Latin American Studies

This course offers a study of basic linguistic and communicative skills in the indigenous language, Purepecha, for listening, speaking, reading, and writing comprehension.

This course characterizes indigenous American societies from a multi-dimensional and interdisciplinary perspective. It offers a study of the main events and processes that occurred on the continent prior to the 16th century as well as the challenges of recovering the history of pre-Columbian America. 

This course examines some fundamental events in Latin American history during the 19th and 20th centuries. It analyzes cases that include the main milestones in the relations between Latin America and the United States between the years 1823 and 1989, the existence of nationalist and populist trends such as the Peronist movement in Argentina, and the emergence and development of guerrilla movements such as Sendero Luminoso in Peru. 

This course offers a study of the political and historical transition from ‘indigenismo’ to ‘indianismo’ in Latin America since the 1960s and the emergence of contemporary indigenous movements. 

This course examines the culture and history of the Hispanic people from the early 19th Century to the present. It covers the constitution of the ideological and political structures of the Spanish Empire in both Europe and America until the Wars of Independence. 

This course offers a study of the different pre-Hispanic indigenous peoples, from a multidimensional perspective, establishing dialogues with the processes that these peoples currently experience. 

This course examines literary texts and films to explore different themes and topics related to Chilean culture and politics. It discusses Chilean films and literary texts from the late 1960's to the early 2020's in order to better understand and contextualize some of the main events and discourses that have characterized Chilean society during the past fifty years.

This survey course is an introduction to the history of Latin America in the 20th century. Students examine processes common to the region, the experiences of specific countries, and Latin America’s relations with the rest of the world. Beyond this, like Hobsbawm, the course considers how Latin America can help us think about the history of wider world.

This course analyzes the emergence and constructions of hybrid and transcultural cultures and identities in Spanish American societies, mainly through some of the fundamental texts that were produced in the 20th and 21st centuries. It examines where and how we can observe hybrid and transcultural phenomena in the texts and the meaning of each phenomenon within a specific socio-historic and political context.  

This course contemplates the following key questions: What significance does a hybrid and transcultural phenomenon have within the context of Spanish America? How can one define and interpret hybridity and transculturation? What are the principal factors that contribute to the production of hybrid and transcultural cultures and identities? What is the process of hybridization and transculturation?  

This course examines recent Latin American films, which are critically analyzed in social, political and cultural context. The course enables students to develop their skills of analysis in an audiovisual, rather than purely literary, context, as well as deepening understanding of the Hispanic world through engagement with its cinematic production.