LALS - Latin American and Latino Studies

LALS 1 Introduction to Latin American and Latino Studies

Interdisciplinary introduction presenting the elements for studying Latin American politics and economics, culture, and society as well as the dynamics of Latino communities in the U.S. Special attention paid to issues of colonialism, human rights, U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America, racism, capitalist globalization, migration, to emerging political and economic shifts in the Americas, and to new local and transnational efforts for social change on the part of Latin America's peoples and Latinos in the U.S.

Credits

5

Instructor

Lily Balloffet, Shakari Patel

General Education Code

ER

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Summer

LALS 5 Introduction to Human Rights and Social Justice

Introduces human rights as a way to study social justice. Students gain an understanding of interdisciplinary approaches to human rights as a theory, legally, and as a basis for global social movements.

Credits

5

Instructor

Shankari Patel

General Education Code

PE-H

Quarter offered

Spring

LALS 15 Truth, Justice, and Statistics

Provides statistical methodological training and skills through the examination of social and cultural manifestations of truth as a tool to serve social justice efforts for Latinx and other minoritized students in the education setting.

Credits

5

Instructor

The Staff

General Education Code

SR

Quarter offered

Winter

LALS 20 Latino Politics

Offers a domestic (U.S.) and transnational approach to Latino politics, focusing on the five largest Latino groups: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans. Issues addressed include Latino electoral participation, Latino public opinion, migrant political incorporation, and transnationalism among others.

Credits

5

General Education Code

ER

LALS 30 Social Movements in Latin America

Examines contemporary social movements in Latin America, especially those that arose from popular response to different forms of social exclusion and to authoritarian political systems. Explores a variety of popular movements, their successes and setbacks, including rural and urban uprisings, native nations and their descendants, women, labor, human rights, and transnational movements.

Credits

5

Instructor

Jessica Taft

General Education Code

CC

LALS 32 Citizens, Denizens, Aliens

Explores theories and practices of citizenship with a focus on how institutions, such as the immigration apparatus, school, and prison, produce and shape inclusion, marginalization, exclusion, and mobility and how social actors envision and enact home and belonging.

Credits

5

Instructor

Catherine Ramirez

General Education Code

PR-E

LALS 40 Latinos and Labor

Explores the historical, social, economic, and political dynamics of inequality, stratification, and segmentation that shape the occupational pathways and workplace conditions of Latinos in the United States. Students learn about the structures, policies, and ideologies that influence Latinos' working lives as well as how individuals experience their work in a variety of sectors.

Credits

5

General Education Code

ER

LALS 45 Intersections of Race, Class, and Gender

Introduces theories of race, class, and gender which shape understandings about racial/ethnic issues in the United States. With particular attention to the experiences of U.S. racial/ethnic groups, including Latinas/os, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans, this course draws from interdisciplinary research to address how race, class, and gender are also crosscutting dynamics.

Credits

5

General Education Code

ER

LALS 50 Transnational Feminist Organizing in the Americas

Explores key aspects of transnational feminist organizing in the Americas, including transnational feminist theories and feminist activism in Latin America and the Caribbean. Discusses how women from throughout the Americas region organize politically and socially across gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and nationality.

Credits

5

Instructor

Sylvanna Falcon

General Education Code

CC

LALS 55 AIDS Across the Americas

Compares the response to AIDS in the United States and Latin America, with special attention to migration, human rights, activism, stigma, gender, and sexuality. Students develop a conceptual foundation to conduct a people-centered approach and cultural analysis of AIDS.

Credits

5

Instructor

Justin Perez

General Education Code

CC

Quarter offered

Winter

LALS 60 Latin American Childhoods

Introduces research on childhood in contemporary Latin America. Explores discourses about Latin American children, the regional institutions shaping children's lives, and how children experience and negotiate these larger social forces.

Credits

5

Instructor

Jessica Taft

General Education Code

CC

LALS 65 Religion and Revolution in Latin America

Examines the religious beliefs and practices surrounding the revolutionary movements for social change in Latin America with a particular focus on liberation theology.

Credits

5

Instructor

Shankari Patel

General Education Code

CC

Quarter offered

Spring

LALS 70 Cinema and Social Change in Cuba

Examines selected feature-length films and documentaries produced after the Revolution of 1959 as a venue to study social change in Cuba. Cinema is used as artifact to document and critique social change. Topics include: the role of art and artist in Revolution, literacy campaign, changing gender relations, dissident sexualities, racial politics, and others.

Credits

5

General Education Code

IM

LALS 75 Art and Social Change in Latin America: Diego Rivera

Explores the works of Diego Rivera, other Mexican muralists, and the Latin American cultural movements that developed to address relevant social and political issues.

Credits

5

Instructor

Greg Landau

General Education Code

IM

Quarter offered

Summer

LALS 79 Hip Hop History/Historia Hip Hop

Exploration of key themes in Latin American history through the medium of hip hop. Students analyze prevalent historical patterns that speak to shared experiences across the Americas. Course content is divided into weekly modules that move thematically through topics including struggles for social and political citizenship, structural mechanisms of exclusion, and anti-imperialist activisms. Also includes reading primary historical documents and engaging in textual analysis of both archival and contemporary texts. Readings equip students to critically interpret elements of hip-hop culture from contemporary Latin America and the Caribbean including MCing, graffiti, and hip hop as the production of knowledge.

Credits

5

Instructor

Lily Balloffet

General Education Code

TA

Quarter offered

Summer

LALS 79S Hip Hop Historia

Taught in Spanish. Exploration of key themes in Latin American history through the medium of hip hop. Students analyze prevalent historical patterns that speak to shared experiences across the Americas. Course content is divided into weekly modules that move thematically through topics including struggles for social and political citizenship, structural mechanisms of exclusion, and anti-imperialist activisms. Also includes reading primary historical documents and engaging in textual analysis of both archival and contemporary texts. Readings equip students to critically interpret elements of hip-hop culture from contemporary Latin America and the Caribbean including MCing, graffiti, and hip hop as the production of knowledge.

Credits

5

Instructor

Lily Balloffet

General Education Code

TA

Quarter offered

Summer

LALS 80D Political Change in Mexico

Reviews broad trends in contemporary Mexican politics against the backdrop of long-term historical, social, and economic change throughout the 20th century, analyzing how power is both wielded from above and created from below. The course covers national politics, grassroots movements for social change and democratization, environmental challenges, indigenous movements, the media, and the politics of immigration and North American integration.

Credits

5

General Education Code

CC

LALS 80F Latinos in the U.S.: A Comparative Perspective

Analyzes the Latino experience in the U.S. with a special focus on strategies for economic and social empowerment. Stresses the multiplicity of the U.S. Latino community, drawing comparative lessons from Cuban-American, Puerto Rican, Chicano/Mexicano, and Central American patterns of economic participation and political mobilization.

Credits

5

General Education Code

ER

LALS 80H Comparative Latina/o Histories

Designed to survey recent works in the field of Latina and Latino histories, with particular emphasis on historiographical approaches and topics in the field. Readings are chosen to expose a selection of the varied histories and cultures of Latina/os in the U.S., and focus primarily on Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans.

Credits

5

Instructor

Gabriela Arredondo

General Education Code

CC

LALS 80J Race, Nation, and War

Evaluates the relationship between processes of racial formation, war, and nationalism in Latin America. Case studies range from the wars of independence to more recent forms of transnational violence. Students engage historical and anthropological perspectives and critiques of modernity.

Credits

5

Instructor

Cecilia Rivas

General Education Code

ER

LALS 80P Environment and Society in Latin America

Examines the implications of environmental degradation and resource extraction for economic growth and social inequality in Latin America. Course focuses on the connections between race, ethnicity, power, poverty, and environmental problems.

Credits

5

General Education Code

PE-E

LALS 80S Sexualities and Genders in Latin American and Latina/o Studies

Introduction to issues and themes surrounding sexualities and genders within Latin American and Latina/o studies. Provides background in the basic theoretical and historical frameworks of gender and its relationship to sexuality. In addition to cross-border perspectives, course also examines how gender and sexuality are structured and experienced through other social categories.

Credits

5

Instructor

Shankari Patel

General Education Code

CC

Quarter offered

Fall

LALS 80X Central American Peoples and Cultures

Examines contemporary societies and peoples of Central America considering how, in recent decades, media, history, war, cultural production, and migration have shaped Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica both as individual nations and as a region.

Credits

5

Instructor

Cecilia Rivas

General Education Code

CC

LALS 90 Contemporary Brazil

Introduces issues affecting contemporary Brazilian society and culture, such as the legacy of slavery and persisting social, racial, and gender inequities. Analyses of how different representations of Brazil sustain distinctive national projects, which, in turn, attribute specific meanings to blackness, whiteness, masculinity, femininity, and upper- and lower-class identities.

Credits

5

Instructor

Patricia Pinho

General Education Code

ER

LALS 94X Mother Earth, Capitalism, and Crises

With a focus on the Americas, this course introduces students into the debates about the causes and solutions to the twinned crisis of global climate change and rising inequality.

Credits

5

Instructor

Fernando Leiva

General Education Code

PE-E

LALS 95 Undergraduate Research Seminar

Seminar for undergraduates participating in the Cultivamos Excelencia program supporting the development of students as researchers and active participants in academic communities; including lectures on disciplinary methods by participating faculty, work-in-progress sessions for mentors and student researchers, and workshops on formulating research questions, developing a research plan, writing a research paper, and professional development. Enrollment is by instructor permission.

Credits

2

Instructor

The Staff

LALS 100 Concepts and Theories in Latin American and Latina/o Studies

Interdisciplinary exploration of transnational migrations; social inequalities; collective action and social movements; and cultural productions, products, or imaginaries. Examines how transnational migration and hemispheric integration are transforming Latin American studies and Chicana/o-Latina/o studies. Explores the influence of neoliberalism and globalization, especially the intersection of critical analysis and social-justice praxis. Completion of course 1 highly recommended.

Credits

5

Instructor

Shankari Patel

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

General Education Code

ER

Quarter offered

Fall

LALS 100A Social Science Analytics

Compares diverse analytical strategies and builds practical research skills in the field of Latin American and Latino studies. Two-credit LALS 100L writing lab highly recommended.

Credits

5

Instructor

Jeff Erbig

Requirements

Prerequisite(s): LALS 100 and satisfaction of the Entry Level Writing and Composition requirements. Enrollment is restricted to sophomore, junior, and senior Latin American and Latino studies majors, minors, and combined majors or by permission.

Quarter offered

Spring

LALS 100B Cultural Theory in the Americas

Focuses on transnational, regional, and local features of Latina/o and Latin American cultural production and artistic expression: how culture is shaped by historical, social, and political forces; how cultural and artistic practices shape the social world; and how culture is produced in an interconnected, postindustrial, and globalized economy.

Credits

5

Instructor

Cecilia Rivas

Requirements

Prerequisite(s): LALS 100 and satisfaction of the Entry Level Writing and Composition requirements. Enrollment is restricted to sophomore, junior, and senior Latin American and Latino studies majors, minors, and combined majors.

Quarter offered

Winter

LALS 112 Immigration and Assimilation

Examines immigration to U.S. from colonial era to present with special emphasis on issues of citizenship, social identities, and social membership.

Credits

5

Instructor

Catherine Ramirez

General Education Code

ER

LALS 115 Mexico-United States Migration

Overview of Mexico-United States migration in historical and contemporary context. Focuses on Mexican experiences of racialization, deportability, second-class citizenship, and transnationalism--the cross-border networks, institutions, activities, loyalties, and identities by which Mexican migrants orchestrate their lives across international borders.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to sophomores, juniors and seniors.

LALS 122 Media and Nationalism

Evaluates the links between media and the production of national identities in Latin America. Focuses on theories of nationalism, media, and globalization to examine the production of national histories and representations.

Credits

5

Instructor

Cecilia Rivas

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to juniors and seniors.

Quarter offered

Fall

LALS 124 Brazilian Cinema

Surveys films by and/or about women from Brazil, drawing a picture of contemporary Brazilian cinema through the angle of gender in its articulation with sexuality, race, class, ethnicity, national identity, and other key concepts, while offering a visual and critical introduction to Brazilian culture.

Credits

5

General Education Code

IM

LALS 126 Digit@l Americ@s/Digit@l Latin@s

Examines how social media reconfigures daily lives, cultures, and economies and explores how recent leaps in communication technologies breed digital divides and new forms of activism.

Credits

5

Instructor

Fernando Leiva

General Education Code

PE-T

LALS 127 Genero, Nacion Y Modernidad En El Cine

Taught in Spanish. Examines the relationship between cinema, gender, the nation, and modernity. Focusing on films by key women filmmakers in Latino and Latin America, the seminar examines their engagement with identity, cultural imaginaries, coloniality, sexuality, and gender.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to Latin American and Latino studies majors, minors and combined majors.

LALS 128 Latino Media in the U.S

Explores the history and practice of Latino media in the U.S. with an emphasis on work created by, for, with, and about Latino constituencies. Course highlights the role that media plays in struggles for social change, political enfranchisement, creative self-expression, and cultural development. Course content varies with instructor.

Credits

5

Cross Listed Courses

OAKS 128

Instructor

Leslie Lopez

General Education Code

IM

LALS 129 America Latina: Cine, Dictadura y Memoria

Taught in Spanish. Analyzes and compares the rise of authoritarian regimes throughout Latin America in the 20th century through selected films and documentaries. Themes include U.S. foreign policy toward the region, ethnic cleansing, neoliberalism, and memory/resistance/reconciliation through artistic representations.

Credits

5

Instructor

Cesar Estrella

LALS 130 Expresiones cuirs de Genero y Sexualidad en el cine Latinoamericano

Examines cinematic manifestations of dissident sexualities, as well as dissident expressions of gender and family in Latin American culture. Taught in Spanish.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to juniors and seniors.

LALS 131 Latino Literatures: Assimilation and Assimilability

Explores assimilation and assimilability in the United States, especially as related to the education and languages of Latinos, via literary forms, such as the memoir, novel, essay, short fiction, film, and/or poetry. (Meets the methods requirement in Latin America and Latino studies.)

Credits

5

Instructor

Catherine Ramirez

General Education Code

TA

LALS 133 Latina/o Art and Representation

Focus on art forms and visual representations of Latina/os in the United States. Emphasis on visual art created by artists associated with the Chicano/o movement and the Central American diaspora. Topics include cultural identity, murals, public art, and fine art.

Credits

5

Instructor

Ismael Illescas

Quarter offered

Summer

LALS 135 El Salvador: Expresiones Culturales

Course taught in Spanish. Focuses on El Salvador, with attention to cultural expressions and representations, literature, historical perspectives, and contemporary societies.

Credits

5

Quarter offered

Spring

LALS 136 Tourism, Culture, and Identity

Interdisciplinary study of tourism in Latin America and its interconnections with culture, power, and identity. Examines contemporary trends of tourism (ethnic tourism, diaspora tourism, sex tourism, and favela tours) and explores how regional, national, and transnational identities shape and are shaped by tourism.

Credits

5

Instructor

Patricia Pinho

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to juniors and seniors.

LALS 137 Speculative Fiction and Chicanafuturism

Explores the intersection of race, gender, science, technology, the environment, and the future in speculative fiction by and about Latinxs, migrants, and people of color.

Credits

5

Instructor

Catherine Ramirez

General Education Code

TA

LALS 143 Race and Ethnicity

Race and ethnicity have been--and continue to be--powerful forces shaping the U.S. experience. This course examines a range of conceptual approaches and monographic studies grounded in the history of the U.S. The readings provide various criteria for studying and understanding these phenomena. The course problematizes race by asking what the readings tell us about race-making and the reproduction of racial ideologies in specific historical contexts. Similarly, ethnicity is treated as a historically specific social construct. (Meets the methods requirement in Latin America and Latino studies.)

Credits

5

Instructor

Shankari Patel

General Education Code

ER

Quarter offered

Spring

LALS 143J Global Political Economy

Analyzes the global, social, economic, and political forces that shape transnational, national, and regional societal formations and consequently the entire environment for social change. Examines the evolution of revolutionary struggle and its origins within and impact upon the evolving capitalist system.

Credits

5

Instructor

Gabriela Segura

Quarter offered

Fall

LALS 144 Mexicana/Chicana Histories

Explores current historical and theoretical writings on the lived experiences of Chicanas and Mexicana women in U.S. history. Themes include domination/resistance politics, (re)presentations, contestation, social reproduction, identity and difference. Meets the methods requirement in Latin America and Latino studies.

Credits

5

General Education Code

TA

LALS 145 Grassroots Social Change in Latin America

Focuses on the analysis of collective action by underrepresented groups in Latin America. Concepts and issues include political participation and impact, gender, ethnicity and race, class, the environment, religion, non-governmental organizations, and social capital.

Credits

5

Requirements

Prerequisite(s): any two Latin American and Latino studies courses or permission of instructor; open to graduate students.

General Education Code

CC

LALS 147 Latin American Identity: The Struggle for Authenticity

Nineteenth-century Latin America has been described as "countries in search for nationhood." Intellectual elites sought to create that sense of identity for their new countries while struggling to appear simultaneously modern and "authentic." This course examines 19th-century Latin American history starting with wars of independence and ending with the growing threat of imperialism from the United States. Course focuses on the emerging concepts of nation and identity and the ways in which women, marginalized people, and racialized people resisted or participated in these new constructions.

Credits

5

Instructor

Gabriela Arredondo

General Education Code

PE-H

Quarter offered

Fall

LALS 149 Whiteness in Latin America

Challenges the racial hierarchy of knowledge production by making whiteness into a central object of study and scrutinizing the power that stems from its alleged invisibility. Studies whiteness in three specific Latin American countries and vis-a-vis their respective dominant national discourses: Mexico and its narratives of mestizaje, Brazil and the myth of racial democracy, and Argentina and its discourses of Europeanness. Also examines how whiteness and its "Others" (I.e. blackness, indigeneity, and Asianness) have been imagined, embodied, avoided, and embraced in these three Latin American countries.

Credits

5

Instructor

Patricia Pinho

General Education Code

TA

Quarter offered

Spring

LALS 150 Afro-Latinos/as: Social, Cultural, and Political Dimensions

Explores the lives of African descendants in the Americas, including the Caribbean. Students learn about the settlement patterns of Afro-Latinos/as and Afro-Latin Americans in the region and the ways in which African descendants negotiate their multiple identities and broaden racial frameworks in the United States and Latin America.

Credits

5

General Education Code

ER

LALS 151 Race & Mobility

Focuses on the intersection between mobility and race, examining both how mobility is racially informed and how differential mobilities inform the construction of racial identities, the production of racial processes, and the representation of racialized spaces. Examining different facets of mobility—movement, meaning, and practice—course topics include: the mutual constitution between mobility and racial identities (blackness, whiteness, Latinidad, and indigeneity); white control over the mobility of "others;" bodily movements (dancing, walking) as sites of resistance and policing; prototypical whiteness and the surveillance of non-white mobile bodies border crossing; and the intersections between racial mobility politics and gender and class dynamics.

Credits

5

Instructor

Patricia Pinho

General Education Code

TA

Quarter offered

Spring

LALS 152 Consumer Cultures Between the Americas

Examines the circuits of media, commodities, and migration connecting the Americas in an age of globalization. Issues of states, transnational markets, social relations, and cultural representations addressed. Relationship between consumption, nationalism, and globalization is considered critically.

Credits

5

Instructor

Cecilia Rivas

General Education Code

CC

Quarter offered

Winter

LALS 154 Juventud in Latin America

Introduces students to the study of youth in Latin America through discussions about theoretical approaches to youth in Latin America. Students examine the challenges, obstacles, and experiences of exclusion faced by young people in the region and learn about Latin American youth through a variety of topics, including poverty, education, culture, social movements, and COVID-19.

Credits

5

Instructor

Jessica Taft

LALS 155 Latin American and Latino Youth Movements

Examines the histories, structures, and practices of Latin American and Latino youth movements. Analyzes the patterns, themes, and differences of social movements using primary documents. Addresses the dynamics of age, generation, race, ethnicity, and nation. Uses youth activism to explore questions relevant to the study of contemporary social movements in the Americas.

Credits

5

Instructor

Jessica Taft

LALS 156 Human Rights and Transitional Justice in the Americas

Provides students with an introduction to the emerging scholarly field of transitional justice. Examines transitional justice in a broad sense and through elected case studies.

Credits

5

Instructor

Sylvanna Falcon

Requirements

Prerequisite(s): LALS 1. Enrollment is restricted to junior and senior Latin American and Latino studies majors, minors, and combined majors.

General Education Code

CC

LALS 157 Revoluciones Sociales

Taught in Spanish. Examines major social upheavals in Latin America since 1900, exploring revolution as a distinctive form of social conflict and change. Analyzes political, economic, social, and cultural conditions that gave rise to, and linked, revolutions across the Americas.

Credits

5

Instructor

Lily Balloffet

Quarter offered

Spring

LALS 158 Latin American Political Economy

Explores and applies basic tools of Latin American political economy to map the evolution of the region's main patterns of economic growth and accompanying social structures across past centuries. Reviews the effects of neoliberal capitalist globalization on contemporary Latin America, resistance to destructive consequences, and the nature of emerging alternatives.

Credits

5

Instructor

Fernando Leiva

LALS 163 The Amazon: Cultures and Perspectives

Examines the peoples and cultures of lowland South America, particularly the historical, economic, and environmental processes that have shaped the Amazonian region. Students acquire tools to critically approach traditional representations of Amazonian cultures and understand their relevance to global issues.

Credits

5

Instructor

Justin Perez

General Education Code

CC

Quarter offered

Fall

LALS 165 Contemporary Peru

Explores contemporary issues facing Peru by addressing the formation of the state and the country's troubled history with political and state violence. Students learn about Peru's multicultural/racial population and about ongoing conflicts and hopes for the country today.

Credits

5

Instructor

Sylvanna Falcon

General Education Code

CC

LALS 168 Inter-American Relations

Examines the history of various forms of connection between people, governments, cultures, and social movements across the Americas. From military intervention to transnational anti-imperialist agendas to contemporary artistic collaboration, many forms of foreign relations have shaped the American hemisphere.

Credits

5

Instructor

Lily Balloffet

LALS 169 South America: History, Society, and Culture

Examines the southernmost region of South America, commonly referred to as the Southern Cone, exploring the historical trajectories of Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, and southern Brazil, from independence through the end of the 20th century.

Credits

5

Instructor

Jeff Erbig

Quarter offered

Fall

LALS 170 Indigenous Struggles in the Americas

Focuses on the way Natives of First Peoples have interacted voluntarily and involuntarily with nonindigenous cultures. Examines their perspectives, thoughts, frustrations, and successes. Touches on land issues and examines the way current indigenous cultures of Latin America face and adapt to social change. Focuses mainly on the Andes, lowland Amazon, Mesoamerica, and other areas.

Credits

5

Instructor

Jeff Erbig

General Education Code

TA

LALS 171 Brazil in Black and White

Taught in Portuguese. Examines blackness and whiteness in Brazil through the lens of the intersectionality of race, gender, and class identities. Topics include: national narratives of racial democracy, racism, black activism, and the emerging studies of whiteness in Brazil.

Credits

5

Instructor

Patricia Pinho

General Education Code

ER

LALS 172 Visualizing Human Rights

Explores how visual artists take up the subject of human rights in response to urgent challenges facing Latina/o and Latin American communities across the Americas. Examines the imprint of film and media arts reshaping human-rights discourse. Considers persistent themes in Latina/o representation, including colonialism and state terrorism; self-representation and the rights of collectives (racial, ethnic, and sexual groups); social and economic rights. (Meets the methods requirement in Latin America and Latino studies.)

Credits

5

Instructor

Shankari Patel

Quarter offered

Winter

LALS 175 Migration, Gender, and Health

Through an interdisciplinary, cross-border approach, examines complex nature of Latino health in relation to migration and how women and men experience health problems differently. Examines how health problems are created by economic and social conditions, how migrants experience access to care, and how agencies can design culturally sensitive programs.

Credits

5

Instructor

Justin Perez

General Education Code

ER

Quarter offered

Winter

LALS 178 Gender, Transnationalism, and Globalization

Focuses on the impact of globalization and transnationalism on gender relations in the Americas. Examines gender and power in the context of neoliberalism, modernity, the nation, social movements, and activism. Explores local and transnational constructions of gender, and the intersection of gender with race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality.

Credits

5

Instructor

Shankari Patel

General Education Code

ER

Quarter offered

Spring

LALS 180 Borders: Real and Imagined

Situates The Border historically and within the context of U.S. imperialism. Examines the formalization of political borders, methods of enforcement, and intra-group conflicts. Examines the varied experiences of colonialism and immigration between Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Native Americans, and Cubans. Explores how the tools of The Border and Borderlands are being used to untangle the roles of race prejudice and sexual and gender discrimination. (Meets the methods requirement in Latin America and Latino studies.)

Credits

5

General Education Code

TA

LALS 186 Field Research Methods

Introduction to field research methods that consider theory, methodological challenges, and epistemology in conducting research. Explains the research process, including designing research questions, interview instruments, concepts maps, and methods of data collection, and data analysis. (Meets the methods requirement in Latin America and Latino studies.)

Credits

5

Cross Listed Courses

SOCY 186

Instructor

Sylvanna Falcon

Requirements

Prerequisite(s): LALS 100; and LALS 100A or LALS 100W. Enrollment is restricted to junior and senior Latin American and Latino studies majors, minors, and combined majors and Sociology majors.

LALS 187F Human Rights Investigations Lab

Weekly seminar with an applied lab where students are trained in the fundamentals of social media literacy skills and analysis, gain an understanding of the context for socio-political conflicts in the Americas region, and consider the ethics of engaging in human rights media research using open source. Students learn how to locate, verify, and analyze digital media for human rights cases using open source investigation tools. Various assignments focus on the region of the Americas. Students prepare and produce human rights social media reports. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor.

Credits

2

Instructor

Sylvanna Falcon

Repeatable for credit

Yes

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Spring

LALS 187L Human Rights Investigations Lab

Weekly seminar with an applied lab where students are trained in the fundamentals of social media literacy skills and analysis, gain an understanding of the context for socio-political conflicts in the Americas region, and the consider the ethics of engaging in human rights media research using open source. Students will learn how to locate, verify, and analyze digital media for human rights cases using open source investigation tools. Various assignments focus on the region of the Americas. Students prepare and produce human rights social media reports. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor.

Credits

5

Instructor

Sylvanna Falcon

Repeatable for credit

Yes

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Spring

LALS 190 Internship

Internships with campus or community organizations sponsored and evaluated by a Latin American and Latino studies faculty member. Students write an analytical paper or produce another major work agreed upon by student, faculty supervisor, and internship sponsor; sponsor must also provide review of experience. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Credits

5

Repeatable for credit

Yes

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Spring

LALS 190F Internship

Internships with campus or community organizations sponsored and evaluated by a faculty member from Latin American and Latino studies. Students write a short (8-page) descriptive paper or produce another work agreed upon by student and faculty supervisor. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Credits

2

Repeatable for credit

Yes

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Spring

LALS 194A Immigrant Storytelling

Examines first-person narratives by migrants, paying close attention to storytelling as a strategy for fomenting cultural, social, and political change. In addition to reading literary and visual texts, student complete a final project based on original research.

Credits

5

Instructor

Catherine Ramirez

Requirements

Prerequisite(s): LALS 100, and LALS 100A, and previous or concurrent enrollment in LALS 100B. Enrollment is restricted to junior and senior Latin American and Latino studies majors and combined majors.

Quarter offered

Winter

LALS 194B Global Migration and Displacement

Examines the global history of migrating people, things, and ideas. Focuses primarily on case studies of mass migration and displacement in 19th and 20th centuries. Students analyze processes of migration in the Americas within a broader global context.

Credits

5

Instructor

Lily Balloffet

Requirements

Prerequisite(s): LALS 100, and LALS 100A, and previous or concurrent enrollment in LALS 100B. Enrollment is restricted to junior and senior Latin American and Latino studies majors and combined majors.

LALS 194C Criminalizing the Poor

Examines neoliberal discourses related to poverty that have become more critical of the poor over time, including reforms to social welfare, criminal justice, and immigration, and the ways in which the poor struggle to survive and contest neoliberalism.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to junior and senior Latin American and Latino studies majors and minors; and combined majors with global economics, sociology, literature, and politics.

General Education Code

ER

LALS 194E Unfree Migrations

Examines forced migrations to and within the Americas prior to the 20th century, with a focus on African and indigenous slave trades, indentured servitude, convict labor, and contract labor. Students address the implications and memories of those migrations today.

Credits

5

Instructor

Jeff Erbig

Requirements

LALS 100, and LALS 100A, and previous or concurrent enrollment in LALS 100B. Enrollment is restricted to junior and senior Latin American and Latino studies majors and combined majors.

General Education Code

TA

Quarter offered

Fall

LALS 194G Chile: Social and Political Change

Taught in Spanish. Analysis of Chilean politics and society from the election of Salvador Allende in 1970 to the present. Particular emphasis is given to understanding the different forces, internal as well as external, that broke the Chilean tradition of democratic rule in 1973, and to the current configuration.

Credits

5

Instructor

Fernando Leiva

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to junior and senior Latin American and Latino studies majors, minors, and combined majors.

General Education Code

CC

LALS 194H Central America and the United States

This senior seminar focuses on the connections between Central America and the United States. Covers Central American history, the political and economic relations between the isthmus and the United States, and Central American media and literature. (Formerly Central American Political Relations with the U.S.)

Credits

5

Instructor

Cecilia Rivas

Requirements

Prerequisite(s): satisfaction of the Entry Level Writing and Composition requirements. Enrollment is restricted to junior and senior Latin American and Latino studies majors, minors, and combined majors.

Quarter offered

Spring

LALS 194M Twentieth-Century Revolutions

Treatment of 20th-century Latin American revolutions from Zapata to the Zapatistas. Focuses on the causes and consequences of revolutions rather than on their narrative histories.

Credits

5

Instructor

Gabriela Arredondo

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to junior and senior Latin American and Latino studies majors, minors, and combined majors.

General Education Code

CC

LALS 194Q Globalization in the Americas

Introduces multiple dimensions of globalization by reviewing key theories and frameworks in order to understand development, social inequalities, trade agreements, multilateral institutions, and the future of globalization studies.

Credits

5

Instructor

Sylvanna Falcon

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to junior, and senior Latin American and Latino studies majors, minors, and combined majors.

General Education Code

CC

LALS 194R Violencia Cotidiana en las Americas

Senior seminar taught in Spanish. Engages a critical study of violence, social relations, and everyday life in contemporary Latin America. Focuses on the relationship between narratives and acts of violence, and the constitution and social effects of these representations. Requires proficiency in Spanish (written and spoken), and advanced reading knowledge of Spanish.

Credits

5

Instructor

Cecilia Rivas

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to junior and senior Latin American and Latino studies majors, minors, and combined majors.

LALS 194T Youth and Citizenship

Explores multiple and contested meanings of youth and citizenship; how youth, civic, and political identities are imagined, produced and negotiated in social and cultural locations; and how different versions of Latina/o youth citizenship are promoted and articulated by social and political institutions.

Credits

5

Instructor

Jessica Taft

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to junior and senior Latin American and Latino studies majors, minors, and combined majors.

Quarter offered

Spring

LALS 194U Political Violence in Mexico

Focuses on rural and urban case studies of state repression in post-revolutionary Mexico. Examines how political violence was a preferred method of governance by Mexico's autocratic rulers throughout the 20th century.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to juniors and seniors.

LALS 194V Comparative Migration Histories in the Americas

Traces major historical patterns of migration and related processes in the Americas over the past two centuries. Covers the social, cultural, political, and economic factors that drive and shape the movements of people and considers the ways migration has impacted the sending, transit, and receiving societies. Over the quarter, students come to understand major historical forces of migration that inform our contemporary world, including citizenship, urbanization, identity formations, globalization, and neoliberalism.

Credits

5

Instructor

Gabriela Arredondo

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to seniors.

LALS 194X Extractivism and Socio-Environmental Conflicts in the Americas

Explores, in-depth, how local communities, transnational capital, and state participate in conflicts anchored in extractive sectors, for example, mining, agro-exports, and so on. Through digital-based, case-study research, students identify and explore the logics of action, strategic interests, and the rhetoric of the principal protagonists in socio-ecological conflicts.

Credits

5

Instructor

Fernando Leiva

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to juniors and seniors.

Quarter offered

Spring

LALS 195B Senior Project

Senior thesis writing under direction of major adviser. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Credits

5

Repeatable for credit

Yes

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Spring

LALS 195C Senior Project

Senior thesis writing under direction of major adviser. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Credits

5

Repeatable for credit

Yes

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Spring

LALS 198 Field Study

Off-campus study in Latin America, the Caribbean, or nonlocal Spanish-speaking community in the U.S. Nature of proposed study/project to be discussed with sponsoring instructor(s) before undertaking field study; credit toward major (maximum of three courses per quarter) conferred upon completion of all stipulated requirements. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Credits

5

Repeatable for credit

Yes

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Spring

LALS 198F Independent Field Study

Individual studies undertaken off-campus. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Credits

2

Repeatable for credit

Yes

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer

LALS 199 Tutorial

Supervised directed reading; weekly or biweekly meetings with instructor. Final paper or examination required. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Credits

5

Repeatable for credit

Yes

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Spring

LALS 199F Tutorial

Supervised research and writing of an expanded paper, completed in conjunction with requisite writing for an upper-division course taken for credit in the major. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Credits

2

Repeatable for credit

Yes

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Spring

LALS 200 Bridging Latin American and Latina/o Studies

Provides historical and analytical foundations for the inter/transdisciplinary and transnational project of bridging the fields of Latin American and Latino studies (area and ethnic studies). Explores social, cultural, economic, and political changes connecting Latin America and U.S. Latina/o communities. Traces the intellectual genealogy of these efforts and how they contribute to each other. Introduces students to LALS' four substantive themes: (1) Transnationalisms, Migrations, and Displacement; (2) Intersectionality, Identities, and Inequalities; (3) Collective Action, Social Movements, and Social Change; and (4) Culture, Power, and Knowledge. Core requirement for students pursuing the Designated Emphasis in Latin American and Latino studies.

Credits

5

Instructor

Fernando Leiva

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

Quarter offered

Fall

LALS 200A Power and Society

Assesses key concepts organized around questions of power in contemporary Latina/o and Latin American interdisciplinary intellectual thought in the social sciences. Emphasis is on understanding power in relation to transnationalism and the department's substantive themes.

Credits

5

Instructor

Fernando Leiva

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

LALS 200B Cultures and Subjectivities in the Américas

Introduces theoretical frameworks that explore the relationships between culture, power, and subjectivities. Emphasizes developing interdisciplinary, interpretive, and analytic skills and engages foundational critical approaches including queer theory, border theory, subaltern studies, intersectionality, feminisms, and critical race theory. (Formerly Theories of Culture in the Americas.)

Credits

5

Instructor

Patricia Pinho

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

Quarter offered

Winter

LALS 201 Research in Practice

Problematizes the construction of research approaches in the interdisciplinary field of Latin American and Latino studies, and showcases particular approaches in the social sciences and humanities so students may engage in innovative, transnational research. (Formerly Research in Praxis: Epistemology, Ontology, and Ethics.)

Credits

5

Instructor

Catherine Ramirez

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

Quarter offered

Spring

LALS 202 Latin/o American Spaces and Modernity

Students engage and discuss texts that examine the relationship between space, narratives, and ideas of the modern nation, along with critical studies that highlight the social effects of imaginaries and representations.

Credits

5

Instructor

Cecilia Rivas

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

LALS 203 Latin American Social Movements

Grounds students in the social science literature on Latin American social movements, integrating anthropological, sociological, and political science approaches to the field.

Credits

5

Instructor

Jessica Taft

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

LALS 204 Migration, Borders, and Borderlands

Explores concepts and approaches related to migration; the multiple types of borders that migrants transcend--geopolitical, social, cultural, or interpersonal; and borderland formations constructed in relation to bodies in motion.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

LALS 205 Comparison as Method

Brings together comparative studies of physical and social mobility with a focus on race, migration, and citizenship. Both an articulation and study of comparison, course is organized around three components: comparative borders; comparative migration; and comparative ethnic studies. The questions animating it include: What happens when different histories, places, and peoples are compared? How and why do scholars in the humanities and humanistic social sciences compare? What are the strengths and challenges of a comparative approach? (Formerly offered as Comparative Mobilities.)

Credits

5

Instructor

Catherine Ramirez

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

LALS 206 Queer Cuba

Seminar that engages social, political, and cultural histories of homosexuality in Cuba, focusing on LGBT ostracism and activism after 1959, with particular attention to the social and economic impact of the developments of the USSR on Cuba's LGBT population.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

LALS 207 Youth Cultures, Global Capitalism, and Social Change

Introduces intellectual histories of youth studies scholarship in the context of Latin American and Latino studies; explores young people's lived experiences of racialized capitalism and globalization; and addresses various forms of youth resistance and the relationship between youth cultures, politics, and social change.

Credits

5

Instructor

Jessica Taft

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted graduate students.

LALS 208 Politics of Childhood and Youth

Explores how narratives about children, teens, youth, and students are imbued with political significance, and the ways young people are actively engaged in political practices. Considers how representations and lived experiences of youth can serve to reproduce and/or challenge inequalities.

Credits

5

Instructor

Jessica Taft

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

LALS 210 Latina Feminisms: Theory and Practice

Through an interdisciplinary approach, explores Latina feminist social theory and scholarly practice—especially in representation and interpretation of Latina experiences. Examining key texts at different historical junctures, charts how Latinas of varied ethnic, class, sexual, or racialized social locations have constructed oppositional and/or relational theories and alternative epistemologies or political scholarly interventions and, in the process, have problematized borders, identities, cultural expressions, and coalitions.

Credits

5

Instructor

Sylvanna Falcon

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

LALS 211 Paradigms of Race/Color, Sexuality, and Culture in Latin America

Explores foundational texts by Latin American intellectuals that have served to construct and sustain continental, regional, national, and transnational cartographies of identities and the search for lo americano. Examines race/color, sexuality, and culture by tracing their narrative and conceptual (trans)formations in the region and its diaspora. Most texts are read in the original language of publication.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

LALS 212 Latina/o Ethnographic Practice

Explores the social construction of Latino cultures in their varied regional, national-ethic, and gendered contexts. Examines how culture, as a dynamic process constructed with a historical context of hierarchical relations of group power, is interrelated to the structural subordination of Latinos. Focuses on how power relations create a context for the creation of specific Latino cultural expressions and processes.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

LALS 215 Latina Cultural Studies: Culture, Power, and Coloniality

Examines the theories and practices informing the field of Latina cultural studies in the Americas. For students pursuing the Designated Emphasis in Latin American and Latino studies and students with interest in theories of coloniality of power, decolonialism, intercultural and transnational feminist methodologies.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

LALS 220 Transnational Civil Society: Limits and Possibilities

Analyzes social, civic, and political actors that come together across borders to constitute transnational civil society, drawing from political sociology, political economy, comparative politics, and anthropology to address collective identity formation, collective action, institutional impacts, and political cultures.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

LALS 225 Race in the Americas

Considers historical moments in the development of race in the Americas to understand how race is given meaning and actualized through practices, beliefs, and behaviors. Interrogates theories and racial dynamics in the 19th through 21st centuries to reveal interconnections with constructions of gender and nation.

Credits

5

Instructor

Gabriela Arredondo

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

LALS 235 Sexuality and Migration

Approaches the nexus of sexuality and migration to examine contemporary theories of citizenship, security, violence, and power. Drawing on case studies that center experiences at, around, and across diverse borders throughout the Americas, the course takes an intersectional approach to understand: how migration is embedded in sexual identities and practices; and how sexuality, alongside race, class, and gender, influence who migrates and under what circumstances. Examining how researchers have approached sensitive questions of sexuality, students emerge better prepared to develop future research in the broader thematic fields of transnationalism, migration, and displacement.

Credits

5

Instructor

Justin Perez

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

LALS 240 Culture and Politics of Human Rights

Examines cultural, philosophical, and political foundations for human rights and provides students with critical grounding in the major theoretical debates over conceptualizations of human rights in the Americas. Addresses the role of feminist activism and jurisprudence in the expansion of human rights since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Addresses challenges of accommodating gender rights, collective rights, and social and economic rights within international human rights framework.

Credits

5

Cross Listed Courses

FMST 240

Instructor

Sylvanna Falcon

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

LALS 242 Globalization, Transnationalism, and Gender in the Americas

Explores how globalization, transnationalism, and the social construction of gender are interrelated, contingent, and subject to human agency and resistance. Examines particular configurations of globalization, transnationalism, and gender through the Américas and their implications for race, space, work, social movements, migration, and construction of collective memory.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

LALS 244 Digital Mapping and Human Geographies

Explores the utility of geographical information systems (GIS) for social science research. This course has three components: critical discussions of spatial analysis in published research, training in GIS software, and the application of digital mapping to students' research projects.

Credits

5

Instructor

Jeff Erbig

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

LALS 245 Epistemologies of the South

Examines efforts by intellectuals from the Global South, mainly Latin America, to cast off the political, cultural, and epistemological notions imposed by European colonialism and preserved today through the practices of Western/Eurocentric knowledge, to forge their own epistemologies of the South.

Credits

5

Instructor

Fernando Leiva

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Spring

LALS 258 Critical Cultural Political Economy

Explores how the divide between cultural studies and political economy can be resolved through a post-disciplinary approach which is attentive to how semiotic and material practices co-constitute contemporary capitalism and an ever-changing set of strategies attempting to manage its multiple contradictions.

Credits

5

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students, or by permission of the instructor.

LALS 292 LALS Graduate Colloquim

Required for all LALS graduate students in residence, colloquium includes a mix of activities aimed at supporting the development of graduate students as teachers, researchers, and active participants in academic communities. Includes lectures by distinguished speakers, work-in-progress sessions for both faculty and graduate student research, pedagogical theory and practice seminars, and professional development workshops.

Credits

2

Instructor

Patricia Pinho

Requirements

Enollment is restricted to graduate students.

Repeatable for credit

Yes

Quarter offered

Fall, Winter, Spring

LALS 297A Independent Study

Students submit a reading course proposal to a department faculty member who supervises independent study in the field. Faculty and student jointly agree upon reading list. Students expected to meet regularly with faculty to discuss readings. This independent study must focus on a subject not covered by current UCSC graduate curriculum. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency. Enrollment restricted to graduate students.

Credits

5

Repeatable for credit

Yes

LALS 297B Independent Study

Students submit a reading course proposal to a department faculty member who supervises independent study in the field. Faculty and student jointly agree upon reading list. Students expected to meet regularly with faculty to discuss readings. This independent study must focus on a subject not covered by current UCSC graduate curriculum. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency. Enrollment restricted to graduate students.

Credits

10

LALS 297C Independent Study

Students submit a reading course proposal to a department faculty member who supervises independent study in the field. Faculty and student jointly agree upon reading list. Students expected to meet regularly with faculty to discuss readings. This independent study must focus on a subject not covered by current UCSC graduate curriculum. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency. Enrollment restricted to graduate students.

Credits

15

LALS 299A Thesis Research

Enrollment restricted to graduate students and permission of instructor. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Credits

5

Repeatable for credit

Yes

LALS 299B Thesis Resaerch

Enrollment restricted to graduate students and permission of instructor. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Credits

10

Repeatable for credit

Yes

LALS 299C Thesis Research

Enrollment restricted to graduate students and permission of instructor. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Credits

15

Repeatable for credit

Yes

Cross-listed courses that are managed by another department are listed at the bottom.

Cross-listed Courses

PHIL 80E Latin American Philosophy

Is there a general school of philosophy endemic to Latin America? Would it have to appeal to quintessential Western philosophical questions regarding knowledge, values, and reality? If not, why not, and would it then still count as philosophy? What difference do ethnic and national diversity, as well as strong political and social inequality, make to the development of philosophical questions and frameworks? Course explores a variety of historically situated Latin American thinkers who investigate ethnic identity, gender, and socio-political inequality and liberation, and historical memory, and who have also made important contributions to mainstream analytical and continental philosophy.

Credits

5

Cross Listed Courses

LALS 80E

POLI 243 Comparative Methods

Introduces the comparative method in social science. Trains students in the use of this method by examining how scholars have used it to compare across national governments, subnational units, public policies, organizations, social movements, and transnational collective action.

Credits

5

Cross Listed Courses

LALS 243

Instructor

Kent Eaton

Requirements

Enrollment is restricted to graduate students.

THEA 161P Theater in the Chicano Power Movement

Covers the rise of Teatro Chicano as a cultural-political force within the 1960's Chicano Power Movement starting with founding playwriter Luis Valdez and El Teatro Campesino and covering Chicana/o playwrights inspired by the movement, e.g. Cherrie Moraga, Luis Alfaro, and Josefina Lopez.

Credits

5

Cross Listed Courses

LALS 161P

General Education Code

ER