University Bulletin (2015-2016)

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

LALS 100a Seminar: Topics in Latin American and Latino Studies
[ wi ]
May be repeated for credit. Fall 2015: ANTH 147b counts for LALS 100a. Spring 2016: TBD.
Examines major themes and problems in Latin American studies from an interdisciplinary perspective. Topics vary from year to year.
Staff

LALS 170a Sports, Games, and Politics in Latin America and the Caribbean
[ ss ]
Sports are one of Latin America's biggest exports and imports. This course, engaging with cultural studies theory and interdisciplinary readings, examines the politics and social forces behind sports such as soccer, cricket, baseball, wrestling, and bullfighting. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Brown

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 ]
Anthropology and LALS majors and minors have priority for enrollment.
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 Mesoamerican Civilizations and Their Legacies
[ 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 food production, the role of competitive generosity and warfare in promoting social inequalities, and the rise of urban societies. It also examines indigenous social movements against Spanish colonialism, and considers the legacies and role of indigenous peoples in the contemporary nations of Middle America. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Golden or Mr. Urcid

ANTH 148a Media in Latin America
[ ss wi ]
Looks at Latin America from the perspective of media production, circulation and consumption, beginning with a few foundational texts on the region and on the study of media in anthropology and cultural studies, and then taking a thematic/regional approach. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Ferry

ANTH 165a The Amazon Forest: Challenges, Opportunities, and Paradoxes
[ ss ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took IGS 165a in prior years.
Uses the case of the "world's largest rainforest" to frame some of the most pressing questions raised by economic growth in developing countries, from environmental impact to wealth distribution to the rights of indigenous peoples and the preservation of local cultures. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

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

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 nw ]
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 77b Twentieth-Century and Contemporary Latin American Art
[ ca nw ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took FA 24b in prior years.
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
[ fl hum nw ]
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.
Staff

HECS 42b Literature and Human Rights in Latin America
[ hum nw ]
Taught in English.
Examines literature, fiction and non-fiction, from Latin America in relation to the construction and uses of the narrative of human rights. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Rosenberg

HISP 108a Spanish for Heritage Speakers
[ fl hum wi ]
Designed specifically for students who grew up speaking Spanish and who would like to enhance existing language skills while developing higher levels of academic proficiency. Assignments are geared toward developing skills in reading, writing, and critical thinking about U.S. Latino/as and the Spanish-speaking world. Students may use this course to fulfill the foreign language requirement. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Reyes

HISP 111b Introduction to Latin American Literature and Culture
[ fl hum nw ]
Prerequisite: HISP 106b, or HISP 108a, or permission of the instructor.
Examines key Latin American texts of different genres (poems, short stories and excerpts from novels, chronicles, comics, screenplays, cyberfiction) and from different time periods from the conquest to modernity. This class places emphasis on problems of cultural definition and identity construction as they are elaborated in literary discourse. Identifying major themes (coloniality and emancipation, modernismo and modernity, indigenismo, hybridity and mestizaje, nationalisms, Pan-Americanism, etc.) we will trace continuities and ruptures 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 nw wi ]
Prerequisite: HISP 109b, or HISP 110a, or HISP 111b, or permission of the instructor.
Examines the relationship between the arts (including literature, film, and fine arts) and society in Latin America during the twentieth century by focusing on three historical conjunctures when this relationship was particularly rich: the political and artistic vanguards of the 1920s (with particular attention to the Mexican Revolution and its aftermath); the 1960s, marked by the historical turning point of the Cuban Revolution; and the decade of the 1990s, characterized by the transition to democracy, the emergence of human rights and other social movements. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Rosenberg

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

HISP 165b The Storyteller: Short Fiction in Latin America
[ fl hum nw ]
Prerequisite: HISP 109b, or HISP 110a, or HISP 111b, or permission of the instructor.
Through a study of Latin American short stories, we will reflect on the power of storytelling and fictional narrative to shape subjectivity and community. We will also examine some culturally specific topics reflected in these stories, such as conflictive cultural filiations (pre-Columbian, European, etc), the tension between literacy and oral traditions, the dynamics of modernity in the periphery, and the formation of the reading public and citizenship. This class has an experiential-creative component, as students will have the chance to write fiction applying techniques studied in class. In addition, when the practicum is offered students will have the opportunity to organize a story-telling event working with Waltham's Spanish-speaking community. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Rosenberg

HISP 167b Twice-Told Tales: Colonial Encounters and Postcolonial Fiction in the Americas
[ hum nw wi ]
Taught in English.
A wide range of modern and contemporary writers and artists in the Americas have examined the legacies of European colonialism in the continent. This course explores this persistent engagement with colonialism in narrative fiction and cinema from Latin American and the United States. The first part of the course introduces key texts from the colonial period, written by European and indigenous chroniclers of the colonization of the New World. In the second part of the course we look at fiction, film, and visual art by Latin American, African American and Native American artists who set out to retell colonial histories in the present, oftentimes in controversial ways. Materials discussed include works by Juan José Saer, Octavia Butler, Coco Fusco, Guillermo Gómez Peña, Gerald Vizenor, Peter Greenaway, and Nelson Pereira dos Santos, among others. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Arellano

HISP 175b Contemporary Latin American Fiction
[ fl hum ]
Prerequisite: HISP 109b, or HISP 110a, or HISP 111b, or permission of the instructor.
Explores excerpts from works of fiction by Nobel-prize laureates Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa, published in the 1960's and 70's, then contrasts these narratives to very recent developments in Latin American fiction of the 21st century. We will discuss how contemporary writers in Latin America depart from their famous predecessors and set out to explore a range of new topics, including global pop culture, the Latin American drug trade, and love relationships in cyberspace. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Arellano

HISP 182a Narratives of the Drug Wars in Latin America
[ fl hum ]
Prerequisite: HISP 109b, or HISP 110a, or HISP 111b, or permission of the instructor.
Explores literature, cinema, and music that engage with narco cultures and the drug wars in contemporary Latin America. We will situate these narratives and artworks in relation to the history of the pursuit and commerce of mind- and mood-altering substances (e.g. coca, tobacco, chocolate) in the colonial Americas. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Arellano

HISP 192b Latin American Global Film
[ fl hum nw ]
Prerequisites: HISP 109b, or HISP 110a, or HISP 111b, or permission of the instructor.
Studies films that re-imagine Latin America’s place in the world, focusing on how images are produced and consumed transnationally. ‘Traditional’ topics like cultural identity are refashioned for international consumption, and local issues are dramatized as already crisscrossed by global flows of which the films themselves partake. Close analysis of visual representation and film techniques will be complemented in each case by a study of historical and cultural background. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Rosenberg

HISP 196a Topics in Latina/o Literature and Culture
[ hum ]
May be repeated for credit. Taught in English.
Offers students the opportunity for in-depth study of a particular aspect of the diverse literary and cultural production of U.S. latinas and latinos. Topics will vary from year to year but may include autobiography, detective fiction, or historical fiction. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Mandrell

HIST 71a Latin American and Caribbean History I: Colonialism, Slavery, Freedom
[ hum nw ss ]
Studies colonialism in Latin America and Caribbean, focusing on coerced labor and struggles for freedom as defining features of the period: conquest; Indigenous, African, and Asian labor; colonial institutions and economics; Independence and revolutionary movements. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Childs

HIST 71b Latin American and Caribbean History II: Modernity, Medicine, Sexuality
[ hum nw ss ]
Studies the idea of "modernity" in Latin America and Caribbean, centered on roles of health and human reproduction in definitions of the "modern" citizen: post-slavery labor, race and national identity; modern politics and economics; transnational relations. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Childs

HIST 171b Latinos in the U.S.
[ ss ]
No longer writing intensive beginning spring 2013.
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.
Staff

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

HIST 175b Resistance and Revolution in Latin America and the Caribbean
[ nw ss ]
Focuses on questions of race, gender and modernity in resistence movements and revolutions in Latin American and Caribbean history. The Haitian Revolution, Tupac Amaru Rebellion, and Vaccination Riots in Brazil are some topics that will be covered. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Childs

IGS 170a The Rise of Brazil
[ ss wi ]
Examines how Brazil now wields global influence in energy, South-South politics, culture and environmental affairs. This course looks at key elements - from the favela to high finance, carnvial to Candomblé - that make up one of the world's most dynamic societies. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

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 ]
Prerequisite: Sophomore standing. May be repeated for credit in spring 2015 by students who took POL 144b in prior years.
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

THA 147a Latino Theater
[ ca ]
A survey and practice oriented course for students interested in learning about the history and legacies of U.S. Latino theater. Students will read assigned work, write critical reflections and create original works. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

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

AMST 55a Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration in American Culture
[ ss ]
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.
Staff

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
[ nw 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 ]
Explores the ways in which writing has been conceptualized in social anthropology, linguistics and archaeology. A comparative study of various forms of visual communication, both non-glottic and glottic systems, is undertaken to better understand the nature of pristine and contemporary phonetic scripts around the world and to consider alternative models to explain their origin, prestige, and obsolescence. The course pays particular attention to 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 and objects 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. Urcid

FA 18a Digital Documentary Photography
[ ca ]
Four class hours per week.
Introduces digital photography as a means of documenation and personal expression. Coursework entails projects geared towards visual storytelling or documentary work. The emphasis of this course is on formulating images, with some digital prints. Special one-time offering, fall 2015.
Mr. Delano

HISP 109b Introduction to Modern Spanish Cultural Studies: Modernity
[ fl hum ]
Prerequisite: HISP 106b, or HISP 108a, or permission of the instructor.
Introduces the study of Spanish culture through a consideration of shifting notions of modernity from the eighteenth century to the present as seen in drama, fiction, and poetry, as well as periodical literature, newscasts, and film. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Mandrell

HISP 140a Topics in Poetry
[ 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. Mandrell

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

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

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 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

HISP 198a Experiential Research Seminar in Literary and Cultural Studies
[ fl hum wi ]
Prerequisite: HISP 109b or HISP 110a or HISP 111b, or permission of the instructor.
A research seminar in which each student has the opportunity to become an “expert” in a Hispanic literary or cultural text/topic that captures her or his imagination, inspired by a study abroad experience; an earlier class in Hispanic Studies; community-engaged learning; etc. Instruction in literary/cultural theory, researching a subject, and analytical skills necessary for developing a scholarly argument. Students present research in progress and write a research paper of significant length. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Rosenberg, Ms. Fox, or Mr. Arellano

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