Latin American Studies (LAS)
LAS 301 Key Ideas and Issues in Latin America 3 Hours
Broad introductory course to acquaint students with the main areas of interest in Latin American studies.
LAS 310 General Topics in Latin American Studies 3 Hours
Topics that serve as an introduction to Latin America within the framework of different disciplines.
LAS 310.1 Latin American Civilization: The Colonial Experience 3 Hours
A broad survey of the political, economic, social, and cultural aspects of the Latin American past, stressing both that area's achievements and its enduring problems.
LAS 310.2 Latin American Civilization: The National Experience 3 Hours
A broad survey of the political, social, and cultural aspects of the Latin American past.
LAS 310.5 Film and History in Latin America: Colonial Period 3 Hours
Introduction to selected subjects in Latin American history and culture through film, readings, documentaries, class discussion, and lectures.
LAS 310.6 Film and History in Latin America: Modern Period 3 Hours
Introduction to selected subjects in Latin American history and culture through film, readings, documentaries, class discussion, and lectures.
LAS 310.7 Liberation in the African Diaspora 3 Hours
Examination of liberation and freedom struggles in the African diaspora, focusing on common intellectual, political, and social currents among the diaspora's various groups. Course focuses on three major themes: abolitionism, Pan-Africanism and national liberation, and hip hop. Particular emphasis will be on the ideas associated with these movements, and the major organizations and intellectual currents in all three.
LAS 310C Afro-Brazilian Diaspora 3 Hours
LAS 310D Early Mesoamerican Religions 3 Hours
Introduction to the study of indigenous religions in Mesoamerica, a geographic and cultural area spanning north-central Mexico through western Honduras, from approximately 250 BC - AD 1700. Examine the role of religion and ritual in daily life, as well as the lines of evidence available today for understanding them.
LAS 310I Latinx Digital Worlds 3 Hours
Explore how Latinx communities (traditionally figured as on the wrong side of the "digital divide") have embraced, mobilized, and sometimes usurped emerging digital tools and spaces to forge community and create new forms of culture, memory, and activism.
LAS 310R Latin America and the United States 3 Hours
An exploration of the different social, economic, political, and cultural structures and concerns that came to both divide and unite the western hemisphere (North, Central, and South America, as well as the Caribbean) following independence from Europe.
LAS 315 Introductory Topics in Latin American Social Sciences 3 Hours
LAS 315.1 Anthropology of Latin America 3 Hours
Provides a framework for understanding contemporary concerns in Latin America.
LAS 315.2 Introduction to Mesoamerican Archaeology 3 Hours
Introduction to ancient Mesoamerica from the time of emerging social inequality in the formative period until the Spanish conquest of Mexico-Tenochtitlan in the sixteenth century.
LAS 315.3 Introduction to Jewish Latin America 3 Hours
Historical and cultural analysis of how Jews constructed lives and communities in predominantly Hispanic, Catholic countries of Latin America.
LAS 316C Latinx Material Culture 3 Hours
Discuss utilizing material culture as a method of analysis to highlight histories of oppression, struggles towards liberation, and the politics of everyday Latinx life in the U.S..
LAS 316L Introduction to Religions of Latin America 3 Hours
Examine a survey of religious practice across Latin America and the Caribbean.
LAS 319 Geography of Latin America 3 Hours
Adaptations to population growth and spatial integration in cultural landscapes of great natural and ethnic diversity; problems of frontiers and cities.
LAS 119S, 219S, 319S, 419S, 519S, 619S, 719S, 819S, 919S Topics in Latin American Studies 1-9 Hours
This course is used to record credit the student earns while enrolled at another institution in a program administered by the University's Study Abroad Office. Credit is recorded as assigned by the study abroad adviser in Latin American studies. University credit is awarded for work in an exchange program; it may be counted as coursework taken in residence. Transfer credit is awarded for work in an affiliated studies program.
LAS 322 Topics in Latin American Studies 3 Hours
Topics vary each semester to allow curriculum flexibility for faculty members and visiting scholars.
LAS 322.10 Minorities and the Media 3 Hours
Issues concerning minority or nondominant groups within the United States. Survey of minority communication problems: alienation, fragmentation, media and Internet access; criticism and feedback for minority groups based on racial/ethnic background, age, sex, disability, social or economic class, and sexual orientation.
LAS 322.11 Narrative Journalism 3 Hours
LAS 322.13 Latin American Theatre and Drama 3 Hours
LAS 322.15 Indigenous Languages of the Americas 3 Hours
Examines various aspects of languages in the Americas, including their linguistic structures, the cultural domains in which they exist, and their histories of language contact and change.
LAS 322.19 Afro-Caribbean Diasporas 3 Hours
Analysis of the socio-cultural contexts of the African diaspora in the Americas, with a specific focus on the African diaspora in the islands of the Caribbean. Designed to analyze the cultural, social, and philosophical contributions of these diasporic populations and the ways they build social and cultural agency in their specific national or diasporic contexts.
LAS 322.20 Journalism and Press Freedom in Latin America 3 Hours
Focus on journalism in Latin America with an emphasis on the struggle for democracy and press freedom in the region through country-by-country survey of historical, political, economic, cultural, ethnic and geographical aspects. Examination of the evolution of professional journalism in Latin America, including topics such as the legal framework for freedom of expression, ethical principles, concentration of media ownership and the emergence of digital media. Knowledge of Spanish language is recommended, but it is not a requirement.
LAS 322D Religions of the Caribbean 3 Hours
Examine the histories and politics of religious practices in the Greater Caribbean, encompassing the islands and Central American coasts as well as the continental diasporas, from Vodou and Rastafari to popular Hinduism.
LAS 322E Latino Migrations and Asylum 3 Hours
LAS 322F Latino Migration and Human Trafficking 3 Hours
Critically examine the complexity and intersectionality of Latino migration and human trafficking from global, regional, and local perspectives.
LAS 322G Black Freedom Movement 3 Hours
LAS 322L Empires: Aztec and Spanish 3 Hours
Examine the daily life of people in the Mexica (commonly known as Aztec) empire after the Spanish conquest.
LAS 322M Colonial Encounters in Mesoamerica 3 Hours
Study European-indigenous encounters in Mesoamerica, a geographic and cultural area spanning north-central Mexico through western Honduras, between approximately 1450-1750. Examine strategies of contact, accommodation, and resistance that indigenous communities and European colonizers used to communicate with each other and negotiate the conduct of daily life in colonial society.
LAS 322N African Religion in the New World 3 Hours
Explore the contributions of scholars and artists who engage African diaspora religions in their work through multiple conceptual approaches.
LAS 322Q Afro-Latinidades in the United States and Latin America 3 Hours
LAS 324G Sexuality in Global Perspective 3 Hours
Explore the ways in which sexuality intersects with money, intimacy, power, and labor in the context of global economic processes.
LAS 324L Topics in Latin American Anthropology 3 Hours
Topics vary each semester to allow curriculum flexibility for faculty members and visiting scholars.
LAS 324L.10 The Civilization of the Maya 3 Hours
Maya prehistory and history: the archaeological record, codices and inscriptions, and Spanish conquest writings.
LAS 324L.13 Colonial Latin American Archaeology 3 Hours
Focuses on the Spanish colonies in Latin America.
LAS 324L.15 Global Indigenous Issues 3 Hours
Explores contemporary issues of indigenous peoples around the world through films, literature, and social science readings and focuses on how indigenous peoples are actively working to oppose their oppression and create sustainable futures.
LAS 324L.16 Mexican Immigration Cultural History 3 Hours
Examines the history of Mexican immigration to the United States, and provides an overview of migratory patterns dating back to the late prehistoric period through contemporary times.
LAS 324L.17 Black Women and the State 3 Hours
Surveys black women's experiences living with and confronting state oppression around the world. Takes an historical, social, and theoretical look at the roots of this oppression and inequality, and how black women have chosen to respond to it locally and globally.
LAS 324L.18 Inca World 3 Hours
Explores how Inca civilization developed, how the Incas grew from a small highland state into a mighty empire, and how a small number of Spaniards and their allies were able to bring the Inca dynasty to an end. Read accounts of the Incas written in the first years of Spanish colonial rule, and review the latest archaeological discoveries.
LAS 324L.19 Globalization in Latin America 3 Hours
Critically examine the globalization phenomenon in Latin America, focusing on history and ethnography.
LAS 324L.20 Mexican American Indigenous Heritage 3 Hours
The prehistory, history, and contemporary racial understanding of Mexican Americans.
LAS 324L.21 Cultures in Contact 3 Hours
History of the interactions of the indigenous peoples of the Americas with Africans, Asians, and Europeans over the past five hundred years.
LAS 324L.22 Arab Latin Americas 3 Hours
Examine the ways in which Arab immigrant identities have been negotiated and co-opted socially, but also institutionally, in various countries in the Western Hemisphere.
LAS 324L.23 Global Black Feminisms 3 Hours
Examine Black feminist theories and practices around the world from a transnational and comparative perspective.
LAS 324L.24 Mesoamerican History and Oral Tradition 3 Hours
Study Mesoamerican indigenous documents and oral traditions to reconstruct different aspects of the life and culture of the past and present populations of Mesoamerica. Apply a methodological approach to the study of indigenous primary sources from Mesoamerica, written during the Late Postclassic (c. 1200-1524 CE) and the beginning of the Colonial period, including oral tradition. Explore religion, socio-political organization, territory and territoriality, economy, gender roles, and the norms and values of everyday life.
LAS 324L.25 Maya Collapse 3 Hours
Explore different aspects of Classic Maya daily life, their relationship with the environment, and the factors that influenced the transformation of the Maya civilization at the end of the Classic period.
LAS 324Q Daily Life in Mesoamerica 3 Hours
Examine the daily life of people in Mesoamerica, from the earliest inhabitants in the region to the myriad ways that Precolumbian life and archaeology affect the lives of people today.
LAS 324S Jewish Cuba 3 Hours
LAS 325 Topics in Latin American Sociology 3 Hours
LAS 325.2 Social Change in Developing Nations 3 Hours
Overview of changing social structure in the Third World.
LAS 325.4 Politics and Society in Latin America 3 Hours
Introduction to present-day Latin American politics and society with a focus on drug-trafficking and urban destitution in Brazil; party politics, protest, and collective violence in Argentina; the current political situation in Venezuela; and migration from Central America and the Caribbean to the United States. Also includes a general overview of revolutions and revolutionary movements in Latin America, and the effects of United States intervention in the region during the twentieth century.
LAS 325.5 Consumption in Latin America 3 Hours
Study of the role consumption plays in social, economic, and political relations in Latin America, as well as contesting ideas about this role.
LAS 325.6 Latinx Sociology 3 Hours
Explore how institutions have shaped the gendered, racial, and class-based experiences of Latinxs from a sociological perspective, including historical patterns of Latinx migration to the United States, contestations over racial classifications, and problematic issues surrounding the term Latino. Review more recent studies that show how different institutions shape the Latinx experience and demonstrate how gendered, racial, and classed forces have shaped various Latinx communities. Examine Latinx agency and how Latinx communities have sought to reconfigure and push back on these social forces.
LAS 325E Geographies of Latin American to United States Migration 3 Hours
Examine the contemporary complex multi-scalar origins, patterns, and processes of Latin American and Caribbean migration and settlement in the United States. Through a place-specific, spatially contextualized, and historically situated approach, explore the collective and individual experiences of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees from select nations including: Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Cuba. Analyze the multi-layered factors shaping diverse Latin American migratory patterns and processes.
LAS 325S Statistical Analysis of Social Disparities 3 Hours
Analysis of racial inequality through social statistics.
LAS 326 Topics in Latin American Music 3 Hours
LAS 326.2 Music of Latin America 3 Hours
Consider Latin American music within a broad cultural and historical framework. Latin American musical practices are explored illustrating the many ways that aesthetics and society are embodied in and negotiated through performance. Concepts include diaspora, colonialism, mestizaje, hybridity, migration and globalization.
LAS 326.4 Music of the Andean Countries 3 Hours
Introduction to the music of Andean countries including Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile. Explores the role music plays in shaping historical and modern Andean societies, as well as how music comments upon national culture, society, and politics, with particular attention to the ways in which musicians and musical movements continue to influence Andean societies. Subjects include pre-Columbian and colonial music making; music representative of the tripartite indigenous, African, and Iberian heritage of Andean countries; aesthetics, identity, and musical expression; ritual, religion, and the politics of musical performance.
LAS 326C Music of Brazil and Argentina 3 Hours
An introduction to Brazilian and Argentine music from samba, capoeira, and forro to tango, cumbia villera, and chacarera; examines such music making within its various historical, social, and political contexts. Uses course readings, lectures, listening assignments, performance attendance, and movie screenings to analyze themes including nationalism and ethnicity, globalization and development, and democracy and social justice.
LAS 326D The Music of the African Diaspora 3 Hours
The musical legacy of the African slave trade in the Americas, the social contexts in which black musical forms have developed, and their varied forms. Subjects include the shifting meanings of "black music" in various contexts; the notion of hybridity; the uses of African influenced music as a political or oppositional tool; and African ethnic groups represented prominently in the New World, the traditions they brought with them, and the ways they have been adapted to new ends.
LAS 326M Music of Mexico and the Caribbean 3 Hours
Introduction to the history of Mexican and Caribbean traditional and commercial music, with some discussion of classical music as well. Attention will be given to music of indigenous, African, European, and mixed origin. Mexico and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean receive special attention. Class meetings will be divided into lecture/discussion segments, videos, listening, and performance instruction/demonstration.
LAS 327 Topics in Latin American Art History 3 Hours
LAS 327.1 Chicano Art Histories and Futures 3 Hours
Mexican American art since the 1960s, with an emphasis on the visual production and exhibition of identity inside and outside the Chicano civil rights movement and the politics of U.S. multiculturalism. An introduction to a broad range of art history written to date--including recent feminist and queer interventions--as a means of envisioning a supposed "post-Chicano" or "post-racial" moment.
LAS 327.10 Architecture and Sculpture in the Maya World 3 Hours
Explore the ancient world of the Maya through the lens of architecture and sculpture.
LAS 327.11 Aztec Art and Civilization 3 Hours
An introduction to the art, symbolism, and visual culture of the ancient Aztecs. Subjects include the representations of history and mythology in architecture, stone monuments, and pictorial manuscripts.
LAS 327.2 Modern Art of Mexico 3 Hours
Mexican visual culture from the late nineteenth century through 1968. Emphasis on the emergence of modernist avant-gardes and popular entertainment, and their ambivalent relationship to state, church, and market. Also explores how self-consciously negotiating the tension between native and international influences, artists, critics, and curators contributes to notions of Lo Mexicano, or "Mexicanness.
LAS 327.3 Mesoamerican Art and Culture 3 Hours
Mesoamerican art, architecture, and its archaeological context, with emphasis on the social function of art and visual culture in ancient Mesoamerica up to the time of European contact.
LAS 327.5 Maya Art and Architecture 3 Hours
Introduction to the artistic traditions of the ancient Maya, tracing their development up to the time of European contact. Students will examine various important themes of Maya culture including history, ritual, and cosmology as revealed in sculpture, hieroglyphs, painting, and architectural design.
LAS 327.6 Art and Archaeology of Ancient Peru 3 Hours
The growth of civilization in South America from the earliest decorated textiles, pottery, and ceremonial buildings to the imperial Inca style.
LAS 327.7 Art Cinemas of the Americas 3 Hours
Examine art cinemas from the Spanish-speaking Americas from the 1950s to the present.
LAS 327.8 Apertures: Film and Photography Through Greater Mexico 3 Hours
Exploration of the historical and aesthetic linkages and affinities between filmmakers and photographers working in greater Mexico, including prominent visitors and Americans of Mexican descent. Considers how Mexican culture is represented but also how borders between Mexico and the wider world--as well as among media--were blurred or brought into sharper focus by these exchanges.
LAS 327.9 Contemporary Latin American Art 3 Hours
Development and sources of art in the Caribbean and Central and South America from the 1960s to the present.
LAS 328 Topics in Latin American Arts, Literature, Film, and Dance 3 Hours
LAS 328.1 Samba to Hip Hop: Brazilian Popular Music 3 Hours
Examines the role of popular music in relationships of power with subordination and the impact of music as a form of cultural expression.
LAS 328.10 The United States in Latin American Culture 3 Hours
Explore how Latin American and Latinx writers and artists have used the United States and globalization tropes, not just to come to terms with politics, popular culture, crime, technology, gender, and race, but also to talk about themselves.
LAS 328.11 Modern Brazil 3 Hours
Explore modern Brazilian urban culture and the processes and contexts that led to the modernization of Brazil.
LAS 328.12 Jews of the United States, Canada, and Latin America 3 Hours
Explore the cultural history of Jews in the United States, Latin America, and Canada through a representative sample of short literary texts, film clips, and musical recordings.
LAS 328.13 Latinx Caribbeans: Culture and Diaspora in the United States 3 Hours
Explore prominent Latinx poets, writers, performers, and media artists connected to several diaspora communities from the Hispano-, Franco-, and Anglophone Caribbean in the United States.
LAS 328.14 Music, Power, and Politics in Latin America 3 Hours
Analyze how popular music and more sound-related media in Latin America have played central roles in the expression of global citizenship, national and transnational identities, social justice, race, gender, and sexuality.
LAS 328.15 Indigenous Relations 3 Hours
Explore the multi-layered relations of Indigenous Peoples to the land in the context of late twentieth- and early-twenty-first century Latin America.
LAS 328.16 Cuba in Question 3 Hours
Explore Cuba's peoples, cultures, ethnicities, and the social and historical processes that go far beyond the common media stereotypes.
LAS 328.17 Queer/Trans Performance 3 Hours
Explore the ways performance serves as an alternative space of expression and worldmaking, a site of activism and resistance, and a creative outlet for queer and trans people in specific socio-cultural contexts.
LAS 328.2 Global Brazil: Immigration and Diaspora in Brazilian Culture 3 Hours
Examination of twentieth-century literature, films, and other cultural artifacts that capture the multicultural reality of Brazilian society and challenge the image of Brazil as a unified, harmonious, racially-mixed nation. Subjects include contemporary textual and visual representations of the Brazilian diaspora in the United States and Europe.
LAS 328.3 Afro-Luso-Brazilian Worlds 3 Hours
Examine the myths and realities in the Afro-Luso-Brazilian worlds and the connections and contrasts between them.
LAS 328.5 Mediascapes: Literature and Media in the Caribbean 3 Hours
Analyzes the relationship between literature and media technologies in contemporary Caribbean cultures.
LAS 328.6 Race and Visual Culture in Latin America 3 Hours
Examine race and visuality in several countries of Latin America.
LAS 328.8 Spanish Storytelling 3 Hours
Explore the Spanish storytelling tradition, with a focus on famous Spanish language authors who have enjoyed a broad reception in the English-speaking world.
LAS 328.9 Spectacular Brazil 3 Hours
Explore the global, historical, thematic, and performative aspects of Brazilian culture using cultural texts, film, popular music, art, and photography.
LAS 328C Transnational Latinx Popular Culture 3 Hours
LAS 129S, 229S, 329S, 429S, 529S, 629S, 729S, 829S, 929S Topics in Latin American Studies 1-9 Hours
This course is used to record credit the student earns while enrolled at another institution in a program administered by the University's Study Abroad Office. Credit is recorded as assigned by the study abroad adviser in Latin American studies. University credit is awarded for work in an exchange program; it may be counted as coursework taken in residence. Transfer credit is awarded for work in an affiliated studies program.
LAS 330 Topics in Latin American Geography 3 Hours
LAS 330.2 Landscapes of Mexico and Caribbean America 3 Hours
The natural regions and cultural landscapes of Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies.
LAS 330.3 South America: Nature, Society and Sustainability 3 Hours
Field study of environmental and social change in selected landscapes in South America, such as protected areas; places of food production; transportation routes; migrant landscapes; urban areas; sites of cultural and historical importance; and issues of human rights.
LAS 330.4 Mapping Latin America 3 Hours
Discuss the role of maps in the creation of Latin America as a specific sort of place. As such, allows familiarity with a broad overview of Latin American history from Pre-Columbian civilizations to the modern period.
LAS 330.5 Vulnerability to Natural Hazards 3 Hours
An interdisciplinary approach, set right at the nexus of both physical and human geography, to studying the types of natural disasters that occur throughout Earth with a focus on tropical areas. Explore a region's susceptibility to natural disasters by studying the physical phenomena that incite specific hazards so that their spatial distribution can be outlined. Utilize theoretical frameworks that can expose the social causes of human vulnerability, the political repercussions of disasters, and how disaster response varies from country to country depending on varying political stances and economic conditions.
LAS 330.6 Sustainable Maya Geographies - Past to Future 3 Hours
Explore landscapes, conservation, and human-environment dynamics in the Maya region of Central America from more than 10,000 years ago to modern times. Compare sustainable practices from the past with those of indigenous Maya communities today to guide the future.
LAS 331 Water Resources in Latin America and the Caribbean 3 Hours
Examine the variability of landscapes, climatic regions, and anthropogenic activities found throughout Latin America and the insular Caribbean to explore the complex issues related to water resource accessibility.
LAS 337L Issues in Third World Development 3 Hours
Explore important issues in the politics of developing countries.
LAS 337M Topics in Latin American Politics 3 Hours
Topics vary each semester to allow curriculum flexibility for faculty members and visiting scholars.
LAS 337M.5 Introduction to Latin American Government and Politics 3 Hours
An introductory survey of Latin American political systems: governmental organization, political processes, and current problems.
LAS 337M.9 The Military in Politics 3 Hours
LAS 337O Law and Democracy in Latin America 3 Hours
Explore many of the challenges to the rule of law across Latin America and how they affect the quality of democracy in the region.
LAS 337P International Politics of Latin America 3 Hours
Analyze Latin America's political and economic relations with respect to external actors.
LAS 337Q Politics, Economy, and Society of Contemporary Brazil 3 Hours
Examine major economic, political, and sociological developments in Brazil.
LAS 337R The Politics of Development in Latin America 3 Hours
Examine the struggle for development in Latin America.
LAS 337S Latino Politics 3 Hours
Explore the political experiences of the United States Latino populations.
LAS 337T The Politics of Mexico 3 Hours
Explore Mexico's political and economic development.
LAS 355 Topics in Latin American Economics 3 Hours
Topics vary each semester to allow curriculum flexibility for faculty members and visiting scholars.
LAS 355.1 Development Problems and Policies in Latin America 3 Hours
Analysis of the economies of Latin America. Issues may include the structure and functioning of cities, rural-urban migration, the sectoral composition of GDP and employment, and determinants of growth.
LAS 359H Honors Seminar 3 Hours
An interdisciplinary discussion and writing seminar. Lectures and supervised individual research and writing of a substantial paper on a special topic.
LAS 366 Topics in Latin American History 3 Hours
Topics vary each semester to allow curriculum flexibility for faculty members and visiting scholars.
LAS 366.12 Modern Brazil 3 Hours
The social, economic, political, and cultural forces that have shaped modern Brazil.
LAS 366.13 Revolution in Modern Latin America 3 Hours
Comparison of the Mexican and Cuban revolutions and of their challenges to inter-American relations.
LAS 366.15 History of Modern Central America 3 Hours
LAS 366.16 Culture and Identity in Colonial Mexico 3 Hours
LAS 366.17 The Cuban Revolution and the United States 3 Hours
The special economic and political relationship between the United States and Cuba from 1898 to 1967; and how the 1959 revolution affected the Cold War relationships between East and West, North and South.
LAS 366.18 History of the Caribbean 3 Hours
Overview of Caribbean history from 1492 to the present. Topics include contact between European and native cultures, piracy, slavery, colonialism and decolonization, and revolutions.
LAS 366.19 Twentieth-Century Rural Latin America 3 Hours
Examines causes of some of the unresolved conflicts affecting Latin America today, including the social-agrarian relationships linking landlords and campesinos; the role of the state and the impact of official ideologies involving indigenous people; religion and the Catholic Church; the history of rural institutions; and the success or failure of land reforms.
LAS 366.2 Colonial Latin America 3 Hours
Basic survey course, designed as an introduction to Latin American history in the colonial period.
LAS 366.20 Colonial Latin America through Objects 3 Hours
Examines objects, such as paintings, reliquaries, monstrances, and churches from colonial Latin America in order to understand colonial culture. Includes critical reading of original texts.
LAS 366.21 Church and State in Latin America 3 Hours
History of Church-state relations and religious politics in modern Latin America, with emphasis on the nineteenth to early twentieth-century periods.
LAS 366.22 Reimagining Cuba, 1868-Present 3 Hours
Explores Cuban-United States relations from the nineteenth century to the present, including issues of empire and transnationalism, and social change engagements between Cuba and the United States before and after the Cuban Revolution.
LAS 366.24 Rethinking the Conquest of Mexico 3 Hours
Explores the "conquest" of Mexico and the social, cultural, political, and economic processes which were set in motion by the Spanish invasion of Mexico.
LAS 366.27 Cultural Citizenship in the United States and Latin America 3 Hours
An introduction to the history of relations between the United States and Latin America. Designed to prepare each student for a potential experience in Latin America (or with Latino communities in the United States) such as study abroad, research, and/or community engagement.
LAS 366.28 Argentina: Populism and Insurrection 3 Hours
An overview of principal trends and issues in Argentine history from independence to the present.
LAS 366.29 Religion, Conquest, and Conversion in Colonial Latin America 3 Hours
Focuses on the histories of the Catholic Church and religious devotion in colonial Latin America between 1521 and 1821.
LAS 366.3 Modern Latin America 3 Hours
Continuation of History 346K and Latin American Studies 366 (Topic 2).
LAS 366.31 Afro-Latin America 3 Hours
Examines the historical experiences of people of African descent in Latin America and the Caribbean beginning in the slavery era, and focuses on the histories of Afro-Latin Americans after emancipation.
LAS 366.32 Latin America in the Nineteenth Century 3 Hours
Questions the geographical category of Latin America by examining the kinds of trends and forces of the nineteenth century that contributed to its conceptual emergence and to its growing political, economic, and cultural significance on the global stage.
LAS 366.34 The Bible in the Colonial Americas 3 Hours
Varied perspectives on the central role played by the Old Testament in the construction of colonial cultures in the Americas.
LAS 366.35 When Christ was King 3 Hours
The history of Catholicism in twentieth-century Mexico, often seen as Latin America's most "Catholic" nation.
LAS 366.36 Urban Slavery in the Americas 3 Hours
Examines urban slavery in the Americas.
LAS 366.37 Chile: From Revolution to Counterrevolution 3 Hours
An examination of the key political, social, and economic events that underpin contemporary Chilean society.
LAS 366.38 Latin America in the Sixties 3 Hours
Explore the impact of the Cuban revolution in Latin American politics, gender roles, and women's participation in public life during the sixties.
LAS 366.39 Life and Politics in Contemporary Mexico 3 Hours
Examine an overview of life and politics in contemporary Mexico.
LAS 366.40 Politics of Food in Latin America 3 Hours
Examine food production, food consumption, and socio-cultural identities in Latin America through comparative and multidisciplinary research.
LAS 366.41 Sexuality and Gender in Latin America 3 Hours
Explore gender as a broad analytical tool to understand key problems concerning social organization, power relations, and inequality in contemporary Latin America.
LAS 366.43 Debt and Colonialism in the Caribbean 3 Hours
Examine the role that debt has played in the formation of colonial and neocolonial practices in the Caribbean region. Take a broad approach to the concept of debt in order to explore the financial and monetary dynamics of debt, but also the political and cultural implications of debt. Focus in particular on debt as justification in the furtherance of colonialism throughout the Caribbean. Engage in a historical examination of the United States' colonial projects and military interventions in the region throughout the 20th and into the 21st centuries.
LAS 366.44 Race Against Empire: Americas 3 Hours
LAS 366.45 History of Modern Mexico, 1940-present 3 Hours
Introduction to the history of modern Mexico from the close of the Mexican Revolution (1940) to the present.
LAS 366.46 The Mexican Revolution, 1910-1940 3 Hours
Explore the initial decade of the Mexican Revolution, the first of the twentieth-century nationalist social revolutions. Examine the historical antecedents and the political, economic, social, and intellectual elements of the upheaval.
LAS 366.47 Mexican Americans in Texas History 3 Hours
Introduction to the historical experience of Mexican-American persons in Texas.
LAS 366.7 Resistance, Rebellion, and Revolution in Colonial Spanish America 3 Hours
LAS 366.9 Revolution in Twentieth-Century Latin America 3 Hours
An introduction to recent Latin American history, with emphasis on phenomena that explain the apparent social unrest and political instability of the region.
LAS 366C Nationalisms in the Caribbean 3 Hours
LAS 366D Race, Rebellion and Revolution in the Caribbean 3 Hours
LAS 370P Topics in Luso-Brazilian Literature, Culture, Civilization, and Linguistics 3 Hours
Taught in Portuguese.
LAS 370P.10 United States Latino Literatures and Cultures in Context 3 Hours
Examines the United States Latino literary and cultural production from a multidisciplinary perspective, through literature, film, music, and performance. Analyzes the literatures and experiences of Brazilian American writers and artists in their historical and cultural specificities.
LAS 370P.11 Sociolinguistics 3 Hours
Explores the interrelationship of language and society with reference to the Portuguese-speaking world. Examines how socio-economic , political, and anthropological factors like race, social class, gender, age, and identity influence linguistics forms.
LAS 370P.2 Introduction to Literatures and Cultures 3 Hours
Overview of Luso-Brazilian literatures and cultures, including the arts and popular expressions from a multidisciplinary perspective. Among the regions studied are Brazil, Portugal, and related areas in Africa.
LAS 370S Topics in Hispanic Literature, Culture, Civilization, and Linguistics 3 Hours
Taught in Spanish.
LAS 370S.23 Violence in Contemporary Mexican Culture 3 Hours
Studies the representation of violence in contemporary literary and cultural production in Mexico in order to understand social, political, and cultural implications of current violence there. Taught in Spanish.
LAS 370S.24 Gender Issues in Contemporary Latin American Cinema 3 Hours
Studies Latin American cinema as a device of gender system formation and reinforcement, and as criticism of patriarchal hegemony; discusses questions related to sexuality depicted in Latin American films. Subjects covered include: maternity, prostitution, machismo, children's sexuality, homosexuality, heterosexuality, and gender violence in films from the 1930s to present. Conducted in Spanish.
LAS 370S.27 Introduction to Literatures and Cultures 3 Hours
Overview of Iberian and/or Latin American literatures and cultures, including the arts and popular expressions, from a multidisciplinary perspective. Among the regions studied are Spain; North, Central, and South America; the Caribbean; and related areas in Africa.
LAS 370S.32 Jewish Voices from Latin America 3 Hours
Overview of popular Jewish writers from Brazil and Spanish America, with special emphasis on those who portray in their work the situation of the Jewish communities of their respective cities and countries. Conducted in Spanish.
LAS 370S.35 Literature and Exile in the Spanish Caribbean 3 Hours
Explore literary texts (e.g., poetry, chronicles, narratives, and short stories) that describe exile as a trope. Examine themes, such as literature, culture and colonialism, nationality and belonging (i.e., nation, transnation, and post-nation), nature, the sensorial and subjectivity, identity politics (i.e., race, gender, and sexuality), and the ethics of writing.
LAS 370S.39 Journalism and Human Rights in Latin America 3 Hours
Explore the traditional definitions of Human Rights and the way those definitions have taken shape in the last two decades in Latin America.
LAS 370S.43 United States Latino Literatures and Cultures in Context 3 Hours
Examines the United States Latino literary and cultural production from multidisciplinary perspectives, such as literature, film, music, and performance. Analysis of the literatures and experiences of United States Latino writers and artists in their historical and cultural specificities.
LAS 370S.45 Brevity in Spanish-Language Literature and Film 3 Hours
Explore the work of Spanish and Spanish American filmmakers, prose writers, and poets who have accepted the challenge of expressing themselves in a brief span of time.
LAS 370S.46 Latin American Film and Culture 3 Hours
Review Latin American cinema from the silent era to present, with an emphasis on the last forty years. Discuss the development of the film industry (particularly in Argentina and Mexico in the 1930s and 1940s), the "New Wave" of Latin American cinema in the 1960s, and contemporary trends.
LAS 370S.47 Latin American Literary and Artistic Environmental Activism 3 Hours
Explore literary and artistic works that engage in questions of environmental care and justice in the context of twentieth- and twenty-first century Latin America.
LAS 370S.48 Migrations and Exiles in Latin American Literature and the Arts 3 Hours
Explore how internal and international displacement and migration have been represented in Latin American arts.
LAS 370S.49 The Imagined Andes 3 Hours
Examine the ways in which the cultural, social, and geographical space of the Andes has been "imagined" through literary texts, visual and audiovisual artworks by writers and artists from Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile and Peru.
LAS 378 Capstone Course in Latin American Studies 3 Hours
LAS 379 Conference Course in Latin American Studies 3 Hours
Supervised individual study of selected problems in Latin American studies.
LAS 679H Honors Tutorial Course 6 Hours
Individual reading of selected works for one semester, followed in the second semester by the writing of an honors thesis.
LAS 381 Topics in Latin American Studies 3 Hours
A varied selection of topics each semester, taught by different faculty members and visiting professors.
LAS 381.1 International Migration 3 Hours
LAS 381.11 Information Resources on, and Services for, Hispanic Americans 3 Hours
Information needs of Hispanic Americans; roles of academic, public, and school libraries in meeting those needs.
LAS 381.12 Information Resources on Latin America 3 Hours
Historical survey of sources of information on Latin America: bibliographical literature from and about Latin America during the colonial, national, and contemporary periods; various types of book and nonbook sources of information available to contemporary scholars.
LAS 381.14 Introduction to the Sociology of Latin America 3 Hours
LAS 381.15 Local Economic Development 3 Hours
LAS 381.16 Maya Hieroglyphic Writing 3 Hours
LAS 381.19 Political Economics of International Communication 3 Hours
LAS 381.20 Regional Planning in Latin America 3 Hours
LAS 381.22 Documentary Tradition of Latin America 3 Hours
Study of still photographic and video documentary work by Latin Americans about Latin America. Production of photographic essays on Latin American culture.
LAS 381.23 Poverty and Marginality in the Americas 3 Hours
Review of the past and present ethnographic analyses of the nature and experiences of poverty and marginality in Latin America and in the United States. Examines some of the most controversial issues and debates, and explores emerging research topics north and south of the border.
LAS 381.24 Contemporary Brazilian Art 3 Hours
Examine art and activism in contemporary Brazil to explore how artists are relating to, reflecting on, and resisting the democratic erosion in the country.
LAS 381.25 Brazilian Cultural Theory 3 Hours
Explore some of the most influential subjects and theories that have informed contemporary scholarship on the politics of Brazilian literary and cultural production.
LAS 381.26 Cultural Tropicalities 3 Hours
Examine the centrality of Brazil, and the New World in general, in the context of global controversial meanings, symbology, memory, and knowledge of the inter-tropical cultural and geographic zone.
LAS 381.6 Housing Practices and Public Policy in Latin America 3 Hours
LAS 381.8 International Business Fellows Seminar 3 Hours
Multidisciplinary seminar for students in area studies, business administration, law, and public policy. The faculty includes both academics and business leaders.
LAS 381F Methods for Social Science in Latin America 3 Hours
LAS 382 Conference Course in Latin American Studies 3 Hours
Individual study to be arranged with a faculty member.
LAS 383 Invisible Global Market 3 Hours
LAS 384 Proseminar: Current Issues in Latin America 3 Hours
LAS 384L Topics in Latin American Politics 3 Hours
A varied selection of topics each semester, taught by different faculty members and visiting professors.
LAS 384L.1 Brazilian Public Policies 3 Hours
LAS 384L.2 Latin American Urban Politics 3 Hours
LAS 384L.3 Development Policy 3 Hours
LAS 384L.4 Policy Analysis 3 Hours
Study of the nature and operation of the national policymaking process.
LAS 384L.5 Politics and Society in the Third World 3 Hours
LAS 384L.6 Comparative Politics: Latin America 3 Hours
LAS 386 Topics in Latin American History 3 Hours
A varied selection of topics each semester, to allow curriculum flexibility for faculty members and visiting scholars.
LAS 388 Topics in Latin American Geography 3 Hours
LAS 388.1 Regional Geography of Latin America 3 Hours
Topics include land and life in Central America; culture, environment and development in Latin America; recent trends in Latin American geography.
LAS 388.2 Indigenous Maps, Architecture, and Enculturation of Colonial Mexico 3 Hours
The encounter of Spanish and indigenous cultures and ecologies; regional diversity of agricultural, urban, and economic development from 1521 to 1810; ethnic transformation and new socioeconomic configurations.
LAS 388.3 Latin American Cultures, Environment, and Development 3 Hours
Exploration through Latin American examples of issues of cultural identity and territory, adaptive strategies, environmental impact, conservation, cultural survival, parks and people, and sustainable development.
LAS 388.4 Environment and Health in Latin America 3 Hours
Issues related to health, health care, and development in Latin America and the Caribbean, considered with the recognition that health depends on the interactions of social, economic, and political factors as well as on health care services.
LAS 190K, 290K, 390K, 690K, 990K Proposal Preparation 1,2,3,6,9 Hours
Prepare proposal for the doctoral dissertation.
LAS 391 Topics in Latin American Anthropology 3 Hours
A varied selection of topics each semester, taught by different faculty members and visiting professors.
LAS 391.5 Race and Ethnicity in American Society 3 Hours
LAS 391K Topics in Latin American Economics 3 Hours
A varied selection of topics each semester, taught by different faculty members and visiting professors.
LAS 391K.1 Seminar on the Mexican Economy 3 Hours
LAS 391K.2 Current Issues in Latin American Economics 3 Hours
LAS 391K.3 Latin American Economic Models 3 Hours
LAS 391K.4 Entrepreneurship and Development in Latin America 3 Hours
LAS 392P Topics in Luso-Brazilian Literature, Culture, Civilization, and Linguistics 3 Hours
LAS 392S Topics in Hispanic Literature, Culture, Civilization, and Linguistics 3 Hours
LAS 392S.1 Writing on the Edge: Literature and Incarceration 3 Hours
Explore the critical potential of literature to interrogate mass incarceration and its relationship to systemic inequalities, including access to education, as well as the limits and possibilities of prison writing as a social and restorative endeavor to reimagine society.
LAS 393L, 693L, 993L Qualifying Examination 3,6,9 Hours
Prepare for qualifying examinations.
LAS 397R Secondary Report 3 Hours
Preparation of a report to be counted toward the requirement for the master's degree under the report option.
LAS 698 Thesis 6 Hours
LAS 398R Master's Report 3 Hours
Preparation of a report to fulfill the requirement for the master's degree under the report option.
LAS 399W, 699W, 999W Dissertation 3,6,9 Hours