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Thaxton
POL
180b
Sustaining Development
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Prerequisite: Some familiarity with development issues.
Explores different institutionalized approaches to development. Examines how institutions affect development in selected geographic areas, at levels ranging from local to national and international. Considers why similar policies when implemented in different ways may lead to quite distinct outcomes. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Thorne
SOC
122a
The Sociology of American Immigration
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ss
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Most of us descend from immigrants. Focusing on the United States but in a global perspective, we address the following questions: Why do people migrate? How does this affect immigrants' occupations, gendered households, rights, identities, youth, and race relations with other groups? Usually offered every second year.
Staff
LALS Elective Courses (if Latin America or Caribbean is primary focus)
The following electives count toward LALS only in those years when they analyze films or texts from Latin America, the Caribbean, or the Latin American Diaspora.
HISP
191a
Hispanic Topics in Translation
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fl
hum
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Open to all students. Conducted in English with readings in English translation. Course may be repeated for credit.
Topics vary from year to year, but might include realist representations of women, ideas of the modern and modernity, Spanish realism, "Latinidad," or the Spanish Civil War. Usually offered every second year.
Staff
HISP
193b
Topics in Cinema
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hum
wi
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Course may be repeated for credit.
Topics vary from year to year, but might include consideration of a specific director, an outline of the history of a national cinema, a particular moment in film history, or Hollywood cinema in Spanish. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Mandrell or Mr. Rosenberg
POL
146b
Seminar: Topics in Revolutions in the Third World
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nw
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May be repeated for credit with permission of the instructor.
Explores revolutionary situations, revolutionary movements (successful and unsuccessful), and revolutionary regimes in the Third World since World War II. Specific topics may vary from year to year. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Hindley