Latin American and Latino Studies

LALS 1400. Understanding Historical Change: Latin America. (3 Credits)

This course provides an introduction to the nature and methods of historical study and the examination of specific topics essential for understanding the history of Latin America from the independence movement to the present.

Attributes: AMCS, AMST, ASHS, GLBL, HC, HIST, INST, IPE, ISLA, LAIN, PJRC, PJST.

LALS 1999. Tutorial. (1 Credit)

Independent Study.

LALS 2005. American Pluralism. (4 Credits)

Contemporary and historical studies in the racial and ethnic diversity of American (U.S.) society with a special emphasis on the issues of race relations, migration and immigration and their relation to either (1) the distribution of economic or political power or (2) their cultural manifestations in literature, the arts and/or religion. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, ADVD, AMST, ASHS, HIAH, HIST, HIUL, LAHA, LASS, PLUR.

LALS 2999. Tutorial. (2 Credits)

Independent Study.

LALS 3000. Latinx Images in Media. (4 Credits)

This class will analyze changing Latinx images in U.S. media. The emphasis will be on English-language film and television productions. Gender, color, and class issues will be examined. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, ADVD, AMST, ASAM, ASHS, CCUS, COMC, COMM, LASS, PLUR, SOCI, URST, WGSS.

LALS 3005. Latin American Themes. (4 Credits)

This course allows students to explore ways to synthesize key topics in Latin American and Latina/o Studies (LALS) as an interdisciplinary field of study. It will compare the distinct approaches to these topics of the different disciplines represented by the LALS faculty (including History, Literature, Film Studies, Theology, Art History, Sociology, and Anthropology). Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ADVD, ALC, AMST, CCUS, COLI, COMC, COMM, LAHA, LAIN.

LALS 3007. Spanish Linguistics. (4 Credits)

This course focuses on the linguistic study of the Spanish language. The course discusses the formal domains of language structure - including speech sounds and their mental representations, sentence structure and semantic meaning, as well as social realities of language use and language change across different varieties of Spanish in the world. The course is taught in Spanish.

Attribute: ASSC.

LALS 3130. Race and Gender in Latin American Popular Music. (4 Credits)

More than just entertainment for the young, popular music is an important cultural force, especially its role in the creation, negotiation, and articulation of identities. In this course, we will analyze the various effects popular music can have on identity, especially race and gender, as well as how it serves as a link to the past, as part of creating an imagined community, and as a form of resistance to dominant ideologies. Examples of music genres will include bachata, dembow, soca, samba, zouk, tango, and trap. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: LAHA, PJRC, PJST.

LALS 3275. Hybrid Futures: A Panorama of Mexican Short Fiction. (4 Credits)

This course will explore the main themes of Mexican science fiction, from the late nineteenth century to today, using a panoramic approach that encompasses different forms of cultural production and media (literature, film, comics, street art, etc.). Through the science fiction lenses we will examine Mexico’s relation to technology and the processes of modernization, as well as the imagined future of labor, gender, and immigration, among other issues. We will frame Mexican science fiction as part of a larger Latin American tradition, while also discussing the connections to more mainstream (i.e. American and English) visions of the genre. All materials will be available online.

Attributes: ACUP, ADVD, ALC, AMST.

Prerequisite: SPAN 2500.

LALS 3343. Crime and Minority Rights. (4 Credits)

This course is designed to present an overview of criminal law. Topics will include theories of crime; the purpose of punishment; specific types of crimes, such as homicide, rape, robbery, and burglary; and the reasons why people commit crimes. In addition, the role of race will be discussed within the context of the administration of the criminal justice system. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ADVD, AMST, APPI, ASHS, LAHA, LASS, PJCJ, PJST, URST.

LALS 3344. Crime, Literature, and Latinos. (4 Credits)

This course examines the relationship between criminal law and literature. We will study how writers use stories about the law to express ideas of humanity. We will also examine the interplay between law and morality and discuss how authors have viewed the criminal justice system, with particular emphasis on the experience of Latinos. The reading list will include criminal law and criminal procedure law, as well as works by Latino fiction writers such as Bodega Dreams, Carlito's Way, and House of the Spirits, and by non-Latino writers such as Billy Budd and The Trial. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, ADVD, AMST, APPI, ASHS, ASLT, COLI, ENGL, INST, ISLA, LASS.

LALS 3346. Latinos and the Media. (4 Credits)

A seminar and workshop on the impact and influence of the news media on Latin Americans and U.S. Latinos and their image by acclaimed journalist and memoirist, Luisita Lopez Torregrosa, former national editor at The New York Times and author of the critically acclaimed memoires, Before the Rain: A Memoir of Love and Revolution and The Noise of Infinite Longing. This course will discuss and analyze the impact of negative labels and cultural and social typecasting on news written about Latin Americans and U.S. Latinos. It will also examine sources, such as films, memoires, and scholarly books, as alternative ways to transform and reinvent these images of Latin Americans and Latinos in the news. Students will learn to analyze the presentation of Latin American and Latino subjects in the news and compose news reports and essays that present more expansive and knowledgeable views of the lives and cultures of Latin Americans and U.S. Latinos. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, ADVD, AMST, LAHA.

LALS 3352. Policy Issues and Procedures in Criminal Law. (4 Credits)

Through a casebook and problem solving approach, this course will explore criminal procedure laws—including the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments of the Constitution—and how the police implement these laws. Particular emphasis will be placed on the manner in which police practices affect minority communities. The course will also examine and critique the criminal justice system. Please note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attribute: LASS.

LALS 3407. Foreignness & Translation: Multilingual Autobio Writing in Contemp Latin-Am & Latino Lit. (4 Credits)

This course studies manifestations of multilingualism in contemporary Latin-American and Latino literature, more particularly multilingualism that creates a tension between mother tongue and adoptive language when one of the languages is Spanish. It focuses on narratives and memoirs written by authors whose roots are in the Southern Cone (Argentina and Chile: Manuel Puig, Sylvia Molloy, Paloma Vidal, Ariel Dorfman…), the Caribbean (Pérez Firmat, Judith Ortiz Cofer…) and México (Richard Rodríguez, Gloria Anzaldúa, Ilan Stavans…). The paradoxes of multilingualism will be approached formally (categories of multilingualism: alternating between languages, self-translation, code switching…; rhetorical patterns, central tropes), thematically (identity construction and the perception of the self, the affective function of language) and sociologically (the difficulties to publish real bilingual texts as a consequence of unequal relationships of power between North and South). Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, ADVD, ALC, AMST, INST, ISLA, SPAN.

Prerequisite: SPAN 2500.

LALS 3421. Latin American Fiction. (4 Credits)

A study of Latin American narrative forms. Selected readings from major Latin American writers. Topics such as unity, diversity, magic realism, the search for a national identity, literature and underdevelopment, etc. will be examined in their social and literary context. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, ADVD, AMST, GLBL, LAHA.

LALS 3427. Hispanics/Latinos in the USA. (4 Credits)

Explores the Hispanic mosaic in the U.S. Special emphasis is given to Hispanic education, culture, and assimilation; the political significance of Hispanics; issues of gender, color, and race; and work and the changing economy. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ADVD, AMCS, AMST, ASHS, INST, ISLA, LASS, PLUR, URST.

LALS 3575. Painting the Empire: Understanding the Spanish Empire Through Art and Literature. (4 Credits)

The Golden Age of Spanish art and literature (known as “el Siglo de Oro”) coincided with the configuration of Spain as a global empire after the rise of the Habsburg dynasty to the Spanish throne (from around 1550 to around 1650). This course proposes a study of the main social, political and cultural conflicts that conformed that empire from a multidisciplinary perspective that combines the works of the empire’s most famous painters (El Greco, Diego Velázquez, José de Ribera, among others) with the works of its most representative writers (Lope de Vega, Miguel de Cervantes, María de Zayas, among others); topics such as the symbolic construction and shaping of space, gender, national identity or social and religious relationships will be approached through a combination of visual and textual representations. The course will also take great advantage of the important collections of Spanish Renaissance and Baroque painting held at several New York institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art of the Hispanic Society of America, including visits to those institutions and field work. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ALC, COLI.

Prerequisite: SPAN 2500.

LALS 3600. Latin America: Current Trends. (4 Credits)

The objective of this course is to help students develop the basic tools for political analysis in the context of an overview of the current political environment and economic circumstances of Latin America¿s main players. The course will provide information and guidelines for understanding the present situation within each of the main influential countries in the region and the interrelationship among these countries. The relationship with the United States and other extraregional players with increasingly important roles in the region, as well as the influence of the Organization of American States will also be explored. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ADVD, AMST, INST, ISLA, LASS, PJRC, PJST.

LALS 3601. Latin American Archeology. (4 Credits)

Latin America is one of the great culture areas of the ancient and modern worlds. The peoples of the region developed unique civilizations long before the arrival of Europeans. This course considers the religion, hieroglyphic writing systems, architecture, political economy, myth, and history of Pre-columbian cultures of Mesoamerica, South America and the Caribbean. We examine the latest archaeological research and primary ethnohistoric documents to study the Maya, Zapotec, Aztec, Moche, Inca, and Taino culture. A broad historical and geographical sweep allows us a deeper understanding of how the Latin American past continues to shape the present. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, ADVD, AMST, GLBL, LASS.

LALS 3602. Crossing Borders: Migrations, Gender, Sexuality. (4 Credits)

How does migration impact gender and sexuality? How do ideas about the 'border' affect concepts of gender and sexuality? This course uses anthropological work on the border as an analytical frame to address the construction of the meanings of home, identity, belonging, citizenship, the body and space in transnational contexts. Through engagement with migrant communities in the city it will examine how the changing concepts 'female,' 'male,' and transgender as well as sexual identities are redefined and practiced cross-culturally in the transnational Latino migrant experience. A review of contemporary theories about gender and sexuality and visits to Latino migrant communities and organizations in the city. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

LALS 3670. Hispanic Women. (4 Credits)

In this course, students will examine the changing roles of Hispanic women with regard to Hispanic men, motherhood, the labor force experience, sexual awareness, media myths, political and economic power, and women's liberation. Through the lenses of analytical work and literature, students will also examine the structural position and changing concepts of Hispanic women in the Americas. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, ADVD, AMST, ASHS, LAHA, LASS, PLUR, SOCI, URST, WGSS.

LALS 3840. Latin America Through Film. (4 Credits)

Major topics of Latin American cultural criticism through an examination of Latin American and Latino film production, with a special emphasis on the documentary as an alternative to mainstream cinema and television. Latin American media theories and cultural criticism. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, ADVD, AMST, COLI, FITV, INST, ISLA, LAHA, SPAN.

LALS 3930. Contemporary Cuban Culture Study Tour. (1 Credit)

This one-week, one-credit, spring study-tour course will explore renewed importance of Havana as both a local and global purveyor of culture since the fall of Soviet-style socialism in the 1990’s. It will focus on the city’s vibrant contemporary cultural scene in music, art, dance, literature and film as exhibited in museums, galleries, workshops, concert halls, and community centers and will give students a lived sense of the issues, topics and concerns addressed by contemporary Cuban artists in new innovate forms that respond to local conditions of economic transitions and to a globalized world market.

Prerequisite: SPAN 2001.

LALS 3950. Latino History. (4 Credits)

This course explores the development of the Latina/o population in the U.S. by focusing on the questions of migration, race, ethnicity, labor, family, sexuality, and citizenship. Specific topics include: United States colonial expansion and its effects on the population of Latin America; Mexican-Americans, and the making of the West; colonialism and the Puerto Rican Diaspora; Caribbean revolutions and the Cuban-American community; and globalization and recent Latina/o migrations (Dominicans, Colombians). Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, ADVD, AHC, AMST, APPI, ASHS, COLI, HIAH, HIST, INST, ISIN, ISLA, LAUH, PLUR, URST.

LALS 3951. Popular Education and Social Change in the Americas. (4 Credits)

Popular education emerged in the Americas as a liberation project nourished by revolutionary aspirations. The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire and others envisioned liberatory education by and for the people. This course will examine the historical moments and movements where popular education emerged. Taking up a range of voices and sources, we will consider the principles and practices that animated revolutionary projects and social movements in Cuba, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, among other Latin American and Latinx communities in the U.S. Together, we will learn from these experiences and enrich our own liberatory practices in and outside the classroom. This course is designed for students who have previous knowledge of Latin American or Latinx history. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: AHC, AMST, APPI, ASHS, HIGH, HIST, LAUH.

LALS 3955. Slavery Freedom/Atlantic World. (4 Credits)

The course will cover multiple regions of the Atlantic World – Latin America and the Caribbean, the U.S., Africa, and Europe – to understand slavery and freedom as intersecting global themes across space and time. Starting with indigenous and African slavery in the Spanish and Portuguese empires, we will understand how political and economic institutions, racial ideas, and even Enlightenment concepts about liberty informed a global history of human bondage. The course will look at a variety of materials, from slave narratives to court cases, databases, film, and literature to understand the experience of slavery and the fight for freedom through the perspectives of slaves as well as slave owners, slave traders, and abolitionists. We will also consider the development of African diasporic cultures in the Americas and the legacy of slavery in current debates about memory, reparations, and human trafficking. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, ADVD, AFAM, AHC, AMST, ASHS, HIST, INST, ISAF, ISEU, ISIN, ISLA, LAUH.

LALS 3962. Narratives of Truth and Justice in Latin America. (4 Credits)

There is no singular truth. In this course, students examine the varying truths that exist during and after civil wars, dictatorships, and political instability in 20th-century Latin America. As a class, we will read testimonies and official documents, watch documentaries and films, and analyze other cultural productions to compare official and collective truths and how they influence memory and justice projects. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: AHC, HIGH, HIUL, LASS, LAUH.

Prerequisites: HIST 1400 or LALS 1400.

LALS 3963. Afro-Latin America. (4 Credits)

An interdisciplinary course exploring Afro-Latin America from the perspectives of history, the arts, literature, law, and politics. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ADVD, AFAM, AMST, ASHS, GLBL, HIGH, HIST, HIUL, LAUH, WGSS.

LALS 3967. Modern Central America. (4 Credits)

This course covers Central American history from the dictators of the 1930s until the revolutionary decades and their aftermaths. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: AHC, AMST, APPI, ASHS, GLBL, HIGH, HIST, HIUL, LAUH.

LALS 3968. Mexico. (4 Credits)

This course covers the history of Mexico from pre-Columbian times to the present. It underscores major events (such as the Spanish conquest, independence, and the revolution) and long historical periods such as the colonial era, the turbulent 1800s, nation-building in the 1900s, and U.S.–Mexico relations. It further seeks to explain how the colonial legacy, race, the state, and migrations have shaped Mexican culture and identity. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ADVD, AHC, AMST, ASHS, GLBL, HIGH, HIST, INST, IPE, ISLA, LAUH.

LALS 3972. Revolution in Central America. (4 Credits)

This course covers the history of Central America from the 1930s to the present. It provides the background necessary for students to understand the revolutionary movements in Central America in the 1980s. Among the topics covered will be the situation of political and social exclusion of large sectors of the population, the impact of the rapid expansion of export agriculture, insurgency and counterinsurgency strategies, U.S. strategic interests in the region and the role of liberation theology. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: AHC, GLBL, HIGH, HIST, INST, IPE, ISLA, LASS, LAUH, PJSJ, PJST.

LALS 3977. Latin American History Through Film. (4 Credits)

We will screen Latin American and U.S. films to examine what we learn about events or ideas from Latin American history through film. We also will seek to understand how countries interpret their own particular histories in films. Readings will put the films into historical context. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, ADVD, AHC, AMST, ASHS, GLBL, HIGH, HIST, INST, ISLA, LAUH.

LALS 3999. Tutorial. (3 Credits)

Independent Study.

LALS 4001. Music, Text, and the Imperial Encounter. (4 Credits)

Beginning in the Middle Ages, cultures on different continents began to discover each other in new ways, and music played a vital role in their encounters. Using the disciplinary tools of literary studies and musicology, this course explores those interactions, focusing on writing and music as agents of political and religious power in processes of cultural exchange and conflict. Through units on Latin America, New England, China, and Africa, the course examines how missionaries and colonial leaders mixed literary and musical forms of cultural production to build new social structures; pre-existing indigenous cultures, and their creative post-contact collaboration and resistance in shaping hybrid identities. We study practices from both sides of the encounters. Knowledge of Spanish OR music is helpful but not required. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: AMST, ICC, LAHA.

LALS 4005. Queer Theory and the Americas. (4 Credits)

Drawing from the often divergent traditions of Anglo and Hispanic America, this course will take an interdisciplinary approach to queer methodologies for cultural and literary studies. Students will encounter foundational queer theoretical texts (both historical and contemporary) as well as novels, plays, and films, and will explore, for themselves, what queerness means and does. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, ADVD, AMST, ASHS, COLI, ENGL, ICC.

LALS 4100. Speaking For/As the Other. (4 Credits)

What are the implications of giving voice to those who are "voiceless"? This course explores the role of writing and speaking during the encounter of black, Indian, mestizo and Hispanic cultures in Latin America and Latina/o United States. By examining these cultural encounters, the course examines the political and ethical implications of speaking for and as the other Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: COLI, EP4, INST, IPE, ISLA, LAHA, SPAN, VAL, WGSS.

LALS 4105. Queer Caribbean and Its Diasporas. (4 Credits)

This interdisciplinary course (ICC) examines the representation of queer gender and sexual identities and cultural practices in the Caribbean and its diasporas. It brings together the fields of anthropology, comparative literary studies, and film studies to study the Caribbean as a multicultural, multiracial, multilingual, and transnational space. Through lectures, readings, film screenings, class discussions, and external activities we will compare processes of racialization, gendering, nation building, class stratification and migration in the formation of queer identities and practices in the Caribbean and its diasporas. Themes will include: gender and sexuality in citizenship formation, impact of colonialism on Caribbean queer identities and practices, queerness and its relationship to nation-building and modernization, queerness in revolutionary processes and revolutionary forms of queerness, Afro-Caribbean spiritual practices and queerness, queerness and urban culture, political and cultural and responses to state and interpersonal violence, the sociopolitical context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the region, sexual tourism and globalization, and the impact of migration on queer identities and practices. An upper-level interdisciplinary capstone course (ICC) in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, this course is also cross-listed with: Anthropology and Sociology, African and African American Studies, COLI, LALS and English. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, ADVD, AFAM, AMST, ANTH, ASHS, COLI, ENGL, ENRJ, ICC, LAHA, PJGS, PJST, SOCI, SPAN, WGSS.

LALS 4192. Rediscovering the New World. (4 Credits)

This course uses the lenses of literary studies and physics to consider the technologies that enabled the Spanish conquest of Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. In particular, it highlights 15th- and 16th-century writings of Christopher Columbus, Hernán Cortés, and others on the emergent science of the age of exploration. Concurrently, it examines scientific technologies that have emerged in the last decade and are being used to uncover “lost” pre-Hispanic cultures at sites such as Chichén Itzá, Tulum, and Teotihuacan. Students will hone their critical and analytical skills, and particularly their oral and written expression, in a multidisciplinary context while exploring one of the most dynamic time periods in modern history. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ICC, LAHA.

Mutually Exclusive: PHYS 4192.

LALS 4347. Latinx Borders. (4 Credits)

This course uses an interdisciplinary approach to examine the experiences of Latin Americans and Latinos. It employs literature and history to introduce students to the benefits of using multiple ways of acquiring knowledge. It then relies on other academic areas such as art and sociology to reinforce its interdisciplinarity. As a capstone course, it allows students to incorporate disciplines from their own academic foundation. It covers topics such as politics, social justice, race, gender, and identity. The course is taught in English, with readings and writings in Spanish. Note: Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ACUP, ADVD, AMST, APPI, COLI, GLBL, ICC.

Prerequisite: SPAN 2500.

LALS 4510. Conquest, Conversion, Conscience. (4 Credits)

The Spanish conquest of the New World and the forced conversion of its indigenous peoples were justified as rescuing indigenous peoples from the tyranny of their own sinfulness of cannibalism and bestiality. However, those same policies of conquest and conversion were also subject to intense scrutiny on moral and ethical grounds by Spaniards. In this course, we will closely examine a series of case studies and the philosophical and ethical debates they gave rise to. To understand the echoes of such debates and moral claims in the contemporary world we will look at recent debates over the doctrine of just war and cultural/religious practices of indigenous people today. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ADVD, AMST, APPI, ASHS, EP4, GLBL, HIGH, INST, ISEU, ISIN, ISLA, LAUH, PJRC, PJST, VAL.

LALS 4620. Oscar Romero: Faith and Politics in El Salvador. (4 Credits)

This course will investigate the life and ministry of Oscar Romero of El Salvador. Coming to office in a period of socio-political and religious upheaval, Romero functions as a lens through which students can explore important themes including: the nature and impact of liberation theology, the effects of US Cold War foreign policy, power in the Catholic Church and numerous issues involving the relationship between religion and politics. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: GLBL, LAHA, PJRJ, PJSJ, PJST, REST.

Prerequisites: THEO 1000 or THEO 1001 or THEO 1006 or THEO 1010 or THEO 1007 or THEO 1008 or THEO 1009 or HPLC 1401.

LALS 4855. Fascisms, Aesthetics and the Hispanic World. (4 Credits)

This course will explore various iterations of fascism in Spain, Latin America, and the United States in the 20th and 21st centuries. We will concentrate first on debates among historians about the definitions and origins of fascism, and then move on to its aesthetic embodiments throughout the Spanish-speaking world. We will examine primary texts that both uphold and undermine fascist ideals, as well as theoretical texts that illuminate the mechanisms by which this works. Our discussions will be informed by historical, philosophical, and literary approaches to fascism’s beginnings its transnational and transatlantic repercussions; and the persistence today of fascist rhetoric and aesthetics on three continents, particularly vis-à-vis the growing Hispanic presence in the US. Four-credit courses that meet for 150 minutes per week require three additional hours of class preparation per week on the part of the student in lieu of an additional hour of formal instruction.

Attributes: ICC, IPE, LAHA, LALS.

Prerequisite: SPAN 2500.

LALS 4999. Tutorial. (4 Credits)

Independent Study.