Latin American Studies

Since January 1993, Ciudad Juárez has stood out for the high number of murdered women. It is at the beginning of this decade and in this city that the term "femicide" is generated: the violent death of women due to machismo or misogyny. Through different texts and media students investigate different aspects of this issue, as well as terminology, machismo, the economy, and drug trafficking in Mexico. 

This course examines the impact of recent developments in the political and economic relations of Latin American countries-- especially Argentina, Peru, and Brazil-- with East Asian countries-- China, Japan, and South Korea.

This course examines the interaction between geography and history through the concepts of geographic space, region, territory, and place that serve to analyze the geographic diversity of Latin America. Topics include: geographic analysis and geographic space with a human focus; society-nature metabolism and biogeographic diversity in pre-Columbian America; the role of the region in shaping the world system.

This course examines the Asian diaspora in Latin America. It explores issues of immigration and cultural hybridity as related to descendants and national identity. This course discusses the intertwined relationships among power, representation, and cultural production. It engages visual culture, popular culture and film, and other media, as a means to underscore the role that cultural production has played in transforming, adapting, and sustaining normative ideas regarding ethnicity, gender, and sexuality in relation to citizenship.

This course provides a study of pre-Hispanic literature, examining the Nahuatl and Mayan cultures and their respective literatures. Topics include: characterization of pre-Hispanic culture (social and political organization, economy, religion, philosophy and art), literary genres, and author style. Texts covered include: Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, HISTORIA GENERAL DE LAS COSAS DE LA NUEVA ESPAÑA; HUEHUETLATOLLI: LIBRO SEXTO DEL CODICE FLORENTINO; Ángel María Garibay Kintana, POESÍA NÁHUATL; CANTARES MEXICANOS; Rubén Bonifaz Nuño, LOS OLMECAS: ESENCIA Y FUNDACIÓN; Miguel León-Portilla, QUINCE POETAS DEL MUNDO AZTECA.

This course studies the great Latin American figures from cultural and political history. The course is conducted in Spanish and French with an emphasis on translating and transcribing texts between both languages. The course focuses on how heroes stand between myth and reality, and how they relate to the individual and the collective. It analyzes the processes of heroization carried out since the Latin American independences to highlight the ruptures and continuities in their contemporary political uses.  Written sources, territorial marks, and iconography constitute the main materials used to approach heroic cults from a critical perspective.