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LACS MINOR & COURSES

LACS Minor Flyer

The minor in Latin American and Caribbean Studies allows students to pursue an interdisciplinary course of study that provides a broad overview of Latin America and the Caribbean. Students are introduced to the principal historical, social, and cultural themes in the region, and through their electives, they are also able to develop more detailed knowledge of specific subjects in the region, such as the history of a particular country or the literature of a particular period
 
A more detailed guide to our minor can be found here.  Please email LACS Director Lori Flores to declare your interest in the minor degree: lori.flores@stonybrook.edu 
 
FALL '24 COURSES

HISPANIC LANGUAGES & LITERATURE DEPARTMENT

 

COURSES IN ENGLISH

HUS 150 Indigenous Cultures Latin America
Credit(s): 3 SBC: DIV; GLO; HUM LEC 01 MW 02:00-03:20PM JAVITS LECTR 109 TBA
 
HUS 201 Hispanic Visual Cultures
SBC: Arts and DIV-. MW 2.00 pm to 3.20 pm
 hispanic visual cultures
 
HUS 290  Latin American Cinema
Credit(s): 3 SBC: ARTS; DIV; GLO LEC 01 TR 11:00-11:55AM EARTH&SPACE 131 Kathleen Vernon
 LAB L01 T 11:56-01:50PM  EARTH&SPACE 131 Kathleen Vernon

Course description: A contextual approach to the national cinemas of Latin America. Students will develop their skill in film analysis as they examine the specific role of film in re-focusing the terms of ongoing debates on questions of national identity and the function of culture in society.

Film viewing and discussions will be organized around four overlapping themes--Mapping Urban Realities; Road Movies; Street Kids; and Violence andRevolution: A View from Childhood—intended to provide insight into the role of Latin American fiction and documentary cinema in exploring the diverse geographies, societies and histories of the Latin American continent. We will also devote special attention to the analysis of various manifestations of social, cultural and economic conflict while revealing the roots of pervasive structural and institutional inequities in 20th and 21st century Latin America.

los olvidados poster
 
ADVANCED COURSES IN SPANISH CULTURE
 
SPN 310 Span Gram & Comp Hisp-Am Bkgrd
Credit(s): 3 SBC: DIV; HFA+; LANG. Prerequisite: fluency in Spanish equivalent to SPN 212
 LEC 02 TR 02:00-03:20PM FREY HALL 326 TBA
 
SPN 311 Spanish Conversatn & Compositn
Credit(s): 3 SBC: DIV; HFA+; LANG
Prerequisite: SPN 212 or placement into 311 (LVL5). 
LEC 01 TR 02:00-03:20PM 26-AUG-2024 19-DEC-2024 FREY HALL 328 
 
SPN 321 Adv Spanish Grammar & Compostn
Credit(s): 3 SBC: CER; HFA+; WRTD. Prerequisite: SPN 310 or SPN 311
LEC 01 TR 11:00-12:20PM HARRIMAN HLL 115 Daniela Flesler
 
LATIN AMERICAN LITERATURE & CULTURE TAUGHT IN SPANISH
 
SPN 384 Intro Latin American Lit I/Cul (Cultures and texts from the colonial period)
Credit(s): 3 SBC: DIV; GLO; HFA+. Prerequisites: SPN 312.  MW 03:30-04:50 PM in FREY HALL 224- Prof. Paul Firbas
 
SPN 410  Theory in Contexts .TOPIC: NAVIGATING THE BORDER
Credit(s): 3 SBC: ESI; HFA+ . Prerequisite: SPN 384 or SPN 385 or SPN 386 or SPN 387 or SPN 388 or SPN 389
T 05:00-07:50PM FREY HALL 328. Dr. Sally Scott-Sabo.  Note: Offered as SPN 410 and SPN 542
 
Navigating the border explores the geographical, cultural, psychological, and legal challenges of Latin American migrants in their journeys to cross the Mexico/ U.S. border and begin a new life in the United States through novels, testimonios, essays, news articles, government documents, and film. The course includes an examination of U.S. migration policies and practices from the 1980’s to the present, the role of social media as a tool for regular pathways and irregular migration, the causes of emigration, and the U.S. detention center experience. We will delve into the origin and meanings of terms such as exileasylumdiasporaalien, and undocumented and apply this analysis to the discussion of course texts and U.S. immigration policies.  We will also examine migrant stereotypes, aporofobia, Mexican and U.S. grass-roots organizations that aid migrants during their journey, and the changing ethnic composition of migrants attempting to cross the Mexico/ U.S. border.
 
SPN 415 S3 Hispanic Cultures in Contact . TOPIC: CARIBBEAN DISCOURSES IN THE AGE OF COVID-19
Credit(s): 3 SBC: ESI; HFA+. Prerequisite: SPN 384 or SPN 385 or SPN 386 or SPN 387 or SPN 388 or SPN 389
MW 05:00-06:20 pm in PHYSICS P125. Prof. Lena Burgos-Lafuente. Offered as SPN 415 and SPN 510

This seminar will focus on the creation of literature, visual art, performance, and music within contemporary Caribbean culture. We will examine aesthetic and critical responses to the current social, ecological, and political challenges facing the region, as well as the historical construction of the Caribbean as a zone of "hospitality”. Instead of following a strict chronological order or providing discrete accounts of national traditions, we will organize the texts around common historical and aesthetic themes to explore art's relationship to mourning, debt, political unrest, the pandemic, state violence, colonialism, ecological disasters, and tourism economies in the region.

While concentrating on the artistic production of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic, we will reference dialogues with Anglophone and Francophone Caribbean texts, shedding light on key continuities and divergences constitutive of this corpus. We will also address gender politics, racial politics, gay/queer sexual politics, colonialism, political oppression, and their relation to aesthetics. Significant historical events such as Hurricanes Irma and María, Puerto Rico's Summer of 2019, Cuba's Movimiento San Isidro, Puerto Rico's Act 60, and the Dominican Republic's abortion ban will be considered in mapping artistic production.

Authors will include Achy Obejas, Allora & Calzadilla, Glorimar Marrero, Macha Colón, Johan Mijail, Yara Liceaga, Rita Indiana, Mara Pastor, Pedro Cabiya, Roque Salas, Yoss, Juan Carlos Quiñones, Jamaica Kincaid, Legna Rodríguez Iglesias, and Jorge Enrique Lage, along with critical essays by Mimi Sheller, Kamau Brathwaite, Sylvia Wynter, Édouard Glissant, Frantz Fanon, Audre Lorde, and others.

chapeo
 
 PORTUGUESE
Elementary Portuguese I: MoWe 3:30-5:20pm SOCBEHAV SCI N107 WESTCAMPUS
Portuguese for Spanish Speakers: MoWe 2-3:20pm SOCBEHAV SCI N107 WESTCAMPUS
 
 
HISTORY DEPARTMENT
 

HIS 379: Rebels & Revolutionaries: Latin America in the 1960s

GLO, SBS+, Professor Eric Zolov, Mondays/Wednesdays, 3:30-450pm. Frey Hall 105

This course explores the intertwined relationship between “rebels and revolutionaries”cembodied in the figure of Ernesto “Che” Guevara in Latin America during the Global 1960s. With his long hair, irreverence toward authority, and militancy, Guevara became a symbol of countercultural rebellion as well as social revolution. Through a close reading of primary sources, the class will focus on different concepts of “rebellion,” “liberation,” and “revolution,” set against the backdrop of guerrilla insurgency, military repression, student protest, and U.S. interventionism. Students will write three critical analysis papers that draw directly on materials from class. There are no midterms or final exams.

guevara

WOMEN AND GENDER STUDIES DEPARTMENT
WST 398: Topics, in Gender, Race, and Ethnicity: "Immigration, Nation, and The Media"  - DIV, SBS+
IN PERSON - Mon/Wed 3:30-4:50pm - Nancy Hiemstra

This course explores how debates about immigration tie to ideas of national identity, with a focus on the role played by media coverage of immigration issues and events. We identify causes and consequences of immigration through an interdisciplinary lens, with special attention to race, gender, class, sexuality, ability, and family. We analyze restrictive laws and enforcement measures employed to maintain national borders—territorial and conceptual—historically and today. We deconstruct common narratives, metaphors, and images evident in media coverage of immigration, and examine how they shape popular ideas about immigration, immigrant/citizen interactions, and experiences of citizenship and belonging. Throughout the semester, we pay attention to current news and events, with special attention to 2024 U.S. political campaigns. While our primary focus is on the United States, we also give attention to the relationship between immigration, nation, and media around the world. Course materials include a variety of academic readings, news sources, social media, and film/video.