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Course
Descriptions FALL 2009
Introduction
to Caribbean Studies
595:100:01, Warnock, MW 1:40-3:00 PM, LSH-B115, Livingston
Popular representations of the Caribbean portray it as a paradise of sorts, with palm trees, beaches, and resorts as the main attraction. This course serves to debunk tourist ideals and provide a general introduction to the Caribbean, its people, its history, and the social, economic, and political forces that formed it and constitute it. Via this introductory tour of the Caribbean, you will prepare for more specialized courses on the Caribbean. In Part 1 of the course, we will consider what defines the Caribbean. We will get at first look at the geography of the region, and the social and political particularities that constitute it. In Part 2, we will examine the people that make up the Caribbean and the processes of incorporation that are responsible for the region’s social and cultural diversity. We will examine the political, economic, and historical events that gave way to the contact between Indigenous, European, African, and Asian populations. Set historically between colonial and independence movements, the Caribbean features a wide array of political and national arrangements, including Commonwealths, authoritarian governments, and socialist revolutions. Part 3 takes a look at the cultural elements and social and economic dynamics that constitute modern life in the Caribbean. Today’s Caribbean has experienced rapid change, led by globalization, industrialization, urbanization, and increased fragmentation. We will examine these processes in order to understand the social, economic, and cultural life that represents the Caribbean of today, as put by Puerto Rico’s tourism campaign “beyond the shore” of the tourist gaze.
Introduction
to Latino Studies
595:101:02, Gonzalez, MW 1:40-3:00 PM, LSH-B269, Livingston
595:101:03, Ramos-Zayas, MTh 10:20-11:40 AM, BE-101, Livingston
This course examines some of the central themes that shape the diverse experiences of Latino populations in the U.S. Some of the main organizing themes will include:1) the politics of labeling; 2) immigration and community formation histories; 3) conceptions of gender and sexuality in Latino communities; 4) race and racial formations; and 5) labor markets, education, media, and activism. The main goal of this course is to urge students to think critically and understand the conceptual, political, and historical issues that are part of the multiple Latino experiences in the U.S. The course requires that students engage in a critical examination of a wide selection of shorter readings, ranging from anthropological and historical texts to short stories, films, and fictional works, in an effort to place the experience of diverse Latino populations in social, political, historical, and interdisciplinary perspectives. The course will serve as the basic intellectual map to the department’s faculty, higher-level course offerings and goals. It will be required of all majors and minors.
History
of the Caribbean since 1898
01:595:205:01, Warnock, MTh 12:00-1:20 PM, BE-253, Livingston
For more than 500 years, the Caribbean has served as a crossroads of overlapping migrations, a site of contested colonial and neo-colonial rule, and a laboratory of modernity. From plantation slavery to independence struggles to the Cold War, the inhabitants of the Caribbean islands have witnessed some of the most significant events of the modern era. Yet despite its overwhelming importance to the trajectory of global history, the Caribbean is frequently depicted in the media as a center of political turmoil or a tourist destination, while few efforts are made to explore the complexities of the challenges these nations face. In order to better understand the development of this important region, this course will provide an overview of some of the most salient themes of modern Caribbean history. Topics considered will include legacies of colonialism and the plantation complex, constructions of race, ethnicity, and gender, U.S. neo-imperialism, migration, labor organizing and political struggles, artistic, and intellectual movements, religion, and cultural commodification. Although the majority of the material we will be discussing focuses on Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Jamaica- the most populous Caribbean islands- we will also consider smaller islands as well as the “circum-Caribbean” region, including the Caribbean coasts of Central America, South America, and the United States.
Puerto Rican
Literature
595:266:01, Gonzalez, M 5:00-8:00 PM, BE-121, Livingston
Latinos
& Community
595:299:02, Gonzalez, MTh 10:20-11:40 AM, BE-219, Livingston
This course will provide an in-depth examination of the social, cultural, economic, and political developments shaping the long-established or recent immigrant Hispanic/Latino/a and Latin American communities in the United States. Communities, defined as geographic, socio-cultural or political constructs, have shaped the life of most Latinos/as in the US. Work and wages, the formation of neighborhoods or organizations, the effects of space and place on the formation of communities, the particular cultural, linguistic, political, sexual, gender practices and ideologies inherited from the country or region of origin—all of these dynamics affect the formation and experience of community by Latinos/as. In order to do so, this course will emphasize local case studies that will bring students close to the experiences of people. It will also provide students a sense of the great diversity and heterogeneity that often falls under the Latino/a designation.
This course emphasizes encounters, relationships, dislocations and conflicts between and within communities and definitions of communities, and the hybrid and shifting identities and political-economic relationships and experiences that result. It will pay particular attention to the potential irrelevance of the Latino/a category when studying aspects of specific communities.
Language and U.S. Latino Culture
595:303:01, Stephens, T 8:40-11:40 AM, TIL-204, Livingston
Caribbean Urbanism
595:305:01, Dinzey-Flores, TTh 3:20-4:40 PM, LCB-109, Livingston
Global Diasporas
in Caribbean History
595:312:05, Lopez, M
& W 3:20-4:40 PM, TIL-208, Livingston
Many recent studies
of international migration have focused on people from the
Caribbean. But the transnational movements of Cubans, Dominicans,
Haitians, Jamaicans, Puerto Ricans, and others to the United
States and Europe form only one side of the story. From the
beginning, channels of intra-regional migration-from Haiti
to Cuba, from Jamaica to Costa Rica-have shaped Caribbean
economies and political and cultural identities. This course
opens up new perspectives on region by examining the historical
experiences of migrants to/from and within the Caribbean from
the time of the Haitian Revolution in the late eighteenth
century to the present day. We will cross political, cultural,
and linguistic boundaries in our consideration of the greater
Caribbean, encompassing coastal Central and South America
and the U.S. South. Topics include new labor sources in the
age of slave emancipation; Asian indentured laborers; the
development of export economies and intra-Caribbean migrations;
constructions or race, ethnicity, and gender in port cities;
homeland politics; daily life and family relations; religious
and musical traditions; and post-war Caribbean diasporas.
Caribbean Cinema
595:312:06, Nazario, M 6:10-9:00 PM, Room TBA, College Avenue
The course will focus on a number of films and videos produced in the Spanish Caribbean, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and the Diasporas. Through the screening of films and assigned readings, the course will examine the meaning of Spanish Caribbean film productions, with in the context of the North America and Latin American Cinema. We will explore aspects of Spanish Caribbean culture as conveyed by filmmakers. Issues of identity, difference, gender, race, sexual orientation and political descent will be considered and discussed. We will also consider how the political system is conveyed by filmmakers. Additional issues that will be consider, the nature of the moving image in general and the Caribbean moving image in particular. Is the moving image in Caribbean cinema a reflection of Caribbean reality or is it a reflection of the filmmaker’s confrontation with that reality? The first position makes the filmmaker a conduit for Caribbean reality; the second position makes the filmmaker the interpreter of Caribbean reality.
Mexican
and Mexican American Art
595:316:01, Flores,
MW 2:50-4:10 PM, VH-104, College Avenue
This course examines
the modern and contemporary art of Mexico and by Mexican-American
artists in the United States. Topics to be examined include
prints and popular culture, the rise of muralism and social
realism, Surrealism and the fantastic, photography, modernist
architecture, feminism and performance, the Chicano movimiento
and post-Chicano aesthetics, neo-Mexicanism, the conceptual
turn, and the place of Mexico in the international art world.
Latino History
595:369:01, Echeverra, T 5:00-8:00 PM, LSH-A121, Livingston
Cross listed with 512:360:01
History of the Dominican Republic
595:372:01, Eller, T 5:00-8:00 PM, LSH-B110, Livingston
The History of Cuba
595:390:01, Warnock, MW 5:00-6:20 PM, TIL-209, Livingston
Senior Seminar in Latino/Caribbean Studies
595:497:01, Decena, Th 12:00-3:00 PM, TIL-208, Livingston
Service Learning Internship
595:493:01 Susana Matallana By Permission, contact Chair
Independent
Study in Latino and Caribbean Studies
Questions
or Comments? Email Sarah O'Meara González |
