Program Overview

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Introduction to Latin American and Latino Studies

The Latin American and Latino Studies (LALS) program provides a foundational background in the experiences of Latin Americans and Latinos. It fosters an understanding of similarities and differences in the experiences of people in the various Latin American nations and/or the various Latino groups in the United States.

Learning Goals

The LALS program aims to:

• Provide an understanding of the role of migration in shaping Latin American and/or Latino communities.
• Offer an awareness of the role of race, ethnicity, class, gender, or sexuality in the experiences of Latin Americans and/or Latinos.
• Increase understanding of the Spanish and/or Portuguese language(s).
• Appreciate the capacity of various academic disciplines to convey knowledge about the Latin American and/or Latino experiences.

Program Activities

Study Abroad

Studying abroad is a rewarding experience and is especially recommended for LALS majors and minors. The program has established a series of study abroad opportunities for students, ranging from a fall, spring, or summer term in Granada, Spain, to other LALS-approved study abroad programs throughout Latin America, the Caribbean, and Spain.

LALS-Sponsored Programs

LALS often sponsors study-tour courses in Latin America, which offer in-depth, on-site study of the history, arts, and culture of a Latin American city or country. Past courses have included:

• A spring study tour on the colonial artistic traditions of Mexico in Mexico City.
• A summer course on the development of Cuban culture since the 1959 Revolution in Havana, Cuba.
• LALS will be offering spring study tours on the politics of memory in Santiago, Chile, and on contemporary culture in Havana, Cuba.

Institute Resources

In addition to offering a major and minor, the LALS program sponsors an institute that provides an intellectual home for students and faculty who are interested in Latin America and the Latino communities in the United States. The institute:

• Acts as a clearinghouse for information for faculty and students.
• Invites speakers and organizes conferences and film series.
• Maintains video and journal collections for the use of its faculty and students.
• Sponsors visiting scholars and networks of scholarly exchange between Latin America and the United States.

Prestigious Fellowship Opportunities

LALS students have won many prestigious fellowships, including Fulbright Awards, which allow students to pursue their own research abroad. Students need to plan early (preferably in their sophomore year) if they wish to compete for a prestigious fellowship.

Courses

The LALS program offers a variety of courses, including:

• LALS 1400: Understanding Historical Change: Latin America - An introduction to the nature and methods of historical study and the examination of specific topics essential for understanding the history of Latin America.
• LALS 2005: American Pluralism - Contemporary and historical studies in the racial and ethnic diversity of American (U.S.) society.
• LALS 3000: Latinx Images in Media - An analysis of changing Latinx images in U.S. media, with an emphasis on English-language film and television productions.
• LALS 3005: Latin American Themes - A course that allows students to explore ways to synthesize key topics in Latin American and Latina/o Studies as an interdisciplinary field of study.
• LALS 3007: Spanish Linguistics - A course that focuses on the linguistic study of the Spanish language.
• LALS 3130: Race and Gender in Latin American Popular Music - An analysis of the various effects popular music can have on identity, especially race and gender.
• LALS 3275: Hybrid Futures: A Panorama of Mexican Short Fiction - A course that explores the main themes of Mexican science fiction, from the late nineteenth century to today.
• LALS 3343: Crime and Minority Rights - A course that presents an overview of criminal law, with a focus on the role of race in the administration of the criminal justice system.
• LALS 3344: Crime, Literature, and Latinos - A course that examines the relationship between criminal law and literature, with a focus on the experience of Latinos.
• LALS 3346: Latinos and the Media - A seminar and workshop on the impact and influence of the news media on Latin Americans and U.S. Latinos.
• LALS 3352: Policy Issues and Procedures in Criminal Law - A course that explores criminal procedure laws and how the police implement these laws.
• LALS 3407: Foreignness & Translation: Multilingual Autobio Writing in Contemp Latin-Am & Latino Lit - A course that studies manifestations of multilingualism in contemporary Latin-American and Latino literature.
• LALS 3421: Latin American Fiction - A study of Latin American narrative forms, with selected readings from major Latin American writers.
• LALS 3427: Hispanics/Latinos in the USA - A course that explores the Hispanic mosaic in the U.S., with a focus on Hispanic education, culture, and assimilation.
• LALS 3575: Painting the Empire: Understanding the Spanish Empire Through Art and Literature - A course that proposes a study of the main social, political, and cultural conflicts that conformed the Spanish Empire.
• LALS 3600: Latin America: Current Trends - A course that helps students develop the basic tools for political analysis in the context of an overview of the current political environment and economic circumstances of Latin America.
• LALS 3601: Latin American Archeology - A course that considers the religion, hieroglyphic writing systems, architecture, political economy, myth, and history of Pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica, South America, and the Caribbean.
• LALS 3602: Crossing Borders: Migrations, Gender, Sexuality - A course that uses anthropological work on the border as an analytical frame to address the construction of the meanings of home, identity, belonging, citizenship, the body, and space in transnational contexts.
• LALS 3670: Hispanic Women - A course that examines the changing roles of Hispanic women, with a focus on their experiences in the Americas.
• LALS 3840: Latin America Through Film - A course that examines major topics of Latin American cultural criticism through an examination of Latin American and Latino film production.
• LALS 3930: Contemporary Cuban Culture Study Tour - A one-week, one-credit, spring study-tour course that explores the vibrant contemporary cultural scene in music, art, dance, literature, and film in Havana, Cuba.
• LALS 3950: Latino History - A course that explores the development of the Latina/o population in the U.S., with a focus on migration, race, ethnicity, labor, family, sexuality, and citizenship.
• LALS 3951: Popular Education and Social Change in the Americas - A course that examines the historical moments and movements where popular education emerged, with a focus on the principles and practices that animated revolutionary projects and social movements.
• LALS 3955: Slavery Freedom/Atlantic World - A course that covers multiple regions of the Atlantic World, with a focus on slavery and freedom as intersecting global themes across space and time.
• LALS 3962: Narratives of Truth and Justice in Latin America - A course that examines the varying truths that exist during and after civil wars, dictatorships, and political instability in 20th-century Latin America.
• LALS 3963: Afro-Latin America - An interdisciplinary course that explores Afro-Latin America from the perspectives of history, the arts, literature, law, and politics.
• LALS 3967: Modern Central America - A course that covers Central American history from the dictators of the 1930s until the revolutionary decades and their aftermaths.
• LALS 3968: Mexico - A course that covers the history of Mexico from pre-Columbian times to the present, with a focus on major events and long historical periods.
• LALS 3972: Revolution in Central America - A course that covers the history of Central America from the 1930s to the present, with a focus on the revolutionary movements in Central America in the 1980s.
• LALS 3977: Latin American History Through Film - A course that screens Latin American and U.S. films to examine what we learn about events or ideas from Latin American history through film.
• LALS 4001: Music, Text, and the Imperial Encounter - A course that explores the interactions between cultures on different continents, with a focus on music and writing as agents of political and religious power.
• LALS 4005: Queer Theory and the Americas - A course that takes an interdisciplinary approach to queer methodologies for cultural and literary studies, with a focus on the often divergent traditions of Anglo and Hispanic America.
• LALS 4100: Speaking For/As the Other - A course that explores the role of writing and speaking during the encounter of black, Indian, mestizo, and Hispanic cultures in Latin America and Latina/o United States.
• LALS 4105: Queer Caribbean and Its Diasporas - An interdisciplinary course that examines the representation of queer gender and sexual identities and cultural practices in the Caribbean and its diasporas.
• LALS 4192: Rediscovering the New World - A course that uses the lenses of literary studies and physics to consider the technologies that enabled the Spanish conquest of Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean.
• LALS 4347: Latinx Borders - A course that uses an interdisciplinary approach to examine the experiences of Latin Americans and Latinos, with a focus on literature and history.
• LALS 4510: Conquest, Conversion, Conscience - A course that closely examines a series of case studies and the philosophical and ethical debates they gave rise to, with a focus on the Spanish conquest of the New World and the forced conversion of its indigenous peoples.
• LALS 4620: Oscar Romero: Faith and Politics in El Salvador - A course that investigates the life and ministry of Oscar Romero, with a focus on the nature and impact of liberation theology, the effects of U.S. Cold War foreign policy, and the relationship between religion and politics.
• LALS 4855: Fascisms, Aesthetics and the Hispanic World - A course that explores various iterations of fascism in Spain, Latin America, and the United States in the 20th and 21st centuries, with a focus on debates among historians and the aesthetic embodiments of fascist ideals.
• LALS 4999: Tutorial - An independent study course that allows students to pursue their own research interests under the guidance of a faculty member.

Courses in Other Areas

The following courses offered outside the LALS program have the LALS attribute and count toward the Latin American and Latino Studies major and minor:

• AAST 3647: Seeing Stories: Reading Race and Graphic Narratives
• AFAM 2005: American Pluralism
• AFAM 2647: Third World and the City
• AFAM 3037: Being and Becoming Black in the Atlantic World
• AFAM 3130: Racial and Ethnic Conflict
• AFAM 3150: Caribbean Peoples and Culture
• AFAM 3155: Children of Immigrants in America
• AFAM 3510: In "America's Backyard": U.S.-Caribbean Social, Political, and Economic Relations
• AFAM 3633: The Bronx: Immigration, Race, and Culture
• AFAM 3663: Minorities in the Media
• AFAM 3667: Caribbean Literature
• AFAM 3955: Slavery Freedom/Atlantic World
• AFAM 4000: Affirmative Action and the American Dream
• AFAM 4105: Queer Caribbean and Its Diasporas
• AFAM 4650: Social Welfare and Society
• ANTH 2619: Magic, Science, and Religion
• ANTH 3111: Archaeology of the Americas
• ANTH 3180: Ethnographic Methods
• ANTH 3333: Seeing Race: American Visual Culture in Historical Perspective
• ANTH 3339: Irish and Mexican Migration: New York Focus
• ANTH 3340: Anthropological Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity
• ANTH 3351: Comparative Cultures
• ANTH 3354: Race, Identity, and Globalization
• ANTH 3357: Globalization and Migration
• ANTH 3470: People and Cultures of Latin America
• ANTH 3471: Ancient Tales of the Andes: Taki Ongoy, Tin Tin, and Enchaquirado Narratives
• ANTH 3476: Latin American Social Movements
• ANTH 3510: Museums: Representing / Engaging Culture(s)
• ARHI 1103: Introduction to Art History: Americas
• ARHI 2250: Ancient American Art
• ARHI 2257: Modern Latin American Art
• ARHI 4250: Aztec Art
• COLI 3250: Represent Sp Civil War
• COLI 3407: Foreignness & Translation: Multilingual Autobio Writing in Contemp Latin-Am & Latino Lit
• COLI 3434: The Avant-Gardes: Europe and Latin America
• COLI 3522: Strange Memories, Strange Desires
• COLI 3575: Painting the Empire: Understanding the Spanish Empire Through Art and Literature
• COLI 3668: Caribbean Identities
• COLI 3840: Latin American Culture Through Film
• COLI 3910: US Latino Film Making
• COLI 3912: Literature of the Americas
• COLI 4018: Cuba: Revolution, Literature and Film
• COMC 3268: Media and National Identity
• COMC 3380: International Communication
• DTEM 3447: Race, Gender, and Digital Media
• ECON 3210: Development Economics
• ECON 3235: Economy of Latin America
• ECON 3240: World Poverty
• ECON 3242: Global Economic Issues
• ECON 3248: Migration and Development: A Social Justice Perspective
• ECON 3346: International Trade
• ECON 3563: Labor Economics
• ECON 3580: Economics of Diversity
• ECON 3971: Urban Economics
• ECON 4005: Fair Trade Entrepreneurship
• ECON 5005: Fair Trade Entrepreneurship
• ENGL 3036: Latin American Short Story
• ENGL 3037: US Latinx Literature
• ENGL 3038: Latinx Performance Studies: Image, Fashion, and Politics
• ENGL 3244: Latinx Fashion and the Politics of Style
• ENGL 3247: NYC Latinx Literature
• ENGL 3350: Ethnic Camera: Race and Visual Media
• ENGL 3619: Crip, Queer and Critical Race Studies
• ENGL 3647: Seeing Stories: Reading Race and Graphic Narratives
• ENGL 3652: New Wave Immigrant Literature
• ENGL 3658: Migrations/Movements/Masks
• ENGL 3664: Queer Latinx Literature
• ENGL 3673: Postmodern Literature and Culture
• ENGL 3677: Latino/a US Literatures
• ENGL 3841: Contemporary Fiction
• ENGL 4021: Seminar: Love and Latinx Literature
• ENGL 4108: Seminar: Exhibiting Latinidad: Curation/Display/Intervention
• ENGL 4185: Caribbean Islands and Oceans
• ENGL 4236: Seminar: Latin American Short Story
• FITV 3647: TV, Identity, and Representation
• FITV 3688: Global Television
• HIST 1400: Understanding Historical Change: Latin America
• HIST 3613: Spain and Iberian Empires
• HIST 3806: U.S. Immigration/Ethnicity
• HIST 3808: New York City Politics
• HIST 3862: History of New York City
• HIST 3950: Latino History
• HIST 3951: Popular Education and Social Change in the Americas
• HIST 3955: Slavery Freedom/Atlantic World
• HIST 3961: Rebellion and Revolution in Latin America and the Atlantic World
• HIST 3962: Narratives of Truth and Justice in Latin America
• HIST 3963: Afro-Latin America
• HIST 3965: Colonial Latin America
• HIST 3967: Modern Central America
• HIST 3968: Mexico
• HIST 3969: Latin America and the U.S.
• HIST 3972: Revolution in Central America
• HIST 3974: Spaniards and Incas
• HIST 3975: The Caribbean
• HIST 3977: Latin American History Through Film
• HIST 4008: Race and Gender in the Old West
• HIST 4510: Conquest, Conversion, Conscience
• HIST 4591: Race, Sex, and Colonialism
• HIST 4725: Seminar: Global Histories and Stories
• HIST 4760: Seminar: Immigration to the U.S.
• HIST 4772: Seminar: Colonial Latin America
• HIST 4905: Seminar: History of Food
• HIST 4954: Seminar: Law and Empire Iberian Atlantic
• HIST 4997: Pilgrimage in Spain : History, ecology, and religion on the Mozarabic Way of St. James
• HIST 4998: Study Tour: Medieval Spain
• HIST 5913: Golden Age Spain and Its American Empire
• HUST 4100: Refugee and Asylum Law
• HUST 4200: Forced Migration and Humanitarian Action
• INST 3100: The Global Environment
• INST 3859: Post-1945: A Global History
• JOUR 3724: First Person Journalism
• LACU 1010: Spanish Colonialism Through Film
• LACU 3000: Gender and Sexuality Studies
• LACU 3005: Themes in Latina/o and Latin American Studies
• LACU 3525: Cultures of Sexual Dissidence in Latin America
• LACU 3607: Topics in Multilingualism
• LACU 3660: Decolonizing Travel Writing
• LACU 4100: Speaking For/As the Other
• LACU 4347: Latinos: Fact and Fiction
• LALS 4855: Fascisms, Aesthetics and the Hispanic World
• LING 2400: Analyzing Discourse: Text and Talk in Context
• LING 2675: Sounds of New York
• LING 3007: Spanish Linguistics
• LING 4020: Language and Race
• MUSC 3130: Race and Gender in Latin American Popular Music
• MUSC 4001: Music, Text, and the Imperial Encounter
• MVST 3501: Between Conquest and Convivencia: The Spanish Kingdoms of the Middle Ages
• MVST 4998: Study Tour: Medieval Spain
• PHIL 3653: Latin American Philosophy
• PHIL 3713: Human Rights and Global Justice
• PHIL 4436: Rethinking Citizenship
• POSC 2610: Introduction to Comparative Politics
• POSC 3310: Racial and Ethnic Politics
• POSC 3324: Politics of Immigration and Citizenship
• POSC 3326: Latino Politics
• POSC 3610: Political Economy of Development
• POSC 3616: Political Economy of Poverty
• POSC 3641: Latin American Politics
• POSC 3645: Politics of Immigration
• POSC 4020: Place, Space, and Immigrant Cities
• POSC 4037: Social Movements and Revolutions
• POSC 4400: Seminar: Global Justice
• POSC 4605: Political Violence
• PSYC 3600: Multicultural Psychology
• PSYC 3640: Cross-Cultural-Psychology
• SOCI 2410: Inequality: Class, Race, and Ethnicity
• SOCI 2420: Social Problems of Race and Ethnicity
• SOCI 3000: Latinx Images in Media
• SOCI 3017: Inequality in America
• SOCI 3046: International Sociology
• SOCI 3070: The City and Its Neighborhoods
• SOCI 3102: Contemporary Social Issues and Policies
• SOCI 3110: Global Conflict: Wars/Religion
• SOCI 3148: Population and Economic Development Issues
• SOCI 3149: Economic Sociology
• SOCI 3405: Gender, Race, and Class
• SOCI 3406: Race/Social Construct
• SOCI 3410: Migration/Globalization
• SOCI 3418: Contemporary Immigration in Global Perspective
• SOCI 3419: Living in the Shadows: Undocumented Migration
• SOCI 3425: Racial Segregation: An American Story
• SOCI 3427: Hispanics/Latinos in the USA
• SOCI 3456: Modern Social Movements
• SOCI 3471: Undocumented Migration
• SOCI 3502: Work, Inequality, and Society in 21st Century America
• SOCI 3506: Diversity in American Families
• SOCI 3601: Urban Poverty
• SOCI 3670: Hispanic Women
• SOCI 3713: Criminology
• SOCI 4020: Place, Space, and Immigrant Cities
• SOCI 4408: Diversity in American Society
• SOCI 4902: Internship Seminar: Community Organizations
• SOCI 4961: Urban Issues and Policies
• SOCI 4970: Community Service/Social Action
• SOCI 4990: Conflict Resolution and Justice Creation
• SPAN 2001: Spanish Language and Literature
• SPAN 2201: Spanish Community Engaged Learning
• SPAN 2305: Spanish Conversation and Composition
• SPAN 2310: Spanish for Global Issues of Social Change
• SPAN 2320: Spanish for Media
• SPAN 2420: Translation and Language Justice
• SPAN 2450: Business Spanish
• SPAN 2500: Approaches to Literature
• SPAN 2620: Spanish Phonetics
• SPAN 2655: Creative Writing in Spanish
• SPAN 2700: Hispanic Legends
• SPAN 3001: Spain: Literature and Culture Survey
• SPAN 3002: Latin America: Literature and Culture Survey
• SPAN 3007: Spanish Linguistics
• SPAN 3010: Language and Power
• SPAN 3066: Survey of Latin American Film
• SPAN 3072: Geographies of Power/Injustice
• SPAN 3075: Crime in Hispanic Fiction
• SPAN 3080: Ancestral Writings: (RE)Tracing Indigenous Frameworks for Creative Writing
• SPAN 3123: Questioning Race in Mexican Film and Literature
• SPAN 3166: Trends in Latin American Film
• SPAN 3210: Transatlantic Picaresque
• SPAN 3230: Sinful Business
• SPAN 3250: God, Gold, and Glory
• SPAN 3275: Hybrid Futures: A Panorama of Mexican Short Fiction
• SPAN 3285: Trends in Mexican Cinema
• SPAN 3300: Modern Latin American Visual Culture
• SPAN 3301: Federico Garcia Lorca and His World
• SPAN 3305: Posthuman Mestizaje and the Non-Human Turn in Mexican Culture
• SPAN 3310: Latin American Science Fiction
• SPAN 3401: Modern Spanish Fiction
• SPAN 3405: Women Translators in the Spanish-Speaking World
• SPAN 3407: Foreignness & Translation: Multilingual Autobio Writing in Contemp Latin-Am & Latino Lit
• SPAN 3410: Cultural Narratives of Crisis
• SPAN 3430: Visual Narratives: Images, Text, and Archives in Latin America and the Global Caribbean
• SPAN 3456: Posthuman Body in Mexican Fiction
• SPAN 3515: New Spanish Literature: Rewriting the Public Sphere in 21st Century Spain
• SPAN 3525: Cultures of Sexual Dissidence in Latin America
• SPAN 3530: Excess in Spanish Lit
• SPAN 3540: Spain and Islam
• SPAN 3550: Expressing the Colonies
• SPAN 3561: Representing the Gypsy
• SPAN 3578: Autofiction. Latinx Creations of the Self.
• SPAN 3582: New York in Latinx Literature and Film
• SPAN 3583: New York City Latino Theatre and Performance
• SPAN 3585: La Frontera: Art as Resistance
• SPAN 3610: Children's Gaze in Latin American Literature
• SPAN 3625: Spanish-American Short Fiction
• SPAN 3642: Spanish-American Literature and Popular Music
• SPAN 3701: Feminism in Latin American Literature & Film
• SPAN 3710: Contemporary Latin American Fiction
• SPAN 3712: Literatures of the Latin American Boom and Post-Boom
• SPAN 3715: Latin American Cyberliterature
• SPAN 3720: The Hispanic Transatlantic
• SPAN 3730: Writing Violence: Peru,
• SPAN 3770: Cultures of Memory and Post-Memory in Contemporary Chile
• SPAN 3800: The Spanish Diaspora
• SPAN 3808: Bodies, Touch, and Affect in Argentine Film and Literature
• SPAN 3809: Argentine Literature and Film
• SPAN 3820: Hispanic Caribbean Literature
• SPAN 3850: Narrating the City
• SPAN 3851: The Neoliberal City in Post-War Central American Cultural Production
• SPAN 3908: Francoist Spain
• SPAN 3950: The Fantastic in Spanish Literature and Film
• SPAN 3997: Back to Nature: New Ruralism in 21st Century Spanish Literature and Film
• SPAN 4001: Cervantes and Don Quixote
• SPAN 4005: Painting the Empire: Understanding the Spanish Empire Through Art and Literature
• SPAN 4018: Cuba: Revolution, Literature and Film
• SPAN 4511: Spanish Civil War
• SPAN 4520: Spain in Context
• SPAN 4855: Fascisms, Aesthetics and the Hispanic World
• THEO 3130: Bible as Migration Literature: Then and Now
• THEO 3380: US Latinx Spiritualities
• THEO 3383: Latin American Liberation Theologies
• THEO 3546: The Bible and Social Justice
• THEO 3610: Christ in World Cultures
• THEO 3611: Scripture and the Struggle for Racial Justice
• THEO 3847: Latinx Theology
• THEO 3960: Religion and Race in America
• THEO 4620: Oscar Romero: Faith and Politics in El Salvador
• UEGE 5102: Historical, Philosophical, and Multicultural Foundations of American Education
• VART 2020: BRONX: Seen & Unseen
• VART 3060: Visual Justice: Enacting Change Through Image-Based Storytelling
• VART 3333: Art Making in Hell's Kitchen
• WGSS 4341: Race, Sex, and Science