SPAN 248 (LLS 248) - SPRING 2025 TAUGHT IN ENGLISH, Gen Ed for “Literature and the Arts” and “US Minority Cultures;" This course studies the relationships between Latinx and Latin American culture through exciting films. It focuses on a set of current and relevant topics (migrations, assimilation and integration, ICE, political struggles, globalization, nationalism and transnationalism). No prerequisites. Lecture (AL1) is Online and Sections Face to Face (in person). The class will expose and go beyond stereotypes about...

This course explores how Mexican cinema, from its beginnings at end of the 19th century through 21st century production, has commented on and participated in major social and national processes such as the Mexican Revolution, the (re)construction of national identity, modernization, as well as the negotiation of changing conceptions of class, gender, and race. We will analyze canonical, landmark films as well as lesser-known works to explore how a variety of directors and genres have engaged the country’s national imaginary through time. As film is an industrial art form, we will examine the...

Is one form of cinema more truthful than any other? Are realist styles any more ethical with regards to the depiction of marginalized populations? How and why has realism become an idiom of prestige for Latin American films on the festival circuit? For nearly a century, cinemas purporting to offer an alternative to entertainment films have attempted to situate themselves within a privileged relationship to realism in contradistinction to the notions of pleasure, distraction, and deception that critics have identified as inherent to the commercial movie industry. Taking as its point of...