CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN, CARIBBEAN & LATINO STUDIES - Spring 2021 Course Description Guide Machmer Hall 310 UMass-Amherst - UMass Amherst

CENTER FOR
LATIN AMERICAN, CARIBBEAN
    & LATINO STUDIES

         Spring 2021
  Course Description Guide

       Machmer Hall 310
        UMass-Amherst
       irivera-clacls@umass.edu

The Center for Latin American,                                            Spring 2021 Course Guide
Caribbean & Latino Studies

                                 Communication

Kimberlee Perez
COM497P On Citizenships and Belongings
M/W 2:30-3:45
40% PERCENTAGE OF LATINX CONTENT COVERED IN THE CLASS
Course Description: Citizenships and belongings are unstable, dynamic, ongoing sites of
struggle that animate one another. This course looks at citizenships and belongings as
communication practices that include and produce multiple and competing discourses, relations,
and lived experiences. Using critical women of color, feminist, queer and performance theories,
the course begins and centers questions on citizenships and belongings from and through their
systemic exclusions, namely those whose subjectivities, bodies, identities and relations place
them outside the bounds of the norm. This decolonial approach includes the makings and
doings of intersectionality, reflexivity, resistance, counterpublics, and worldmakings through
narratives, creativity, aesthetics, and embodiments of POC, queer, trans, working class,
migrant, and others who forge alternate intimacies, citizenships and belongings. Course work
will include, but will not be limited to, opportunities for non-normative knowledge production and
research such as such as performance, creative and experimental writing, digital and visual
practice.
No pre-req, open to Juniors/Seniors.

Leda Cooks
COMM 397N Interracial Communication
Course description: In this class, we will examine the role of communications in the
construction of race as a basis for similarity/difference, the ways that communication about race
intersects with other social group categories to form a basis for individual, social cultural and
national identities. We will look at race as a dynamic of power that is both embedded and
performed in contexts and institutions, in relation(ship) to others. Students will lead class
discussions on readings and facilitate group dialogues. There will also be quizzes on readings
and final (group) projects.

The Center for Latin American,                                      Spring 2021 Course Guide
Caribbean & Latino Studies

                                      English

Rachel Mordecai
English 372H Caribbean Literature
TTh 10:00am-11:15am
Course Description: In this course we will read contemporary works from the English-,
French-, and Spanish-speaking literatures of the Caribbean (all texts will be read in
English), comprising a mixture of "canonical" and emerging authors. Lectures (rare) and
discussions (regular) will address central themes in Caribbean writing, as well as issues
of form and style (including the interplay between creole and European languages).
Some of the themes that will preoccupy us are history and its marks upon the
Caribbean present; racial identity and ambiguity; colonial and neo-colonial relationships
among countries; gender and sexuality. Assignments will include an informal reading
journal and three major papers of varying lengths; there may also be student
presentations, small-group work, and in-class writing activities. Authors may include
Maryse Conde, Tiphanie Yanique, Kei Miller, Rene Depestre, Dionne Brand and Mayra
Santos-Febres.
100% Caribbean content

Rachel Mordecai
ENGL 891CF: Caribbean Family Sagas
Th 1:00pm-3:30pm
Course Description: This seminar will investigate how the conventions of family saga
are deployed to ease anxieties of belonging among contemporary subjects (whose
ability to claim the Caribbean as home-space is disrupted by racial alienation, fractured
genealogies, and the historical traumas of colonization and slavery) and authorize or
problematize the formation of modern Caribbean nation-states. Primary texts may
include V.S. Reid’s New Day, Patrick Chamoiseau’s Texaco, Lawrence Scott’s
Witchbroom, Dionne Brand’s At the Full and Change of the Moon, Margaret Cezair-
Thompson’s The True History of Paradise, Gisele Pineau’s The Drifting of Spirits, Julia
Alvarez’s In the Name of Salomé, Maryse Condé’s Tree of Life, and Rosario Ferré’s
House on the Lagoon.
100% Caribbean content

The Center for Latin American,                                        Spring 2021 Course Guide
Caribbean & Latino Studies

                                        History

Kevin A. Young
HISTORY 354: History of Mexico
T/TH 10:00-11:15am
(Spire number: 44213)
Course Description: This course traces the history of Mexican society, politics, and
culture from the late 18th century to the present. The first half analyzes the turbulent
formation of Mexico, the legacies of Spanish colonialism, peasant uprisings of the 19th
century, and the origins and course of the famous Revolution of 1910. The second half
focuses on the century since the revolution, including the consolidation of a
conservative one-party state, the so-called "Mexican miracle" of the mid-20th century,
the adoption of neoliberal economic policies starting in the 1980s, and the ongoing
political struggles of workers, peasants, women, students, and indigenous people.
Equipped with this historical grounding, we will then try to make sense of the crises of
neoliberalism, drug-related violence, and declining state legitimacy in the early part of
this century.
No prerequisites.

Joel Wolfe
HISTORY 392E. The United States in Latin America
M/W 2:30-3:45
Course Description: This class explores the long and contentious relationships between the
United States and the Latin American nations. It focuses on the late nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, analyzing the Spanish-American war, upheaval in Central America
in the 1920s, the place of Cuba within the growing informal U.S. empire, trade relations
with the South American nations, the impact of the Cold War on the hemisphere, the
role of the CIA in destabilizing and overthrowing popularly elected government, and the
U.S. as both a supporter and opponent of Human Rights and democracy under various
late twentieth-century presidents. We analyze these events through the lenses of
political, economic, social, and cultural history.
80% LatinX content covered in the class.
No Prerequisites.

The Center for Latin American,                                      Spring 2021 Course Guide
Caribbean & Latino Studies

Kevin A. Young
HISTORY 450 Latin American Revolutions
T/Th 2:30 – 3:45 pm
Course Description: Why would someone join a revolutionary movement? What allows
those movements to take power? If they do take power, what kinds of problems do they
face thereafter? Through a series of case studies from twentieth-century Latin America,
this course seeks to answer these and other questions. Most revolutions have faced
hostility from both foreign actors and certain domestic groups. Further obstacles have
stemmed from the fact that the revolutionaries themselves have often disagreed on
goals, holding different visions of the societies they wish to build. We will explore these
and other issues through close analysis of scholarly studies, personal testimonies,
government documents, newspapers, artwork, and films.
5% Latinx
No pre-requisites.

HIST 344/LLAS 344
The Cuban Revolution, 1959-2019
Amherst College Spring 2020
M W 12:30-1:50 pm
Dr. Russell Lohse
Course Description: Few events in the history of the Western Hemisphere have had
the impact of the Cuban Revolution. Sixty years after its triumph, the Revolution
continues to ignite controversy and to influence the politics of the Americas and beyond.
This course will provide an in-depth examination of the origins, course, development,
and historical interpretations of the Cuban Revolution over its first half-century. Its
charismatic leader, Fidel Castro, will receive special attention, as will his closest
collaborators: the honorary Cuban Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Fidel's younger brother,
Raúl. Among many other topics to be explored are the Revolution's turn to Marxism-
Leninism and the Soviet bloc; its contentious relationship with the United States; the
creation and construction of a Cuban socialism; Cuba's special relationship with Africa;
and the perennial efforts of Cuban émigrés to overthrow the Revolution. We will
conclude by considering the Revolution’s future in a post-Soviet -- and now post-Fidel --
world.

The Center for Latin American,                                       Spring 2021 Course Guide
Caribbean & Latino Studies

                                 Political Science

Angelica Bernal
Polisci 791 Latin American Political Thought
Tuesday 11:30-2:00pm, Graduate Level Course
Course Description: This course is an advanced examination of some of the most
influential thinkers and works in the tradition of Latin American political thought,
with a focus on the themes of protest and revolutionary politics,
popular power, and decolonialization.
No Prerequisites.
100% Latinx content

Sonia Alvarez
Polisci 392AP Activism, Participation and Protest
Tuesday 4-6:30 pm
Course Description: This course examines contemporary forms of political activism,
participation, and protest. Drawing on select case studies, principally from Latin America,
the U.S, and Europe, we will pay particular attention to the dynamic development of
feminisms, anti-racist/Black mobilizations, anti-austerity and pro-democracy protests, and
LGBTQ organizing.
30-40% Latinx content

The Center for Latin American,                                     Spring 2021 Course Guide
Caribbean & Latino Studies

                                   Art History

Ximena Gomez
Art History 329 – Latin American and US Latinx Art 1800-Present
T/Th 11:30-12:45
Course Description: This course is an introduction to the art produced in Latin America
and by people of Latin American descent, from 1800 to the present. Organized
chronologically, the course emphasizes the essential role that art and visual culture
have played in the political, social, and religious spheres of Latin America since the
wars of independence, as well as the way art is mobilized by Latinx people in the United
States. Classes will focus on key topics, including the art of national propaganda, the
activation of indigenous visual traditions, the representation and erasure of Afro-Latin
Americans, the visualizations of diasporic identities, and art as a contemporary political
tool.
100% Latinx content.
No pre-requisites.

Ximena Gomez
Art History 629 – Latin American and US Latinx Art 1800-Present
T/Th 11:30-12:45
Course Description: This course is an introduction to the art produced in Latin America
and by people of Latin American descent, from 1800 to the present. Organized
chronologically, the course emphasizes the essential role that art and visual culture
have played in the political, social, and religious spheres of Latin America since the
wars of independence, as well as the way art is mobilized by Latinx people in the United
States. Classes will focus on key topics, including the art of national propaganda, the
activation of indigenous visual traditions, the representation and erasure of Afro-Latin
Americans, the visualizations of diasporic identities, and art as a contemporary political
tool.
100% Latinx content.
No pre-requisites.

The Center for Latin American,                                             Spring 2021 Course Guide
Caribbean & Latino Studies

Ximena Gómez
Art History 791A – Afro-Latin American Art
T 4:00-6:45
Course Description: This graduate seminar investigates Afro-Latin American and Afro-Latinx art
from the colonial period to the present. Despite the growing fame in mainstream popular
culture of Afro-Latinx artists like Cardi B, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Amara La Negra, the
misconception that Latin Americans and US Latinxs are all brown mestizos (people of mixed
Spanish and Indigenous ancestry) persists. In this course we will analyze the critical role that art
and visual culture has played in (mis)shaping of Afro-Latinidad. Each week, we will take images
produced by, for, and about Afro-Latin Americans, as the starting point for the discussion of
major themes, including the visual codification of race, Anti-Blackness, colonialism, slavery and
abolition, Afro-Latin religiosity, and art activism. In addition, we will unpack the historiographic
traditions of the discipline of art history that have led to the erasure and marginalization of
Black artists and subjects.
100% Latinx content. No pre-requisites.

The Center for Latin American,                                      Spring 2021 Course Guide
Caribbean & Latino Studies

                                     Spanish
Margara Russotto
SPAN 301-01
CONVERSATIONAL SPANISH
T/Th 2:30 – 3:45 pm
Course Description: Advanced conversational course designed for students who want
to improve the
communicative abilities in Spanish. Activities designed to improve your conversational
skills and your practical knowledge about Hispanic culture and language.
Conversations, interviews, films and videos, group discussions and oral presentations.
Taught in Spanish
Latin American content: 99%
Prerequisites: Grade of C or higher in Spanish 240 or consent from the Instructor.

Emma Rivera-Rabago
SPAN 323-01 Spanish American Literature II
MWF 11:15 am -12:05 pm
Course Description: Introduction to the literature of Spanish America from the
end of the Romantic period to the present. Emphasis on literary currents and
their relation to history and culture of the period. Representative poetry,
narrative, drama. COURSE TAUGHT IN SPANISH.
Prerequisite: Spanish 240 or consent of instructor.
Latin-American content: 100%

Emma Rivera-Rabago
Span 322-01 Spanish American Literature I
Tu-Th 10:00 am – 11:15 am
Course Description: Introduction to the literature of Spanish America from the
beginnings to the end of the romantic Period. Emphasis on literary
currents and their relations to history and culture of the period. Representative
poetry, narrative, and drama. COURSE TAUGHT IN SPANISH.
Prerequisite: Spanish 240 or consent of instructor.
Latin-American content: 100%

The Center for Latin American,                                      Spring 2021 Course Guide
Caribbean & Latino Studies

Emma Rivera-Rabago
Span 322-02 Spanish American Literature I
Tu-Th 11:30 am – 12:45 pm
Course Description: Introduction to the literature of Spanish America from the
beginnings to the end of the romantic Period. Emphasis on literary
currents and their relations to history and culture of the period. Representative
poetry, narrative, and drama. COURSE TAUGHT IN SPANISH.
Prerequisite: Spanish 240 or consent of instructor.
Latin-American content: 100%

Patricia Gubitosi
SPAN 672 Hispanic Dialectology
Tuesday 4 – 6:30 pm
Course Description: This course examines and compares diachronic and synchronic
survey of the dialects of Spain, Spanish America and the Hispanic Caribbean. Some
theoretical approaches and methodologies to study the dialect classification will be
considered. Also, the course revises the debates on the origins and historical
development of Spanish dialects in Latin America as well as the most recent
developments in the fields of Dialectology." Course is taught in Spanish.
75% Latinx Content

Tal Goldfajn
SPAN 697 Disgust and Desire: On Emotions in Language and Translation
Monday 4-6 pm
Course Description: This course deals with emotions, language and translation. What
is emotion and how do different languages express human emotions such as anger,
disgust, love, yearning? The course examines the wide variety of cross-linguistic
differences in means of emotion expression and the cultural diversity of affective
repertoires. It then addresses the following questions: What so we learn from the
translation of emotions between different languages? How can we translate emotional
lives from one language to another, from one affective cultural repertoire to another?
Ranging from various translations of the Hebrew Bible to recent English translations of
Latin American literature Spanish and Portuguese, this course explores such issues as
the different approaches to emotion translation, the multiple challenges posed by
emotion translation, and the important implications of these challenges for translation
ethics. *This class is open to undergraduate students as well.
(No prerequisites)

The Center for Latin American,                                     Spring 2021 Course Guide
Caribbean & Latino Studies

Tal Goldfajn
PORT 309 Brazilian Women
T-TH 4 – 5:15 PM
Course Description: Mixing biography, literary criticism and cultural history this course
will explore women’s experience through Brazilian history as well as introduce the
achievements and contributions of women to the cultural and intellectual history of
Brazil. We will use literary works, films and essays from a variety of disciplines to
analyze what has been said by and about Brazilian women; the situation of Brazilian
women past and present. Moreover, we will discuss not only what Brazilian women
have achieved but also how fundamental issues in Brazilian history have hinged on
specific notions of gender. From Anita Garibaldi to Chiquinha Gonzaga and Nise da
Silveira among others, the present course will examine the role of women in Brazilian
history and culture, discuss the ways in which women have shaped Brazil’s past and
present, and analyze some of the ideas and experiences of women in Brazil.

No pre-requisites