Latin American Studies

The course provides students with an introduction to the history of Latin America from the late 19th century to the present day. Its focus is predominantly on Latin Americans and what happened within the region. However, the course also explores Latin Americans’ interaction with the wider world, including their pivotal and expanding relationship with the United States during the 20th century. Major themes covered on the course include identity, citizenship and nationalism; neo-colonialism and anti-imperialism; state-building and concepts of “development”; revolution and resistance; dictatorship and violence; democratization; and the struggle for social justice. In addressing these themes, students are paying particular attention to histories of race, class, and gender with students encouraged to consider how different Latin Americans experienced and influenced the course of history in the region.

This course explores the impact that the complex relationship between humans and nature has on climate and biodiversity. It discusses the historical evolution of humanity's approach to nature and those representations in Latin American literature. It focuses on the cultural/environmental implications of extractivism, histories of land use, the social impact of economy on bodies and the biosphere, the political use of nature, non-human/human relations, the emergence of Latin American environmental thinking, ecocriticism, modern Latin American literature, and some of the most important political and cultural debates of the continent in recent history. 

This course analyzes the concepts and phenomena of cultural encounters and border-crossings in Spanish American societies, mainly through some of the fundamental works that were produced in the 20th and 21st centuries. The course examines where and how one can observe the phenomena and processes of cultural encounters and border-crossings in the texts while exploring the meaning of each aspect of these phenomena within a specific socio-historical and political context.

The course contemplates the following key questions: How does a culture travel and encounter another? How does it change its shape upon encountering other cultures? Is it possible to have the concept of a return to “the original” point of departure or the concept of “authenticity"?

In this course, student participants will analyze how ideas about gender and sexuality influenced left-wing revolutionary movements and right-wing military dictatorships in Latin America since 1959, considering both political history and the experiences lived by contemporary people in the cases of Cuba, Chile, Brazil, Mexico and Nicaragua, among others.

This course examines the cultural role of Andean textiles, their technical spectrum, their aesthetic and heritage values. The aim is to understand the contributions of Andean textile artifacts to contemporary design, to culturally contextualize the material under study and practical knowledge by exercising textile techniques in which structure-texture-color relationships are considered.

In this course, students analyze the dynamics between civil-military relations and the process of formulating security and defense policies in democratic states of law, with a focus on Latin America. In this way, at the end of the course, students are expected to understand, analyze and evaluate how the different levels of civil control over the military and structuring of the Armed Forces in a democracy impact the rationality and efficiency of national defense policies and strategies.

In the course, students will be able to answer the broad dilemma of how to understand Latin America today?, from an interdisciplinary analysis that emphasizes the connection between history, geography and political science in order to unravel and read the various dynamics and challenges of the region. Through methodologies such as lectures, case studies and debates, they will be able to understand the changes, continuities and cultural, social, economic and political projections of the region.

This course explores the origins, contemporary manifestations, strategies, impacts, and responses to extremism in Europe and the Americas, with a focus on right-wing examples. It examines the political, social, and cultural dimensions of these movements. The course also distinguishes extremism from related phenomena such as populism and nationalism, explores the motivations and ideologies behind extremism, and assesses the consequences for democracy and social cohesion in these regions. The course begins with a brief introduction to the definitions and distinctions surrounding extremism. In Section II, it takes a closer look at how extremism has developed in contemporary European and American contexts. Section III focuses on analyzing extremist ideologies and discourses, including propaganda and online strategies, through various case studies. Finally, in Section IV, it reflects on the social and political impacts of extremism, as well as the responses from governments and civil society. In terms of methodology, the course is taught through lectures, cross-sectional analysis, group discussions, and the use of primary and secondary sources alongside case studies.