Latin American
Studies
Fall 2013 Courses
NOTE: Courses listed here or in the Undergraduate Record will count towards a Latin American Studies major or minor. Prior approval for other course work must be granted before the course is taken. For approval, please contact the Director of the Latin American Studies program, Fernando Operé at fo@virginia.edu . Please be sure to include a copy of the syllabus.
AMST 2500-2 United
States Latino Detection
Faculty Name: Daniel Chávez
Department: Anthropology
Day/Time: MoWe 2-3:15pm
Description: A course reviewing the major trends in detective and noir novels by Latino Authors in the United States . Our readings will include a historical revision of the emergence and evolution of the noir genre and the challenges for minority writers to enter in this area of literature. Some of the authors covered include Rolando Hinojosa, Lucha Corpi (Mexican American), Carolina García Aguilera (Cuban American), Michele Martinez (Nuyorican) among others.
ANTH 3152 Amazonian
Peoples
Faculty Name: George Mentore
Department: Anthropology
Day/Time: Tuesdays and Thursdays; 02:00 to 02:50pm
Description: Analyzes ethnographies on the cultures and the societies of the South American rain forest peoples, and evaluates the scholarly ways in which anthropology has produced, engaged, interpreted, and presented its knowledge of the 'Amerindian.'
HILA 2001 Colonial
Latin America, 1500-1824
Faculty Name: Thomas Klubock
Department: History
Day/Time: MoWe 11:00AM - 11:50AM (Lecture)
Day/Time: TH 8:30AM-9:20AM (Discussion)
TH 5:00PM-5:50PM (Discussion)
TH 6:00PM-6:50OM (Discussion)
Description: This course will explore major developments and issues in the study of Latin American history, including Indigenous societies on the eve of Spanish conquest, the struggles over the shape of a conquest society, the emergence of a distinctive world culture up to the 18th century, and the pressures and disputes that led to wars of national independence in the early 19th century. We will seek to understand the dynamics of the colonial relationship in a global historical context.
HILA 3061 Modern Brazil
Faculty Name: Brian Owensby
Department: History
Day/Time: Tue. & Thu. 10:00am
Description: The basic mission in this course is to approach historical thinking with philosophical intent. Our specific frame will be Brazilian history from independence (1822) to roughly today, but our chief concern will be to think through large ideas, such as nationhood, development, modernity, political mythologies, globalization and how different ways of life take shape. The course will be a hybrid lecture-discussion course throughout, with no sharp boundaries between the two. Students will read for each meeting and write two 10-page papers during the semester.
HILA 3111 Public
Life in Modern Latin America
Faculty Name: Herbert Braun
Department: History
Day/Time: TuTh 8:00AM - 9:15AM
Description: How do Latin Americans navigate their ways, collectively and also individually, through their hierarchical social orders? Why is there so often so much stability and order to their societies? Surveys inform us that Latin Americans are among the happiest people in the world? Why might this be? Why do so many Latin Americans across time appear to be so proud of their nations? Why do they look at one another so often? Why is there so little hatred in Latin America? Why do poor people in Latin America seem to know more about rich people than rich people know about them? Why do traditions matter so? Why are there so many good novelists there? These and other questions, answerable and not, about life and the human condition in Latin America are what will be about in this course.
HILA 4501-1 Seminar
in Latin American History
"The Mexican Revolution"
Faculty Name: Thomas Klubock
Department: History
Day/Time: We 1:00PM - 3:30PM
Description: This course celebrates the one hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. We will read some basic texts on the revolution, as well as a number of historical monographs that examine the history of the post-revolutionary state and that reflect recent developments in the historiography of the revolution. The assigned texts include older social and political histories of the revolution, as well as more recent cultural and "new" political histories. In addition, we will examine some important cultural texts produced by the revolution, from novels to art, music, and film. The assigned texts represent different interpretations of the revolution. They take different approaches to answering the basic question that will concern us during the semester: was the revolution a revolution? If so, what kind of revolution was it? Bourgeois? Socialist? Nationalist? Reformist? Was the Mexican revolution a peasant revolution? A workers' revolution? What role did women and indigenous people play in the revolution? What impact did the revolution have on these different groups? Finally, we will look at the history of post-revolutionary state making. What kind of economy, society, and state were built following the revolution? What caused the revolutionary crisis of the 1960s? The 1990s? Students will write a long historiographical essay (20-25 pages) on a topic related to the questions raised by the assigned readings.
HILA 4501-2 Seminar
in Latin American History
"Utopian
Thought in Latin America"
Faculty Name: Anne Daniels
Department: History
Day/Time: We 3:30PM - 6:00PM
Description: This course will examine the ways that Latin American intellectuals and revolutionaries have proposed to improve the human condition.
In the 1510s, pondering the mysteries of the “New World” and the problems of the Old the Englishman Thomas More coined the term Utopia, a pun with Greek roots that mean both “Good Place” and “No Place.” More placed his fictitious Utopia in the Americas, on an island off the coast of Brazil. This course will examine how over the following 400 years, Utopia—the elusive ideal society—has been imagined and re-imagined in Latin America.
In the beginning of the course, we will read a mix of primary and secondary materials that outline the development of utopian thought in Latin America from the Conquest to the late twentieth century. In doing so, we will understand how intellectual currents and social realities interacted to create new aspirations for the future and to crush old dreams. We will explore how envisioning a utopia may also be a condemnation of current realities. Our thematic approach will connect us to questions of race, gender, nationalism, class, and education, as we discover that attempting to create the perfect society often meant attempting to create the perfect human being.
The final ten weeks of the course will culminate with each student writing a 25 to 30 page research paper that utilizes primary sources to deeply explore one historical aspect of how Latin Americans have imagined the future, whether as the “Good Place” or as a “No Place” forever out of reach.
MDST 4108 Media,
Drugs, and Violence in Latin America
Faculty Name: Hector Amaya
Department: Media Studies
Day/Time: Mo 6:00-8:30pm
Description:
RELG 3360 Religions in the New World
Faculty Name: Jalane Schmidt
Department: Religion Studies
Day/Time: TuTh 2:00PM-3:15PM
Description: A historical examination of the effects of European colonization and the transatlantic slave trade upon the religious practices of indigenous peoples, African captives, creole residents and European settlers in colonial Latin America and the Caribbean.
SOC 3410 Race and Ethnic Relations
Faculty Name: Milton Vickerman
Department: Sociology
Day/Time: MoWe 2:00PM - 3:15PM
Description: Introduces the study of race and ethnic relations, including the social and economic conditions promoting prejudice, racism, discrimination, and segregation. Examines contemporary American conditions, and historical and international materials.
SPAN 3040 Business
Spanish
Faculty Name: Various
Department: Spanish, Italian and Portuguese
Day/Time: Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; 11:00-11:50am
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; 12:00-12:50pm
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:00-12:15am
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:30-10:45am
SPAN 3040 Texts
and Interpretation
Faculty Name: Various
Department: Spanish, Italian and Portuguese
Day/Time: Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; 1:00-1:50pm
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:30-10:45am
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; 2:00-2:50pm
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:00-12:15pm
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; 1:00-1:50pm
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; 10:00-10:50am
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:00-3:15pm
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; 12:00-12:50pm
SPAN 3420: Survey
of Latin American Literature I (Colonial to 1900)
Faculty: STAFF
Day/Time: TuTh 11:00AM - 12:15PM
Prerequisite: SPAN 3300
This is a survey course of Latin American Literature to introduce students to the major authors, and literary movements of Latin America from its Discovery in 1492 up to 1900. Students will get a comprehensive understanding of Hispanic America in that period, reading and discussing a selections of works from accounts of the conquest, colonial period and 19th century, analyzing its historical and literary importance. Some authors include: Cristóbal Colón, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Hernán Cortés, Francisco Núnez de Pineda y Bascuñán, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, José María de Heredia, Esteban Echeverría, Ricardo Palma, José Martí y Rubén Dario.
SPAN 3430 Latin
American Literature Survey II
Faculty Name: MARIA-INES LAGOS
Department: Spanish, Italian and Portuguese
Day/Time: TTh 2:00-3:15
Description: This course is a survey of Spanish American literature. The objective of the course is to introduce students to major authors, works, and literary movements of Spanish America from 1880 to the present. Students will read poetry and short prose selections from an anthology (Huellas de las Literaturas Hispanoamericanas) as well as a short novel. Class participation and attendance, papers, and two exams.
SPAN 3430 Latin American Literature II (1900-present)
Faculty Name: Gustavo Pellón
Department: Spanish, Italian and Portuguese
Day/Time: MWF 10-10:50
Description: This course is a survey of Spanish American literature. The objective of the course is to introduce students to major authors, works, and literary movements of Spanish America from 1900 to the present. Students will read poetry and short prose selections from an anthology (Letras de Hispanoamérica) as well as a novel (TBA). Evaluation will be through papers and exams.
Note that Spanish 3300 Texts and Interpretation is a prerequisite for this course.
SPAN 4310 Latin
American Women Writers from 1900 to the present
Faculty Name: MARIA-INES LAGOS
Department: Spanish, Italian and Portuguese
Day/Time: TTh 11:00-12:15
Description: Panorama of major Latin American women writers from 1900 to the present—poets, essayists, playwrights, and fiction writers. We will read works by authors of various generations and countries as well as essays on gender theory. Discussion will focus on how women from various class backgrounds have articulated their female experience in societies that establish strong differences between the roles of men and women. Films and videos will be used to illustrate the social and cultural context. Class participation, two exams, two papers.
SPAN 4710 Latin
American Culture and Civilizations
Faculty Name: Fernando Opere
Department: Spanish, Italian and Portuguese
Day/Time: T and Th 330-415pm
Description: This course intends to acquaint the student with the history and culture of two countries in Latin America: Argentina and Mexico. We will start with pre-columbian cultures, and the historical evolution from colonial times, the Independent period up to the present. Half of the course will be dedicated to study cultural and social topics: identity; race and ethnicity; city and countryside; artistic and music production; food and cuisine; fluctuations in the economy; religion and its many manifestations; and violence and resistance among others.