An interdepartmental program in Latin American and Latino Studies

Last updated: November 4, 2010 at 3:21 p.m.

Objectives

The Latin American and Latino studies program provides a major and a minor to all interested undergraduate students who wish to structure their studies of Latin America or Latino USA. The program offers an interdisciplinary approach to understanding Mexico, Central America, South America, the Caribbean, and the Latin American Diaspora in the United States. Students with widely ranging interests are welcome.

How to Become a Major or a Minor

Students in the major and the minor work closely with an adviser to develop an individual plan of study that combines breadth with a focus in one discipline (usually anthropology, history, politics, or Spanish). Students whose interests do not easily fit the courses available at Brandeis may arrange independent study with members of the staff. Students may also take advantage of the resources of neighboring institutions through the Boston Area Consortium on Latin America and the Greater Boston Latino Studies Connection. Courses may be taken at Boston College, Boston University, Tufts University, and Wellesley College. Study in Latin America for a term or a year is encouraged. In the past, students have studied at universities in Argentina, Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Peru, and Brazil, and other possibilities are available. Credit may also be obtained for internships in organizations related to Latin America. Transfer students and those studying abroad may obtain credit for up to half the required courses from courses taken elsewhere, with the approval of the program chair.

Program Faculty

Fernando Rosenberg, Chair
(Romance Studies)

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)

Laurence Simon
(Heller School)

Faith Smith
(African and Afro-American Studies; English)

Ibrahim Sundiata
(African and Afro-American Studies; History)

Eva Thorne
(Politics)

Patricia Tovar
(Economics)

Javier Urcid
(Anthropology)

Requirements for the Minor

A. Four semester courses from the course listings under Latin American and Latino studies below.

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.

Requirements for the Major

A. The major consists of nine semester courses. No more than four of the nine required courses may be from the same department, and no more than two courses may be electives requiring a paper to count for LALS.

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 five 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
[ wi ]
May be repeated for credit. Fall 2010: HISP 164b counts for LALS 100a. Spring 2011: HIST 175a counts for LALS 100a.
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
[ ss wi ]
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
[ hum nw ss wi ]
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
[ nw ss ]
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
[ 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
[ nw ss ]
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: Past, Present and Future
[ nw ss ]
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 ]
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
[ nw ss ]
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.
Ms. Tovar

ENG 107a Women Writing Desire: Caribbean Fiction and Film
[ 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
[ hum ]
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
[ ca nw ]
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

FA 178a Frida Kahlo: Art, Life and Legacy
[ ca nw ]
Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) has become an international cultural icon. Her innovative paintings brilliantly re-envision identity, gender and the female body, inspiring celebrities from Madonna to Salma Hayek. This course explores the art and life of Frida Kahlo, as well as her immense influence on contemporary art, film and popular culture. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Ankori

FREN 164a Haiti, Then and Now
[ hum nw ]
This is an experiential learning course. 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; the 2010 earthquake and international aid. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Hale

HECS 169a Travel Writing and the Americas: Columbus's Legacy
[ 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
[ hum wi ]
Designed specifically for bilingual Spanish speakers who would like formal training in reading, writing, and critical thinking about Hispanic and Latino cultural themes. 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
[ fl hum nw ]
Prerequisite: HISP 106b, or HISP 108a, or permission of the instructor.
The goal of this course is to recognize trends in 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 or Mr. Arellano

HISP 160a Culture and Social Change in Latin America
[ fl hum ]
Prerequisite: HISP 109b, or HISP 110a, or HISP 111b, or permission of the instructor.
We will examine the relationship between art (including literature, film, and fine arts) and society in Latin America during the twentieth century. We will use significant examples drawn from three major socio-historical eras: the political and artistic vanguards of the 1920s (with particular attention to the Mexican Revolution and its aftermath); the 1960s and the cultural significance of the Cuban Revolution; and the 1990s period of transition to democracy and emergence of identity and minority-based social movements, with a renewed significance of artistic and literary languages. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Rosenberg

HISP 163a The Latin American Boom and Beyond
[ fl hum nw ]
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.
Mr. Arellano

HISP 164b Studies in Latin American Literature
[ fl hum nw wi ]
Prerequisite: HISP 109b, or HISP 110a, or HISP 111b, or permission of the instructor. 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 or Mr. Arellano

HISP 167b Colonial Imaginaries and Postcolonial Fictions in the Americas
[ hum ]
Prerequisites: HISP 109b, 110a, or 111b or permission of the instructor.
Explores the ongoing and often conflicted dialogue that writers, essayists and filmmakers in the modern/contemporary Americas establish with texts, historical figures, and socio-cultural processes of the colonial period. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Arellano

HISP 192b Latin American Global Film
[ hum ]
Prerequisites: HISP 109b, HISP 110a, HISP 111b, or permission of the instructor. May not be repeated by students who took SPAN 193b in fall 2007.
An examination of films from Latin America 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 America 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
[ hum ]
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
[ hum nw ss ]
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.
Staff

HIST 71b Latin American History, 1870 to the Present
[ hum nw ss ]
Modern Latin America, with stress on the interactions of economics, politics, and external dependency in the region. Usually offered every year.
Staff

HIST 171b Latinos in the U.S.
[ ss ]
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
[ nw ss wi ]
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
[ nw ss wi ]
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
[ nw ss wi ]
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.
Staff

POL 130b Women in Latin American Politics
[ ss ]
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
[ ss ]
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
[ ss ]
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
[ nw ss ]
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
[ nw ss ]
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
[ nw ss wi ]
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
[ nw ss wi ]
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
[ hum nw ]
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
[ nw ss wi ]
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

AMST 55a Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration in American Culture
[ ss ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took AMST 169a in prior years.
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
[ nw ss ]
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
[ ss ]
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
[ nw ss ]
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
[ nw ss ]
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

ANTH 184b Cross-Cultural Art and Aesthetics
[ nw ss ]
A cross-cultural and diachronic exploration of art, focusing on the communicative aspects of visual aesthetics. The survey takes a broad view of how human societies deploy images to foster identities, lure into consumption, generate political propaganda, engage in ritual, render sacred propositions tangible, and chart the character of the cosmos. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Auslander or Mr. Urcid

COML 135a Before the Law: Justice in Literature and Film
[ hum ]
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
[ hum ]
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
[ fl hum ]
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
[ ss ]
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
[ nw ss ]
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
[ nw ss ]
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
[ ss ]
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
[ fl hum ]
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
[ hum wi ]
Open to all students; conducted in English. 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
[ nw ss ]
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