Courses ofInstruction
Latin American Studies
Program Faculty
Colby Ristow, Professor, History, Program Coordinator
May Farnsworth, Professor, Spanish and Hispanic Studies
Audrey Roberson, Associate Professor, Education
Fernando Rodriguez-Mansilla, Professor, Spanish and Hispanic Studies
Richard Salter, Professor, Religious Studies
Angelique Syzmanek, Associate Professor, Art and Architecture
Caroline Travalia, Professor, Spanish and Hispanic Studies
Latin America is a region of nearly endless social, racial, cultural, and economic diversity, but one continues to maintain or claim some sort of unified identity. The Latin American Studies program emphasizes the myriad regional, sub-regional, and national identities that make up Latin America, while also examining the common bonds that make Latin America unique as a whole. As such, the program seeks to expose students to the many facets of Latin America: its art, literature and history, culture, economics, and politics. The program encourages its majors and minors to develop a theoretical framework for interpreting these facets and to build the skills in language and research methods that will enable them to work effectively in the area.
Mission Statement
To expand awareness and understanding of Latin America and the historical and cultural origins of its regional diversity.
Offerings
The Latin American Studies program offers an interdisciplinary major and minor. Cross-listed courses, and many courses taken abroad (in Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba among others) and elsewhere count for the major and minor. All courses must be passed with a grade of C- or better.
Latin American Studies Major (B.A.)
interdisciplinary, 10 courses
Learning Objectives
- Develop a basic understanding about society in Latin America that accounts for differences in geography, politics, economics, and culture, and examines the historical origins of social inequality.
- Build the ability to think critically about culture, history, politics, and language in Latin America.
- Develop some proficiency in Spanish.
Requirements:
LTAM 210 Latin American Perspectives; at least one Spanish or Brazilian Portuguese language course at the fourth semester level or higher; at least three courses in a primary concentration of a) humanities, b) social sciences, history and psychology, or c) environmental studies, and at least three courses outside the primary concentration; a senior year capstone project; and a methods course (e.g., a social science research methods course, a translation course, etc.). At least two of the 10 courses in the major must be from the advanced Latin American studies group.
Latin American Studies Minor
interdisciplinary, 5 courses
Requirements:
At least two courses in a primary concentration of a) humanities, b) social sciences, history and psychology, or c) environmental studies; at least two courses outside the primary concentration; and at least one Spanish or Brazilian Portuguese language course at the second semester level or above.
LTAM Courses
LTAM 210 Latin American Perspectives
Cross-Listed Courses
Humanities
BIDS 286 Gender, Nation, Literature
REL 205 Tongues of Fire
REL 238 Liberating Theology
REL 240 What is Christianity
REL 241 Rastaman and Christ
REL 250 Race and Religion
SPN 304 Body/Border
SPN 308 Culture and Identity in Spanish America
SPN 316 Voces de Mujeres
SPN 317 Arte y Revolucin
SPN 321 Cuentos de Amrica Latina
SPN 345 Latin American Literary Frontier
SPNE 325 Special Topics: Hispanic Studies
SPNE 330 Latina Writing in the United States
SPNE 345 The Paradoxes of Fiction: Latin American Contemporary Narrative
Advanced Humanities
SPN 355 Contemporary Theater: Innovations in Hispanic Drama
SPN 360 Special Topics: Hispanic Studies
SPN 365 Literature and Music of the Hispanic Caribbean
SPN 392 Latin American Women's Writings
SPN 420 Contemporary Latin American Novel
SPN 490 Cervantes: Don Quixote
SPNE 355 Garca Mrquez: The Major Works
Social Sciences, History and Psychology
ANTH 297 Peoples and Cultures of Latin America
ANTH 326 Patterns and Processes in Ancient Mesoamerica Urbanism
ECON 135 Latin American Economies
HIST 205 Modern Mexican History
HIST 210 The Latin American Terror State
HIST 226 Colonial Latin America
HIST 230 Race in Rio
HIST 231 Modern Latin America
POL 248 Politics of Development
POL 255 Latin American Politics
PSY 245 Introduction to Cross-Cultural Psychology
Advanced Social Sciences, History and Psychology
HIST 310 The Mexican Revolution
HIST 327 Central America and the US
HIST 362 The Mexican Drug Trade
PSY 346 Topics in Cross-Cultural Psychology
PSY 347 Research in Cross-Cultural Psychology
Methods (for the major only)
ANTH 273 Ethnographic Research and Methods
ECON 202 Statistics
EDUC 230 Teaching English Language Learners
POL 263 Philosophy of Political Science
PSY 210 Statistics & Design
SOC 211 Research Methods
SOC 212 Data Analysis
SPN 231 Spanish for the Professions
SPN 306 Lingstica Espanola
SPNE 210 Topics in Bilingual Education
Course Descriptions
LTAM 210 Latin American Perspectives An introduction to Latin America through histories and novels, commentaries, analyses and movies, from the perspective of those within Latin America and those outside of it. The organization of the course is chronological, starting with accomplishments of the indigenous Americans before major European settlement and ending with the crises and issues of the early 21st century. (Ristow, Spring)
LTAM 456 1/2 Credit Independent Study