SPRING 2009
CORE COURSES
HIST 361 - Latin America Since Independence
Jeffrey Lesser
TTH 8:30am - 9:45am
MAX: 40
Fulfills LACS Major/Minor Requirement
DESCRIPTION: The story of modern Latin America is one of nation building. After the Wars of Independence in the early nineteenth century, Latin Americans used many strategies to construct nations out of regions. The route was difficult, however, as processes like modernization, the stratification of wealth, racial and ethnic tensions, and military and foreign intervention marred attempts to create unified nations. Those same themes continued to dominate into the twentieth century, and new ones appeared -- immigration, challenges to gender roles, revolution, and new political strategies. This class will explore these topics and many others in our attempts to understand the complexity of modern Latin American history.
TEXTS: The organizing text will be Skidmore and Smith’s Modern Latin America. We will also read numerous scholarly monographs, novels, and testimonials. We will engage with a variety of primary sources that reveal what Latin Americans were hoping their nations would become and what, in fact, they were. There will be weekly, required, out of class, film viewings.
PARTICULARS: Students will write short papers based on readings, films, and a field trip; there will be a map quiz, a midterm and a final; students will be graded for active participation in class discussions.
SPAN 300WR - Reading in Spanish: Texts and Contexts
Faculty
MWF Multiple Sessions
MAX: 10 per session
Fulfills LACS Major/Minor Requirement
DESCRIPTION: The primary objective of this course is to provide students with the historical, geographic and aesthetic background relevant to the study of Hispanic culture, including that of Spain, Latin America and the United States. Students acquire this broad knowledge as well as strengthen their language and critical thinking skills through extensive reading, frequent short papers, oral
presentations, and a final research project.
TEXTS :
Fuentes, Carlos. El espejo enterrado.
Dictionary: El pequeño Larousse ilustrado.
Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers
PREREQUISITES: SPANISH 212 or 215, OFFICIAL SPANISH PLACEMENT from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, or permission of the Director of the Language Program.
LAS COURSES
LAS 190 - Men With Guns
Ricardo Gutiérrez-Mouat
TTH 2:30pm - 3:45pm
MAX: 15
DESCRIPTION: Violence is a global issue but it takes specific social and political forms in Latin America, which we try to understand by analyzing the region's culture as a site of both legitimation of and resistance to violence.
TEXTS :
Dorfman, Ariel. Death and the Maiden
Garcia-Marquez, Gabriel. Chronicle of a Death Foretold, News of a Kidnapping
Rosenberg, Tina. Children of Cain
Rotker, Susana. Citizens of Fear
Tulchin, Joseph. Crime and Violence in Latin America
Vallejo, Fernando. Our Lady of the Assasins
Vargas-Llosa, Mario. Death in the Andes
PARTICULARS: The course is a freshman seminar and grading will be based on oral presentations, written responses to the readings, and on a take-home final.
LAS 263WR - Plantation to Postcolonial
(Same as HIST 285WR, IDS 385WR)
Robert Goddard
TTH 10:00am - 11:15am
MAX: LAS 10; HIST 5; IDS 5
DESCRIPTION: “Plantation America”, stretching from the American South, through the Caribbean to northern Brazil, comprises a geographical area that, as its name suggests, was dominated by the economic system of plantation monoculture. This course will attempt two inter-related tasks: it will firstly survey the unity and variety of the plantation as a form of socio-economic organization; secondly it will explicate the unity and variety of the political and cultural forms that have evolved alongside the plantation. We will discuss such things as: can the United States be called “postcolonial”? Why are the French Caribbean islands politically integrated into metropolitan France while neighboring English-speaking islands are independent? What does it mean to say that there are over 130 racial classifications on a Brazilian census form? Why did Cuba become communist while neighboring Puerto Rico considers applying for admission as a US state? The course will be interdisciplinary in nature, using texts from history, literature and anthropology. As a writing intensive course students will be required to write and revise successive drafts of a term paper.
LAS 363WR - Sugar and Rum
(Same as HIST 385WR, IDS 385WR)
Robert Goddard
TTH 2:30pm - 3:45pm
MAX: LAS 10; HIST 5, IDS 5
DESCRIPTION: Sugar and rum were for centuries the quintessential Caribbean products, commodities which created fortunes for planters and merchants, while changing the lifestyles of the European working classes. This class will examine not only the development of sugar and rum production and its effect on the Caribbean’s socio-economic organization in the form of the plantation, but also how these commodities have come to define social status in the metropolis through changing patterns of consumption. Students will use materials from a variety of genres and disciplines, from social history to advertising, and from anthropology to popular music and film. As a writing intensive course students will be required to write and revise successive drafts of a term paper.
LAS 385 - Latin American Revolutions
(Same as POLS 332)
Juan del Aguila
MWF 11:45am - 12:35am
MAX: LAS 10; POLS 35
DESCRIPTION: Survey of major theories of revolution and in-depth analysis of Mexican, Nicaraguan and Cuban cases.
TEXTS:
Ruiz, R. The Great Rebellion
Goldstone, J., ed., Revolutions
Selbin, E. Modern Latin American Revolutions
PARTICULARS:
Examinations: midterm and final
Papers: one 15-17 page research paper
Grading: midterm 30%, final 40%, paper 30
LAS 385 - Politics of Ethnicity in Latin America, Past and Present
(Same as ANT 385)
Guillermo de la Peña
TTH 1:00pm - 2:15pm
MAX: LAS 10; ANT 5
DESCRIPTION: This course examines the changing role that ethnicity has played in Latin American political systems and political struggles, from the colonial era to the present. It focuses on understanding how the complex relationships between dominant elites/ political sectors, indigenous peoples, Afro-American minorities, and “society at large” have affected, and been affected by, major shifts in political agendas and developed quite dynamic understandings of ethnicity and ethnic identity in the process. Particular emphasis will be given to (a) the shift from colonial and postcolonial systems of caste division to contemporary forms of social exclusion prevalent under systems of legal equality, and (b) the shift from pro-“indigenist” policies to struggles for “ethnic citizenship” across the hemisphere. The course will be highlighted by case studies of Mexico and the Andean region.
LAS 385 - Textiles of the Americas
(Same as ARTHIST 335)
Rebecca Stone
TTH 1:00pm - 2:15pm
MAX: LAS 5; ARTHIST 10
DESCRIPTION: This seminar concerns the technique, design, and iconography of fiber arts in the Americas, with special emphasis on the ancient Andean textile traditions and those of the modern Maya of Guatemala. Works of art from the Carlos Museum will be featured, especially new acquisitions.
TEXTS:
Stone-Miller, Rebecca. To Weave for the Sun (1994)
Articles on reserve.
PARTICULARS: Research project, consisting of a 20 minute presentation and 15 page final paper (undergraduates), 30 minute presentation and 20 page final paper (graduate students); one hands-on project (weaving, embroidery, fiber sculpture). No prerequisites.
LAS 385WR - Atlantic Lives: Travelers, Emigrants, Captives, and Refugees During the Age of Revolution
(Same as AAS 385WR, IDS385WR, HIST 385WR)
Michele Reid
TTH 11:30am – 12:45pm
MAX: LAS 4; AAS 4; IDS 6; HIST 4
DESCRIPTION: This upper-level undergraduate research seminar is designed to introduce students to theoretical, comparative, and integrative issues in Atlantic World History from the late 18th century to the late 19th century. The course highlights the breakdown of colonialism and slavery and the struggle for freedom and citizenship, especially throughout the Caribbean basin. The destinations and experiences of loyalists from the American Revolution, refugees from the Haitian and Latin American Revolutions, pioneers of African colonization, and Chinese contract workers are of particular interest. General topics for discussion include voluntary and involuntary migration experiences, geopolitical struggles, slavery and abolition, race and gender relations, and rebellion and revolution.
PARTICULARS: Students will explore these issues through a variety of texts, including contemporaneous travel accounts, government documents, and personal correspondence. Active class discussion, visual images, guest speakers, short analytical essays, and the completion and presentation of a research paper are designed to focus student inquiry and historical analysis of the Caribbean Atlantic World.
LAS 490S - Contemporary Mexican Literature
(Same as SPAN 460S)
Ricardo Gutiérrez-Mouat
TTH 11:30am - 12:45pm
MAX: LAS 3; SPAN 12
DESCRIPTION: The course focuses on representative authors and works of fiction, non-fiction, and essay --including some poetry-- written since the 1960s that shed light on important cultural, social, and political issues in present-day Mexico.
TEXTS: Readings will be taken from works by Carlos Fuentes, Elena Poniatowska, Jose Emilio Pacheco, Juan Villoro, Carmen Boullosa, Ana Clavel, Juan Villoro, Jorge Volpi, Ignacio Padilla, and Pedro Angel Palou. We will also read material by Mexican-American writers.
PARTICULARS: Grading will be based on class preparation and participation, a take-home midterm, and a take-home final. Some of the readings may be done in English but class discussion and exams will be in Spanish.
LAS 490S – Coming to Our Senses in the Global Americas
(Same as SPAN 460S)
Dierdra Reber
TTH 10:00am - 11:15am
MAX: LAS 3; SPAN 12
DESCRIPTION: This course will look at recent film and advertising in the “global Americas” (North and South) for evidence of our heavy sensory engagement with the world. Our guiding hypothesis will be that we will find a representation of daily life in the globalized world that revolves pointedly around the senses, emotion, and feeling. We should expect a treatment of the senses—particularly vision and hearing—as social metaphor; lots of expressive faces in close-up shots with minimal to no dialogue; and the compression of grand social themes like justice and injustice, sacrifice and redemption, violence and compassion into the body—in other words, the body becomes the ultimate vehicle for storytelling, its relative well-being or “ill-being” becoming a mirror for the reflection of broader truths about social health or sickness. Throughout the course, we will come back to the question of how knowledge—of the self, of the world—is represented for the global age, and what the role of the senses, emotion, and feeling is in constructing paradigms of selfhood and global citizenship.
TEXTS AND FILMS:
Alonso, Lisandro: Los muertos (The Dead) (Argentina, 2004)
Arriaga, Guillermo: The Burning Plain (USA, 2008)
Coen, Ethan and Joel: No Country for Old Men (USA, 2007)
Cuarón, Alfonso: Children of Men (USA, 2006)
Favreau, Jon: Iron Man (USA, 2008)
Gibson, Mel: The Passion of the Christ (USA, 2004)
González-Iñárritu, Alejandro: Amores perros (Mexico, 2000); 21 Grams (USA, 2003); Babel (USA, 2006)
Jones, Tommy Lee: The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (USA, 2005)
Martel, Lucrecia: La niña santa (The Holy Girl) (Argentina, 2004)
Meirelles, Fernando: Blindness (USA, 2008)
Nolan, Christopher: Batman Begins (USA, 2005); The Dark Knight (USA, 2008)
Pérez, Fernando: Suite Habana (Cuba, 2003)
Salles, Walter: The Motorcycle Diaries (Brazil, 2004)
Advertising publicity (McDonald’s, Apple, Coca-Cola, Converse, The Gap)
PARTICULARS: Participation will include rotating student-led discussion and scheduled presentations. Final weeks of the class will be dedicated to an intensive writing workshop to develop a research paper on a relevant topic of the student’s choice. Throughout the semester, screenings will be arranged whenever possible according to student preference for scheduling (please note that these screenings will not be part of regular class meeting times). Class discussion and writing will be in Spanish.
LAS 490S - Drawing the Line: The Mexico-U.S. frontera and its Stories
(Same as SPAN 460S)
Vialla Hartfield-Méndez
MWF 10:40am - 11:30am
MAX: LAS 3; SPAN 12
DESCRIPTION: This course explores the history of the Mexico-U.S. border from colonial notions of boundaries in New Spain through the Mexican-American War and the Mexican Revolution to the twentieth-century concept of "borderlands" and the present cultural and political tangle of migration, fence building, globalization, and multiple borderland spaces, not all of them located at the official dividing line. Through reading (or viewing) and discussing various kinds of texts (crónicas, treaties and other government documents, fiction, poetry, music, visuals arts and film), students will gain a critical understanding of the ideological, political and cultural constructions of la frontera.
TEXTS AND FILM: May include works by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Gloria Anzaldúa, Carlos Fuentes, Daniel Sada, Humberto Crosthwaite, John Sayles, Juan Rulfo, Francisco Alarcón, Rosario Sanmiguel, José Agustín, Alejandro González Iñárritu. Other sources: Treaties such as the Tratado de Guadalupe, dispatches from Henry Lane Wilson, cartography, official correspondence and other political documents, photography, visual art, corridos and songs from Los Tigres del Norte.
PARTICULARS: Attendance and class participation (20%), written reading / viewing responses (20%), two research/writing projects (50%), and a final portfolio (10%).
LAS 490S - Ethnic Mobilization and the Search for Citizenship in Latin America
Guillermo de la Peña
W 1:00p - 3p
MAX: 10
DESCRIPTION: This seminar examines the complicated attempts to define “citizenship” in Latin American countries today and in the past as well as the struggles that have ensued over its meaning and its terms. It explores the historic tensions that have erupted between notions of “ethnic” particularity and national-juridical equality in Latin America and the different ways in which subaltern populations have manipulated these discourses in political struggle. Particular emphasis will be given to understanding the transition from peasant to ethnic-political identities in the context of diminishing nationalist and populist policies and to the emergence of new types of indigenous leadership and urban indigenous movements under neoliberalism.
LAS 490S - Gender and Sexualities in Hispanic Caribbean Cultures
(Same as SPAN 460S)
José Arnaldo Larrauri
TTH 2:30pm - 3:45pm
MAX: LAS 3; SPAN 12
DESCRIPTION: The terms “gender” and “sexuality” in the Hispanic Caribbean cultures provoke loaded meanings and manifestations. This course will approach critically the representations of gender and sexualities in literature, art, music and film texts of Hispanic Caribbean cultures
TEXTS AND FILM: Mayra Santos-Febres, Sirena Selena vestida de pena. Pedro Antonio Valdez, Bachata del ángel caído. Additional primary and secondary readings will be available on Reserves Direct.
PARTICULARS: Evaluation includes attendance, class participation, an exam, and two 7-10 pages essays.
LAS 490S – Prison Narratives in 20 TH Century Latin America
(Same as SPAN 460S)
Matt Edwards
TTH 1:00pm - 2:15pm
MAX: LAS 3; SPAN 12
DESCRIPTION: This class will focus on textual and filmic representations of the Latin American jail cell in hopes of stepping into the shoes of the dirty and dangerous prisoner. In doing so, we will attempt not only to see within the prison but also to recognize the prisoner’s social position—at the same time a part of and excluded from the social community—as unique and integral to the critique of dominant social structures.
TEXTS AND FILM:
Arenas, Reinaldo. Antes que anochezca . Barcelona: Tusquets, 1992.
Drago, Margarita. Fragmentos de la memoria: Recuerdos de una experiencia carcelaria (1975-1980). Buenos Aires: Campana, 2007.
Montenegro, Carlos. Hombres sin mujer La Habana: 1935.
Moreno, María. El petiso orejudo. Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1994.
Puig, Manuel. El beso de la mujer araña. Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1976.
Caseros-en la cárcel. (Argentina, 2005)
Casandiru (2003)
Carne de presidio. (México 1952)
El chacal de Nahueltoro. (Chile 1970)
Principal theoretical readings from: Foucault, Michel. Discipline and
Punish: The birth of the prison. London: Allen Lane, 1977.
PARTICULARS: Attendance, preparation and participation are mandatory in this class. Evaluation will be based primarily on Daily critical reflections, 1 Critical review of theoretical reading, an Oral presentation of a 2nd theoretical reading, a Short paper and a Final essay evaluated in three stages (Proposal, First Draft, Final Draft).
LAS495A - Honors Thesis I
LACS Faculty
No set meeting time
Fulfills Emory College Honors Program requirement
DESCRIPTION: First semester of Honors Program thesis writing for those students participating in the College Honors Program
PREREQUISITES: Enrollment limited to program majors who qualify to participate in the Honors Program.
LAS 495BWR - Honors Thesis II
LACS Faculty
No set meeting time
Fulfills Emory College Honors Program requirement
DESCRIPTION: Second semester of Honors Program thesis writing for those students participating in the College Honors Program.
PREREQUISISTES: Must have completed LAS 495A.
LAS 497R - Independent Research in Latin American and Caribbean Studies
LACS Faculty
No set meeting time
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