Read latinidad across critical differences in this literary seminar on major historical events shaping the nineteenth century US political landscape. From the Indian Removal Act, the Revolution of Texas and the Mexican American War, to the US Civil War, the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Spanish American War, “America” was built on transnational acts of racialized violence.

This course provides an introduction to the history of Latinxs (and Hispanics, a distinction in terms the course will address) in the United States. It explores the impact of various historical actors—women and men, natives and immigrants, political leaders and political dissidents, exiles and refugees—whose actions, interactions, and dynamics shaped the country and defined its character, its politics, its culture, its economics, and its social structures—in other words, its history.

This seminar considers cultural and intellectual approaches to the construction and emergence of individual self-awareness and self-reference, exploring a variety of representations of the autobiographical voice, textual authority, and the boundaries between fact and fiction. These acts and discursive manifestations of individual life experience will be studied from the sociocultural and political modes of the U.S. Latino and Latina category.

This seminar explores the representation of lived experiences, trajectories, and current events vis-à-vis the figure of the undocumented migrant, in contemporary American literature. Testimonial accounts, journalism chronicles, memoirs, poetry, cinematic works, and critical scholarship inform and propel our study of the experience of (“illegal”) migrant movement––departure, journey, and arrival––as portrayed in Latino and Latina literature.

Pundits, critics and fortune tellers have announced that by the year 2050 U.S. Latinos will number close to 100 million, constituting the third largest Latin American “nation” within a nation, behind Brazil and Mexico. This interdisciplinary course will provide a general introduction to the field of Latino/a Studies and how it is reconfiguring the study of the United States and the Americas. We will consider literature, history, sociology, economics, politics, and culture as we contemplate the terms: Latino/a, latinidad, Global South, transnational, and multinational.

Survey of U.S. Latino/a Literature from 1960s to present. Examines formation of a Latino/a literary canon, its heterogeneous voices and imaginations, thematic strands, historical and political contexts, theoretical approaches, establishing critical overview of the range of nationalities, communities, identifications, and practices falling under the Latino/a designation. Explores how Latina and Latino identities have been envisioned and manifested since the Civil Rights Movement, and how Latina- or Latino-specific cultural production continues in dialogue with U.S. multiracial landscape.

Required for students seeking the certificate in Latino/a Studies in the Global South. Provides students with the opportunity to synthesize theories and methodologies in Latino/a Studies taken in previous coursework and to critically reflect on content related to the Latino/a world, especially about latinidad in local and global contexts. Utilizes texts of a rigorous and probing nature in relation to individual research projects. Open to juniors and seniors who have previously taken Latino/a Studies in the Global South 101S: Introduction to Latino/a Studies in the Global South.

Focus on those who bring food to our tables, particularly those who labor in the fields of North Carolina and the Southeast. Students will learn about farmwork from the plantation system and slavery to sharecropping and up to the migrant and seasonal farmworker population today. Study and analysis of media representations of farmworkers and agricultural issues as well as historical and contemporary documentary work and its contributions to farmworker advocacy. Includes a service-learning component involving work in the community. One course.

Construction of Latino/a identity(ies) and formation of community voices through the lens of cultural, political, and social issues at local and national level. Assessment on knowledge of content, oral and written Spanish. Includes service-learning component. Recommended students take 300-level Spanish course prior to enrolling. One course.

Exploration of health issues in the Spanish-speaking world shaped by social, cultural, political, ethnic, and economic determinants. Topics: cultural competency, community beliefs, medical practices and policies, preventive medicine, mental health. Projects include presentations, writing, research, and conversations with local and global contacts. Evaluation on knowledge of content, oral and written proficiency in Spanish. One 300-level Spanish course recommended prior to enrolling. Prerequisite: Spanish 204 or equivalent. One course.