Topics vary each semester to allow curriculum flexibility for faculty members and visiting scholars.

Maya prehistory and history: the archaeological record, codices and inscriptions, and Spanish conquest writings.

Focuses on the Spanish colonies in Latin America.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Critically examine the globalization phenomenon in Latin America, focusing on history and ethnography.

The prehistory, history, and contemporary racial understanding of Mexican Americans.

History of the interactions of the indigenous peoples of the Americas with Africans, Asians, and Europeans over the past five hundred years.

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.

Examine Black feminist theories and practices around the world from a transnational and comparative perspective.

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.

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.