This course focuses on the profound cultural and symbolic continuities and changes of religious myths and rituals in Latin America from its Mesoamerican past. Tracing religious texts and practices from the Pre-Colombian era, through colonialism and postcolonialism, and through the present, this course studies how religion shapes literary and cultural production. We will study indigenous Latin American texts from the Aztec and Maya and representations of religious practices in the writings of the Conquistadors, as well as major texts by key colonial religious figures. Throughout the course...

This course approaches cultural studies in Latin American and US Latinx studies through an introduction to race and performance studies. With particular emphasis on artists of color from the Caribbean, Latin America, and the United States, we will study methods of how race is performed culturally, socially, and politically. M/W/F 2:00-2:50pm; CRN: 53110 Instructor: Xiomara Verenice Cervantes-Gómez  

This course serves as a panoramic introduction to Spanish literatures and cultures from the perspective of non-hegemonic discourses and subjects. Following Antonio Gramsci, the course will focus on literature that challenges dominant assumptions, beliefs, and established patterns of behavior. The common denominator will be breaking with the hegemonic image of Spain as Castilian, White, Catholic, Middle-Class, and Heteropatriarchal. We will examine artistic product such as literary pieces, films, and testimonial and biographical materials like documentaries or memoirs. Taking an...

In this course, we will explore the construction of the image of Spain for foreign consumption from the turn of the twentieth century to the present. We will analyze the presence of Spain beyond its borders, including aspects such as military and economic colonialism, migration, tourism, sports, arts, food, fashion, and language. We will study a wide array of documents (films, literary texts, articles, commercials, visual culture, etc) from the perspective of postcolonial theory and cultural studies. Taught in Spanish (Pre-Req: Span 228). MWF 9:00-9:50 (section D, CRN 60341), location TBD...

Did you know that the United States has over 50 million Spanish-speakers, making it the second largest Spanish-speaking population in the world, after Mexico? In this course, we will explore the past, present, and future of the many different Spanish-speaking communities in the U.S. The main objective is to develop critical and linguistic awareness of the relationship between language, individual, and society. We will accomplish this through an examination of historical migration patterns and settlements, dialects of Spanish in the different regions of the U.S., the linguistic characteristics...

This course explores how cinema produced in the United States and Mexico, from the silent period to the contemporary moment has mediated and commented on the presence of Mexicans in what is today the U.S., as well as the migratory experience. Because cinema is an industrial art form, we will examine the impact of social, historical, and political conditions as well as the impact of global economic structures on cinema throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Students will acquire knowledge of the periods of US and Mexican cinema history and a familiarity with critical approaches to...

This course explores the role of cinema in constructing and mediating ideas about race throughout Latin America in the context of the region's national formations from the early 20th century through the 21st. As a popular visual medium central to the processes of nation building, cinema in the region provides a unique vantage point to understand the multiple and vying proposals regarding the role of racial plurality in local projects of identity. Students will study films from Mesoamerica, the Andes, Brazil and Cuba with attention to both their production contexts within the broad history of...

Who is Pedro Almodóvar and why are his films synonymous with “Spanish” culture? How do his films narrate contemporary Spanish history, disrupt gender norms, challenge traditional Catholic values, irk politicians in both the Left and Right, uphold and deconstruct Hollywood film style, and generally reframe the way Spanish cinema is perceived globally? Controversial genius, global auteur, national icon and standard bearer for queer culture, and arguably the most influential Spanish filmmaker since Luis Buñuel (possibly more than Buñuel), Almodóvar is without a doubt also the most...