LTS 3007 – Puerto Rican Culture
Online Synchronous Tuesday/Thursday 5:50pm – 7:05pm
Professor Gustavo Quintero Vera
This interdisciplinary course will examine the life of Puerto Ricans in the island, as well as that of the Puerto Rican diaspora in New York and beyond. In it we will explore the ever-changing history, culture, and beliefs of its people through poetry, novels, historical and critical essays, documentaries, videos, songs and podcasts. Some of the topics covered will be the nature of US-PR relations and its effect on the production of subjectivities, the current exploitation of the of the archipelago and its people through disaster capitalism and the multi-faceted resistances to these forces, and the analysis of popular and traditional culture through artistic expressions. This course intends to offer different entry points into a complex and contradictory culture that consistently challenges structures of local and imperial power through a critique of colonialism and its effects on identity formations and national discourses.
BLS3012 – Black Revolution and Political Thinking in The U.S.
In Person Tuesday/Thursday – 4:10pm – 5:25pm
Professor Karanja K. Carroll
This course analyzes Black political thinking and thinkers and their impact upon freedom and liberations struggles among people of African descent. A focus is placed upon developing the historical and cultural continuity from previous freedom movements to those of today. This semester will focus primarily on the various roles and contributions of anarchist thinkers and thinking within Black freedom movements and struggles for liberation.
LTS 3012 – Latinas: A Social and Cultural Survey
In Person Monday/Wednesday 2:30pm – 3:45pm
Professor Lizbeth De La Cruz Santana
Drawing on an interdisciplinary survey of Chicana/Latinas representation in the 20th and 21st centuries, we will study the struggles of intersectional feminisms of color, movement organizing, and social justice. We will explore how Chicanas and Latinas, including those of Mexican, Central American, South American, and Caribbean origins, currently living in the U.S. that were either born here or migrated from another country, create knowledge through the art of testimonios (a life-history narrative). Students will have opportunities to produce creative works to analyze the complex politics of race, class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and other categories of power in the lives of women of color in the United States.
LTS 3021 – The U.S. and Mexican Border
In Person Monday/Wednesday 10:45am – 12:00pm
Professor Lizbeth de la Cruz Santana
This course offers a paradigm of the border as both a space for the production of violence’s (the border as violence) and the production of surveillance mechanisms, illegalization practices, and resilience. We will study how the rise in policing and structural violence is produced at the border and how border communities and migrants challenge violence’s through arts, culture, and social movements. We will center cultural works about the border produced by Chicana/o/x/Latina/o/x storytellers who theorize about the U.S.- Mexico border represented in various genres (digital storytelling, memoir, poetry, children’s literature, art, film, community-engaged projects, and digital humanities projects). Students will have opportunities to produce creative works addressing the themes explored in the course.
LTS 3059 – Latino/a Literature in the United States
In Person Tuesday/Thursday 2:30pm – 3:45pm
Professor Rebecca Salois
This course examines significant works of literature written in English by Latines in the U.S. This semester we will concentrate on comics and graphic narratives (including superhero comics, historical and contemporary novels, and memoirs) written by and about Latines. Special attention will be given to issues of cultural identity, social class, race, and gender, as well as bilingualism and code-switching. We will also explore the sociopolitical contexts in which the works emerged and the commonalities and differences of the experiences of the Latin American diasporas in the United States.
BLS/LTS/LACS 4902 – Latin America and the Caribbean
In Person Tuesday/Thursday – 10:45am – 12:00pm
Professor Keisha Allan
In this course, we will explore representations of carnival and the carnivalesque in literature, art and film. We will examine how writers, artists and activists depict carnival as a locus of resistance to existing hierarchies. This course examines how the inherently unstable, contradictory and “shape-shifting” nature of the carnival and the carnivalesque creates avenues for social and political transformation. We will engage in discussions on representations of carnival and the carnivalesque in various forms of media.
