Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies Courses for Spring 2027
| Title | Instructor | Location | Time | All taxonomy terms | Description | Section Description | Cross Listings | Fulfills | Registration Notes | Syllabus | Syllabus URL | Course Syllabus URL | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LALS 0018-401 | Perspectives in Afro-Luso-Brazilian Culture | Mercia Flannery | MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | This interdisciplinary, English-taught survey course introduces students to the cultures, histories, and contemporary debates of the Portuguese-speaking world, including Brazil, Portugal, and former Portuguese colonies in Africa. Drawing on perspectives from history, cultural studies, literary analysis, and sociolinguistics, the course examines how Portuguese imperial expansion shaped enduring cultural, racial, and linguistic formations across multiple continents and how these legacies continue to influence social relations and political discourse today. A central component of the course is an experiential learning dimension in Brazil. Students will complement classroom discussions with guided visits to historic and cultural sites in Rio de Janeiro and colonial towns in Minas Gerais, allowing them to engage directly with spaces marked by Portuguese colonization, the transatlantic slave trade, and postcolonial cultural production. Through a combination of lectures, discussion-based seminars, primary-source analysis, and student-led discussions, the course explores major themes such as colonialism and racial formation, resistance, and the circulation of artistic and intellectual traditions within the Lusophone world. Students will also engage with current debates surrounding inequality, postcolonial reckoning, and globalization, and situating Lusophone societies within broader global conversations. By the end of the course, students will be able to identify and discuss key historical figures, cultural movements, and thematic concerns within Portuguese-speaking societies, and to critically assess the lasting impact of Portuguese colonialism on language, race, and culture. Students will also gain transferable skills in global cultural analysis and comparative thinking relevant to fields such as international studies, history, anthropology, public policy, law, education, and the arts. Students who wish to apply this course toward the Portuguese Certificate may submit their final research paper in Portuguese. This course is a Penn Global Seminar, which includes a travel component. An application is required. For more information and to apply, visit: https://global.upenn.edu/pennabroad/pgs | PRTG0018401 | |||||||||
| LALS 0450-401 | Modern Latin America 1808-Present | Melissa Teixeira | TR 10:15 AM-11:14 AM | This course examines central themes of Latin American history, from independence to the present. It engages a hemispheric and global approach to understand the economic and social transformations of the region. We will explore the anti-imperial struggles, revolutions, social movements, and global economic crises that have given rise to new national projects for development, or have frustrated the realization of such goals. Taking a historical perspective, we will ask: What triggers imperial breakdown? How did slaves navigate the boundary between freedom and bondage? Was the Mexican Revolution revolutionary? How did the Great Depression lead to the rise of state-led development? In what ways have citizens mobilized for equality, a decent standard of living, and cultural inclusion? And what future paths will the region take given uneasy export markets and current political uncertainty? | HIST0450401 | History & Tradition Sector (all classes) | ||||||||
| LALS 0520-401 | Capitalism, (Neo)Colonialism, Racism, and Resistance | Jennifer Lyn Sternad Ponce De Leon | M 12:00 PM-2:59 PM | This interdisciplinary seminar examines, from an international perspective, theory and artistic productions, including literature, films, and performance art, that analyze and critique capitalism, imperialism and (neo)colonialism, racism, and patriarchy. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings. | COML0520401, ENGL0520401 | Arts & Letters Sector (all classes) | ||||||||
| LALS 1060-401 | Race and Ethnic Relations | Hashim Bin Rashid | MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM | The course will focus on race and ethnicity in the United States. We begin with a brief history of racial categorization and immigration to the U.S. The course continues by examining a number of topics including racial and ethnic identity, interracial and interethnic friendships and marriage, racial attitudes, mass media images, residential segregation, educational stratification, and labor market outcomes. The course will include discussions of African Americans, Whites, Hispanics, Asian Americans and multiracials. | AFRC1060401, ASAM1510401, SOCI1060401, URBS1060401 | |||||||||
| LALS 1103-401 | Dilemmas of Immigration | Michael A Jones-Correa | MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | Beneath the daily headlines about refugees blocked entry, and undocumented migrants deported there is a set of hard questions which deserve closer attention: Should countries have borders? If countries have borders, how should they decide who is kept out and who is allowed in? How many immigrants is 'enough'? Are immigrants equally desirable? What kinds of obligations do immigrants have to their receiving society? What kinds of obligations do host societies have to immigrants? Should there be 'pathways' to citizenship? Can citizenship be earned? Should citizenship be automatic? This course explores these and other dilemmas raised by immigration. | PSCI1103401 | |||||||||
| LALS 1121-401 | U.S. Intervention in Latin America | Jane Esberg | MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | Why has the United States government participated in regime change in Latin America? How have these interventions affected Latin American political and economic outcomes? How have they helped or hurt U.S. interests in the region? This lecture course provides an introduction to the history and politics of U.S. participation in regime change in Latin America since 1949. For each event, the course will help students understand (1) the goals of the U.S. government; (2) the historical and political context of the intervention; and (3) the outcomes and consequences, both in Latin America and for the United States. One set of short writing assignments will train students to identify the main argument of a reading and assess the quality of the evidence presented in support of that argument; a second set of short writing assignments will train students to make and defend their own argument (see draft syllabus for details). | PSCI1121401 | |||||||||
| LALS 1290-401 | Race and Ethnic Politics | Daniel Q Gillion | TR 10:15 AM-11:14 AM | This course examines the role of race and ethnicity in the political discourse through a comparative survey of recent literature on the historical and contemporary political experiences of the four major minority groups (Blacks or African Americans, American Indians, Latinos or Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans). A few of the key topics will include assimilation and acculturation seen in the Asian American community, understanding the political direction of Black America in a pre and post Civil Rights era, and assessing the emergence of Hispanics as the largest minority group and the political impact of this demographic change. Throughout the semester, the course will introduce students to significant minority legislation, political behavior, social movements, litigation/court rulings, media, and various forms of public opinion that have shaped the history of racial and ethnic minority relations in this country. Readings are drawn from books and articles written by contemporary political scientists. | PSCI1290401 | |||||||||
| LALS 1310-401 | Africa and the Transatlantic Slave Trade |
Molly Nicole Jones Roquinaldo Ferreira |
MW 7:00 PM-8:29 PM | This course focuses on the history of selected African societies from the sixteenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries. The primary goal is to study the political, economic, social, and cultural history of a number of peoples who participated in the Atlantic slave trade or were touched by it during the era of their involvement. The course is designed to serve as an introduction to the history and culture of African peoples who entered the diaspora during the era of the slave trade. Its audience is students interested in the history of Africa, the African diaspora, and the Atlantic world, as well as those who want to learn about the history of the slave trade. Case studies will include the Yoruba, Akan, and Fon, as well as Senegambian and West-central African peoples. | AFRC1310401, HIST1310401 | |||||||||
| LALS 1320-401 | Portuguese for the Professions | Carlos Bento Dos Santos Pio | TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM | Portuguese for the Professions is designed for advanced-level students to develop their ability to use a wide technical vocabulary. The course will cover an array of topics in the areas of Economy, Politics, Science, Technology, Law and others as they pertain to the societies and cultures of the Lusophone countries, with particular emphasis placed on Brazil. Through readings, movies, discussions, essays and presentations, students will enhance their ability to write about and discuss these topics while employing the appropriate technical vocabulary. | PRTG1320401 | |||||||||
| LALS 1425-401 | The Haitian Revolution and the Atlantic World | Yvonne E Fabella | TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM | In 1791, enslaved plantation workers in the French colony of Saint Domingue rose up in a coordinated revolt, setting off a chain of events that resulted in the abolition of slavery and independence from France. This course traces that history, focusing on the revolution’s significance as a site of cultural and ideological exchange in the revolutionary-era Atlantic world. Events in Haiti propelled and were in turn shaped by political, economic and legal change in Europe, Africa, and the Americas more broadly. Likewise, revolutionaries in Haiti understood events and made decisions by drawing on the colony’s complex mix of cultural and ideological influences: west and central west African, French, American, and creole. We will pay special attention to the movement of people and ideas between Haiti and Philadelphia, incorporating hands-on work with original texts in the Kislak Center for Special Collections in the Van Pelt Library. | AFRC1425401, HIST1425401 | |||||||||
| LALS 1740-401 | Capitalism, Socialism, and Crisis in the 20th Century Americas | Amy C Offner | MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | From the crisis of the Great Depression through the 1970s, the United States and Latin America produced remarkable efforts to remake society and political economy. This course analyzes the Cuban and Guatemalan revolutions, as well as social movements that transformed the United States: the black freedom movement, the labor movement, and changing forms of Latinx politics. In all three countries, Americans looked for ways to reform capitalism or build socialism; address entrenched patterns of racism; define and realize democracy; and achieve national independence. They conceived of these challenges in dramatically different ways. Together, we’ll compare national histories and analyze the relationships between national upheavals. | HIST1740401 | History & Tradition Sector (all classes) | ||||||||
| LALS 2020-401 | Intl Org in Latin Amer | Catherine E.M. Bartch | TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM | International organizations (IOs) play a powerful role in mitigating conflict at the global level. What role do they play in solving problems related to politics, economic development, corruption, inequality, and civil society in Latin America? How much power, influence, and control do they possess in the region? This course examines the role and impact international organizations have had on Latin America since the mid-20th century. After a review of theoretical perspectives on the significance of IOs in inter-American affairs, students will examine the workings, issues, and controversies surrounding IOs in Latin America across themes of democracy, human rights, security, and development - the four main pillars of the OAS. Through readings, short presentations/debates, and guest speakers, students will explore IOs and their action in the region. Some of these IOs include the IMF, World Bank, UN, ICC as well as regional organizations and area trade blocs and agreements of USMCA/NAFTA, Mercosur, Pacific Alliance, ALBA, and other civil society and human rights organizations. A large part of the course will focus on the Organization of American States and its various departments and divisions such as the Inter American Commission for Human Rights. Students will be invited to participate in the Washington Model OAS simulation in April. | PSCI2421401 | |||||||||
| LALS 2121-401 | People of the Land: Indigeneity and Politics in Argentina and Chile | Tulia G Falleti | M 3:30 PM-6:29 PM | This undergraduate seminar compares the evolution of relations between States and Indigenous peoples and movements throughout the Americas, with a particular focus on the Mapuche people of the Patagonia region, in the south of nowadays Argentina and Chile. The main goal of the course is to comparatively study the organization of Indigenous communities and analyze their political demands regarding plurinationality, self-determination, territory, prior consultation, living well, and intercultural education and health, as well as the different ways in which States repress, ignore, or address such demands. The course starts by reviewing what does it mean to indigenize and decolonize the academy and political science. We then focus on the controversial question of who is Indigenous and comparatively assess the legal answer to this question in different countries of the Americas. Next, we tackle the issue of research methodology and positionality of the researcher, the ethics of studying Indigenous peoples, and using in-depth interviews as a tool for social science research. After briefly reviewing some of the consequences of the conquest and colonialism, we study the topic of global Indigenous rights and politics and from there we zoom in the politics of Indigenous peoples in Argentina, and the Mapuche of Neuquén, in particular. In the last part of the course, we delve into what are the main issues that Mapuche communities of Neuquén confront in the present: from territorial land claims, to interactions with extractive industries, co-management of natural resources with the National Parks Service, intercultural education, and intercultural health, among other topics. | PSCI2121401 | |||||||||
| LALS 2143-401 | Thematized Space in Americas | Alhelí Harvey | T 12:00 PM-2:59 PM | This course begins with the premise of the alien: landscapes, people, artifacts, language. How and where do we experience or encounter things, people, or places that are “out of this world”? We survey a diverse range of expressive cultural material from Latina/o/x America such as travelogues, film, advertising, architecture, and artwork to question the categories of the alien, tourist, and the local. Class readings by Latinx and Latin American Studies scholars on Disneyland, cultural heritage, gentrification, and The X-Files will guide our investigation through the intersections of tourism, architecture, and the production and popularity of “alien” environments in the Americas. Class discussions and visits to local tourist attractions will engage students with everyday surroundings to interrogate how social experiences, economic, and political histories shape our understanding of the actual conditions we live in and imagine a possible world we all share. As we build a hemispheric understanding of the Americas, we will examine dominant and mainstream representations of North American citizenship. This course is organized as a thematic loop: by the end, we will return to our initial point of departure with new questions. This class aims to develop 1) critical thinking skills through collective close reading of secondary sources and seminar-style discussion of complex texts. 2) ability to engage primary and archival sources and their uses for interpreting the built environment. 3) ability to identify and describe central questions in Latinx and Latin American studies in writing through a progressive research-based assignment. | ENGL2143401 | |||||||||
| LALS 2590-401 | Nutritional Anthropology (A) | Caroline E Jones | TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | The course is an introduction to nutritional anthropology, an area of anthropology concerned with human nutrition and food systems in social, cultural and historical contexts. On the one hand, nutritional anthropologists study the significance of the food quest in terms of survival and health. On the other hand, they also know that people eat food for a variety of reasons that may have little, if anything, to do with nutrition, health, or survival. While the availability of food is dependent upon the physical environment, food production systems, and economic resources, food choice and the strategies human groups employ to gain access to and distribute food are deeply embedded in specific cultural patterns, social relationships, and political and economic systems. Thus, nutritional anthropology represents the interface between anthropology and the nutritional sciences, and as such, can provide powerful insights into the interactions of social and biological factors in the context of the nutritional health of individuals and populations. Because food and nutrition are quintessential biocultural issues, the course takes a biocultural approach drawing on perspectives from biological, socio-cultural and political-economic anthropology. Course content will include: a discussion of approaches to nutritional anthropology; basics of human nutrition; food systems, food behaviors and ideas; methods of dietary and nutritional assessment; and a series of case studies addressing causes and consequences to nutritional problems across the world. | ANTH2590401, URBS2590401 | |||||||||
| LALS 2601-401 | The Asian Caribbean | Rupa Pillai | TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM | Although Asians have lived in the Americas for centuries, the Asian American community and experience tends to be defined by the post-1965 wave of immigration to the United States. In an effort to correct this narrative this course will explore the histories, experiences, and contributions of some of the forgotten Asians of the Americas. In particular, we will focus on the earlier labor migrations of Chinese and South Asian individuals to the Caribbean and the United States. The experiences of these individuals, who built railroads, cut sugarcane, and replaced African slave labor, complicate our understandings of race today. By examining the legal and social debates surrounding their labor in the 19th century and exploring how their experiences are forgotten and their descendants are rendered invisible today, we will complicate what is Asian America and consider how this history shapes immigration policies today. | ASAM2610401, GSWS2610401, SAST2610401 | |||||||||
| LALS 2609-401 | African Power and Atlantic Empires, 1600-1900 | Roquinaldo Ferreira | T 7:00 PM-9:59 PM | This seminar examines the relationship between African political authority and Atlantic empires between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Connecting West Central Africa (the Kingdom of Kongo and Angola), the Gold Coast, and the Bight of Benin to Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica, and Haiti, the course explores how slavery, abolition, revolution, and imperial expansion reshaped political life across the Atlantic world. Through historical and interdisciplinary scholarship, students will analyze sovereignty, violence, diplomacy, and ritual authority while examining how African and Afro-diasporic actors shaped the making of the modern Atlantic world. | AFRC2609401, HIST2609401 | |||||||||
| LALS 2610-401 | Latinos in the United States (A) | Guadalupe Del Rosario Barrientos | TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | This course presents a broad overview of the Latino population in the United States that focuses on the economic and sociological aspects of Latino immigration and assimilation. Topics to be covered include: construction of Latino identity, the history of U.S. Latino immigration, Latino family patterns and household structure, Latino educational attainment. Latino incorporation into the U.S. labor force, earnings and economic well-being among Latino-origin groups, assimilation and the second generation. The course will stress the importance of understanding Latinos within the overall system of race and ethnic relations in the U.S., as well as in comparison with previous immigration flows, particularly from Europe. We will pay particular attention to the economic impact of Latino immigration on both the U.S. receiving and Latin American sending communities, and the efficacy and future possibilities of U.S. immigration policy. Within all of these diverse topics, we will stress the heterogeneity of the Latino population according to national origin groups (i.e. Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and other Latinos), as well as generational differences between immigrants and the native born. This is an Academically Based Community Service (ABCS) course. | SOCI2610401 | |||||||||
| LALS 2680-401 | Contemporary Immigration | Robert G. Gonzales | T 12:00 PM-2:59 PM | While this course will engage immigration issues more broadly, we will centrally focus on questions of immigrant incorporation and the effects of U.S immigration policy. We will start with the broad question of what should be done about the estimated 10.5 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. Then, we will take a deeper look at the ways in which macro-level forces such as our laws and institutions shape the micro-level, everyday lives of undocumented immigrants and those living in mixed-status families. We will pay close attention to the circumstances of young people, including their experiences of exclusion and belonging across social and educational contexts. More specifically, we will examine how these factors might affect young people's development, schooling experiences, academic trajectories and aspirations, assimilation and ethnic identity, family dynamics, civic engagement, and employment. | EDUC5432401, LALS5680401, SOCI2680401, SOCI5680401 | |||||||||
| LALS 3602-401 | Cyborgs, Robots, Gadgets: Technologies in Contemporary Hispanic Cinema | Reyes Caballo-Marquez | MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM | Contemporary Latin American and Spanish Cinema offer a great reflection on the role that new technologies have in the film industry, and in our lives, in the digital era. Often, we find that technologies are used in an original way to overcome financial shortages in times of crisis, or when resources are limited. In this context, sometimes it is actually thanks to the new technologies that the work of new directors can be produced or distributed. Some recent Latin American and Spanish sci-fi movies find genuine ways to bring about social and political commentary through the use of technological narratives. Reflections on technology are often found in many other film genres too. Our aim in this course will be to explore the use of technology in film in the present and in the past, as well as to study narratives that place technology at the center. We will focus our study on films where technology is a key factor and will reflect on the impact of technologies in our experience as spectators as well. | CIMS3602401, SPAN3602401 | |||||||||
| LALS 3736-401 | Gabriel Garcia Marquez | Oscar Montoya | MW 3:30 PM-4:59 PM | The publication of Cien años de soledad in 1967 was one of the highest moments in 20th century Latin American literature. Behind this masterpiece was the arduous and tireless work of a writer that had been searching for a personal style during almost a decade. This search also has a continental dimension. In García Marquez’s work, readers find the main topics, aesthetic quests, and political conflicts that hold the Latin American imagination, from the “crónicas de conquista” to the artistic vanguard adventures of the middle of the century. His narrative brings together early discussions about magical realism and the literary boom, anthropological inquiries rooted in transculturation and critical regionalism, as well as questions on class, race, and gender. In this course we will read different moments of his work, from his early short stories to some of his major novels. In addition, we will compare his writing to some of their contemporaries’, in order to have a comprehensive idea about the formation of the Latin American contemporary canon. | SPAN3736401 | |||||||||
| LALS 3750-401 | Latin Amer Environmentalisms | Kristina M Lyons | W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | This course thinks with and from Latin America to consider the environmental and ecological conflicts and politics of cuidado (care) emerging across the hemisphere in times of climate crisis and deepening socio-environmental injustice. Latin American thinkers and practitioners have provided innovative conceptual and methodological tools for analyzing, organizing, and acting in defense of territory and life. In this course, we will consider how legacies of colonialism and (neo)extractivism are not only an ongoing curse of the Americas, but also a a condition of possibility for feminist, decolonial, Indigenous, and ecological proposals, such as degrowth, buen vivir, cuerpo-territorio (body-territory), rights of nature, ontological politics, and participatory action research, among other ways of knowing, being, and doing. What can we learn from engagement with the historic and contemporary socioenvironmental challenges occurring across the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking Americas? How are diverse urban and rural communities, technoscientific actors, researchers, and ancestral knowers understanding and responding to the region’s emerging climate and environmental scenarios? What are the possibilities for dialogue, exchange, and problem solving between such diverse actors and their multiple ways of knowing and being that span millennial, colonial, and modernizing temporalities? Throughout the course, we will interrogate and reflect on these questions from the situated perspectives of Latin America and its many territorial realities, ecological relations, and social worlds. | ANTH3750401, ANTH5750401, LALS5750401 | |||||||||
| LALS 3807-401 | Culture and Politics in Authoritarian Brazil | Iuri Bauler Pereira | TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM | This course will explore the cultural and political life of Brazil during the last military dictatorship (1964-1985) through literature, film, popular music, visual arts, and archival documents. We will discuss regime change, authoritarianism, censorship, cultural resistance, revolutionary politics, human rights violations, and the return to democracy, with an eye to its long-term effects in contemporary Brazil. Instruction of this course is not in English. | PRTG3806401 | |||||||||
| LALS 3842-401 | Blackness in Latin America, an Introduction | MW 3:30 PM-4:59 PM | This course offers an overview of the history, experiences, and subjectivities of Africans and their descendants in Latin America. It begins by considering perceptions of Africans in Antiquity; it succinctly explores the Kingdom of Kongo, the early stages of enslavement in the Iberian Peninsula, the expansion of the Trans-Atlantic Trade of African captives, the Middle Passage, enslavement, independence movements, early republicanism, to the present. The course traces the strategies African and Afro-descendant social actors implemented to evade, maneuver, resist, and undo enslavement and discrimination, as well as the processes of race-making in the region. The course explores the methodological challenges of studying and writing the history of people who did not have access to literacy and whose voices, philosophy, and contributions remain disavowed and sidelined. The course is organized chronologically and thematically. We will READ and analyze primary and secondary sources to underscore some of the contributions the African Diaspora has given to the Americas and the world, as well as the debates that continue shaping Africana/African Diaspora studies. | AFRC3842401, HIST3842401 | ||||||||||
| LALS 3910-401 | Sustainable Development And Culture in Latin America | Teresa Gimenez | MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM | This interdisciplinary course exposes students to the three dimensions of sustainable development -environmental, economic, and social- through an examination of three products -peyote, coca, and coffee- that are crucial in shaping modern identity in areas of Latin America. The course integrates this analysis of sustainable development in relation to cultural sustainability and cultural practices associated with peyote, coca, and coffee and their rich, traditional heritage and place in literature, film, and the arts. This is an upper level seminar open to majors and minors of Spanish and those who have completed Pre-requiste SPAN 1800 or SPAN 1900 or permission of the Undergraduate Chair. | ENVS3053401, SPAN3910401 | |||||||||
| LALS 4525-401 | Black Visual & Performance Arts in Latin America & the Caribbean | Odette Casamayor | W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | This course offers an interdisciplinary study of Black visual and performance arts in Latin America and the Caribbean, examining these creative practices as critical sites of knowledge production, identity formation, social resistance, and diasporic worldmaking. Centering Afro-Latin American and Afro-Caribbean artists and performance practitioners, students will investigate how visual and embodied practices confront coloniality, articulate and dismantle constructions of race and gender, interrogate experiences of migration and memory, and envision speculative and liberatory futures. Course materials include painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, sculpture, installation, performance, and new media practices from across the Caribbean, Latin America, and diasporic communities in the United States and Europe. These works are studied in conversation with art criticism, aesthetic theory, and critical frameworks that illuminate the epistemological dimensions of Afro-diasporic creative expression. Bringing together historical and theoretical frameworks on slavery, colonialism, creolization, global Afro-diasporic circulation, and performance as epistemology, the course pairs conceptual grounding with in-depth case studies of key historical and contemporary artists. | AFRC4525401, AFRC5525401, ARTH3091401, ARTH5091401, COML4525401, COML5525401, LALS5525401 | |||||||||
| LALS 5087-401 | Race, Nation, Empire | Deborah A Thomas | T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | This graduate seminar examines the dynamic relationships among empires, nations and states; colonial and post-colonial policies; and anti-colonial strategies within a changing global context. Using the rubrics of anthropology, history, cultural studies, and social theory, we will explore the intimacies of subject formation within imperial contexts- past and present- especially in relation to ideas about race and belonging. We will focus on how belonging and participation have been defined in particular locales, as well as how these notions have been socialized through a variety of institutional contexts. Finally, we will consider the relationships between popular culture and state formation, examining these as dialectical struggles for hegemony. | AFRC5087401, ANTH5087401, GSWS5087401 | |||||||||
| LALS 5525-401 | Black Visual & Performance Arts in Latin America & the Caribbean | Odette Casamayor | W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | This course offers an interdisciplinary study of Black visual and performance arts in Latin America and the Caribbean, examining these creative practices as critical sites of knowledge production, identity formation, social resistance, and diasporic worldmaking. Centering Afro-Latin American and Afro-Caribbean artists and performance practitioners, students will investigate how visual and embodied practices confront coloniality, articulate and dismantle constructions of race and gender, interrogate experiences of migration and memory, and envision speculative and liberatory futures. Course materials include painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, sculpture, installation, performance, and new media practices from across the Caribbean, Latin America, and diasporic communities in the United States and Europe. These works are studied in conversation with art criticism, aesthetic theory, and critical frameworks that illuminate the epistemological dimensions of Afro-diasporic creative expression. Bringing together historical and theoretical frameworks on slavery, colonialism, creolization, global Afro-diasporic circulation, and performance as epistemology, the course pairs conceptual grounding with in-depth case studies of key historical and contemporary artists. | AFRC4525401, AFRC5525401, ARTH3091401, ARTH5091401, COML4525401, COML5525401, LALS4525401 | |||||||||
| LALS 5680-401 | Contemporary Immigration | Robert G. Gonzales | T 12:00 PM-2:59 PM | While this course will engage immigration issues more broadly, we will centrally focus on questions of immigrant incorporation and the effects of U.S immigration policy. We will start with the broad question of what should be done about the estimated 10.5 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. Then, we will take a deeper look at the ways in which macro-level forces such as our laws and institutions shape the micro-level, everyday lives of undocumented immigrants and those living in mixed-status families. We will pay close attention to the circumstances of young people, including their experiences of exclusion and belonging across social and educational contexts. More specifically, we will examine how these factors might affect young people's development, schooling experiences, academic trajectories and aspirations, assimilation and ethnic identity, family dynamics, civic engagement, and employment. | EDUC5432401, LALS2680401, SOCI2680401, SOCI5680401 | |||||||||
| LALS 5750-401 | Latin Amer Environmentalisms | Kristina M Lyons | W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | This course thinks with and from Latin America to consider the environmental and ecological conflicts and politics of cuidado (care) emerging across the hemisphere in times of climate crisis and deepening socio-environmental injustice. Latin American thinkers and practitioners have provided innovative conceptual and methodological tools for analyzing, organizing, and acting in defense of territory and life. In this course, we will consider how legacies of colonialism and (neo)extractivism are not only an ongoing curse of the Americas, but also a a condition of possibility for feminist, decolonial, Indigenous, and ecological proposals, such as degrowth, buen vivir, cuerpo-territorio (body-territory), rights of nature, ontological politics, and participatory action research, among other ways of knowing, being, and doing. What can we learn from engagement with the historic and contemporary socioenvironmental challenges occurring across the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking Americas? How are diverse urban and rural communities, technoscientific actors, researchers, and ancestral knowers understanding and responding to the region’s emerging climate and environmental scenarios? What are the possibilities for dialogue, exchange, and problem solving between such diverse actors and their multiple ways of knowing and being that span millennial, colonial, and modernizing temporalities? Throughout the course, we will interrogate and reflect on these questions from the situated perspectives of Latin America and its many territorial realities, ecological relations, and social worlds. | ANTH3750401, ANTH5750401, LALS3750401 | |||||||||
| LALS 6900-401 | Studies in 19th- and 20th-Century Spanish American Literature |
Ericka Beckman Laura L Flippin |
T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | Topics vary. Please see the Spanish Department's website for the current course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/hispanic-portuguese-studies/pc | SPAN6900401 | |||||||||
| LALS 6970-401 | Studies in Latin American Culture: Space and Place in Latin American Literature |
Ashley R Brock Laura L Flippin |
W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM | Topics vary. Please see the Spanish Department's website for the current course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/hispanic-portuguese-studies/pc | SPAN6970401 | |||||||||
| LALS 7961-401 | Imperialism, Fascism, and Culture | Jennifer Lyn Sternad Ponce De Leon | M 5:15 PM-8:14 PM | This interdisciplinary graduate seminar will explore Marxist perspectives on imperialism and fascism, their interrelation and cultural dimensions, giving close attention to the work of intellectuals from the Global South. It will address foundational theories of imperialism, dependency, ideology, fascism, and cultural colonialism that were developed in the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as 21st century scholarship that addresses these phenomena in light of recent historical developments. We will also examine critical analyses of imperialism, (neo)fascism, and cultural struggle found in works of literature, theater, and film, as well as in texts, testimonios, and speeches of revolutionary leaders. We will take an international and historical materialist approach to analyzing fascism and its cognates (e.g. authoritarianism, neofascism), giving particular attention to post-WWII historical developments and the history of the Americas. | COML7961401, ENGL7961401, SPAN6961401 | |||||||||
| LALS 9215-401 | Genealogies of Race and Language in Educational Research |
Hannah A Brenneman Nelson L Flores |
W 5:15 PM-7:14 PM | This course explores the historical and contemporary co-construction of race and language in educational research. As opposed to treating race and language as self-evident and universal concepts, the course adopts a genealogical perspective that examines their historical development within the context of European colonialism and critically analyzes the legacy of these colonial ideologies in contemporary educational research, policy and practice. Students engage with a range of foundational theoretical and methodological texts to develop a robust understanding of the historical and contemporary relationship between race and language. Students also read, analyze and critique educational research that has sought to apply these theoretical and methodological insights. The course will culminate in students undertaking genealogical research projects on questions of race and language connected to their own educational research interests. | EDUC9215401 |