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1210-1220 is an introductory sequence that allows students to develop basic fluency in Quechua, the most widely spoken indigenous language in the Americas. Students learn elements of Quechua's phonetics, vocabulary, morphology and syntax through an interactive approach and gain awareness of regional and dialectal differences. The course focuses on oral and written skills, with emphasis on tasks based on familiar contexts of use. It also introduces learners to the history, culture and geography of the Andes through exposure to cultural practices, proverbs, folklore, and artefacts of the region (e.g. textiles). Students will reflect on Quechua as an endangered language and on the significance of keeping this very popular indigenous language of Latin America alive.

1210-1220 is an introductory sequence that allows students to develop basic fluency in Quechua, the most widely spoken indigenous language in the Americas. Students learn elements of Quechua's phonetics, vocabulary, morphology and syntax through an interactive approach and gain awareness of regional and dialectal differences. The course focuses on oral and written skills, with emphasis on tasks based on familiar contexts of use. It also introduces learners to the history, culture and geography of the Andes through exposure to cultural practices, proverbs, folklore, and artefacts of the region (e.g. textiles). Students will reflect on Quechua as an endangered language and on the significance of keeping this very popular indigenous language of Latin America alive.

This course seeks a fuller recounting of U.S. history by remapping what we understand as America. We will examine traditional themes in the teaching of U.S. history-territorial expansion and empire, migration and nation building, industrialization and labor, war and revolution, and citizenship and transnationalism-but we will examine this American experience in a broader hemispheric context and include as actors americanos of Spanish, Mexican, Caribbean, and Central/South American ancestries.

When did the 'Americas' come in to being? Who created 'them' and how? What other geographic units of analysis might we consider in thinking about what Iberian explorers and intellectuals initially called the 'fourth part' of the world? Given the scope and extent of the Spanish and Portuguese empires, could 'the Americas' extend from the Caribbean to the Philippines? This course takes up such questions as a means to explore the history of what would become-only in the nineteenth century-'Latin America.' We move from the initial encounters of peoples from Africa and Iberia with the New World, the creation of long-distance trade with, and settlement in, Asia, and the establishment of colonial societies, through to the movements for independence in most of mainland Spanish America in the early 19th century and to the collapse of Spanish rule in the Pacific and Caribbean later that century. Through lectures, discussions and the reading of primary sources and secondary texts, the course examines the economic and social organization of the colonies, intellectual currents and colonial science, native accommodation and resistance to colonial rule, trade networks and imperial expansion, labor regimes and forms of economic production, and migration and movement.

To what extent does the ideal of the US as a vanguard for democracy and freedom in the world match up with other aspects-military, economic, and humanitarian-of US foreign policy? This same question about the degree to which discourses and practices correspond might be asked of other countries, like the Soviet Union, China, and Britain, but this course examines the ways in which US foreign policy has been deployed over the course of the twentieth century and the ways those policies have been perceived and received by people living in Latin America and Southeast Asia. Particular case studies will be addressed stemming from the faculty's specializations (for example, Vietnam, Cambodia, Guatemala, and Chile) and the emphasis is on the role of the United States in Latin America and Southeast Asia. Prominent themes will include forms of subversion, from military muscle to economic coercion, and how and why they have changed over time; meanings of liberty, democracy, freedom, and sovereignty in different places and times; popular responses to policies and actions of foreign administrations; the relationships between sovereign states and transnational corporations; the uses and abuses of History in the formulation and justification of policy initiatives and in local responses to them; and the complexities involved in discerning internal and external forces in an increasingly transnational world.

Do you wonder what the historical context is for migrations out of Central America? Or why many Brazilians are so fearful of the recent election of Jair Bolsonaro? Curious as to what the 'pink tide' is? Or why Silicon Valley investors are hanging out in Honduras and Panama? Who the Zapatistas are and why they call themselves by that name? When the very term 'Latin America' came into being? Why Chileans were the vanguard of the California Gold Rush? How Mexican cowboys ended up in Hawaii? If so, this course is for you. It surveys the social, political, cultural and economic history of Latin America from roughly 1800 to the present. The primary aim is to help you develop a mental map of the history of Latin America-of prominent themes issues; of historical eras and trajectories. Given the vastness of Latin America, and its somewhat arbitrary composition as an object of study, the approach of the course is thematic and chronological rather than regional. We will pay attention to a number of more specific and interconnected themes: the development of, and relationship between, capitalist economies and processes of state formation; the complex roles Britain and the U.S. have played in the region, but always with an appreciation for how Latin Americans have shaped their own histories and those of the U.S. and Britain; the ways in which non-elites-slaves, workers, peasants, among others-have shaped history; the politics of the production of history; and Latin America's 'situatedness' in a broader world.

What is the Caribbean? How did its native inhabitants fared in the aftermath of the arrival of Europeans? How did the region shift from a Spanish Lake to a heavily contested geopolitical site where all European powers vied for political and commercial superiority? What were the main production systems of the region and how did they result in dramatic environmental change? How did the eighteenth-century revolutions transform the Caribbean? In this introductory survey to Caribbean history we will answer these and many other questions through the study of the political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental transformations of the Caribbean from the arrival of Columbus to the era of the Haitian Revolution. We will follow indigenous people, Spanish conquistadors, English, Dutch, and French pirates and privateers, planters, and merchants, imperial officers, slaves, sailors, and revolutionaries as they adapted to the multiple transformations that shaped this region. Through lectures, discussions, and readings of primary and secondary sources we will navigate the Caribbean in a quest to understand the historical processes that gave shape to this tropical paradise.

This course is the first in a two-course sequence that studies the role of migration in the historical configuration of the Caribbean. This first part focuses on migrations to the Caribbean from the fifteenth century to the present. The course uses the arrival of numerous populations to the Caribbean as analytical lens to explore the role of new populations in shaping the social, political, racial, cultural, and economic landscape of the Caribbean. Through an analysis of the interactions among the many groups that peopled the Caribbean, the course offers students analytical tools to understand and develop their own interpretations of the historical development of the Caribbean, emphasizing processes of dispossession, racialization, colonialism, and resistance.

This course provides an overview of disastrous attempts at colonization in the Americas from ca. 1500 through ca. 1760. Over thirteen weeks, we will engage with the question of why some attempts at colonization failed and why some succeeded. We will also explore other early modern failures, from bankrupt monopoly trade companies to ill-fated buccaneer communities and entire cities destroyed by earthquakes and hurricanes. Exploring failures, rather than successes, will help students understand the contingent process of colonial expansion as well as the roles of Indigenous dispossession, African slavery, and inter-imperial trade networks to the success or failure of early modern colonies. Over the course of the semester, my lectures will cover broad themes in failed enterprises, while students will read several monographs and primary-source collections on specific disasters. Some central questions include: Why did some colonies fail and other thrived? What role did social factors like gender, race, and class play in colonial failures? What can we learn about colonialism and imperialism through a focus on when those processes ended in disasters?

This course is designed to introduce students to Latin American art from the pre-Columbian period to the present. It will cover the arts of ancient civilizations including the Olmec, Maya, Aztec, Moche, and Inca, as well as the colonial, modern, and contemporary arts of Latin America and the Latino/a diaspora. Major themes include the relationship between art and religion, innovations and transformations in Latin American art across time, art and identity, as well as Indigenous and Afro-Latin American contributions to the visual arts. This course examines the societal relevance of images across Latin American cultures by paying close attention to the historical and political contexts in which they were created. Course readings are drawn from the disciplines of art history, anthropology, and history, along with theoretical perspectives on colonialism, postcolonialism, identity, race, and ethnicity.

The legacies of slavery remain all too obvious in the modern Atlantic World. From demographic imbalances to pervasive social and economic inequality, much of the recent past has involved addressing that destructive early modern heritage. This course traces the roots of slavery and race in the Atlantic World from 1400 to 1800. Through lectures, readings, and class discussion, we will examine how politics, culture, gender, and the law intersected to shape the institution of slavery and the development of conceptions of race. As an Atlantic World course, we will take a comparative perspective and ask how different imperial regimes (Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English) fostered different systems of race and slavery in the Americas. We will also ask how the law as a lived experience, gender norms, and imperial politics all worked to shape the production of racial hierarchies.

According to the 2019 Trafficking in Persons Report released by the U.S. State Department, 24.9 million people worldwide are currently the victims of human trafficking and modern-day slavery. This upper-division course explores the roots of this modern crisis, focusing on human trafficking and slavery in the early modern Atlantic world, a region that encompasses Western Europe, the Americas, and Western Africa. Slavery and human trafficking in this region involved the interactions of three cultural groups, European, African, and American Indian, but within those broad categories were hundreds of different cultural, linguistic, and ethnic groups. Through readings focused on the conditions and cultures of slavery in the western hemisphere from the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries, the course will explore how slavery was defined, who was vulnerable to enslavement, what slavery meant socially and legally in different times and places across the Atlantic world, and why human trafficking and forced labor continued well past the legal abolition of transatlantic slavery. The course is divided into five parts: an introductory section on definitions of slavery and human trafficking, followed by sections on American Indian slavery, African slavery in West Africa and the Americas, servitude and captivity in the Atlantic world, and concluding with an analysis of the legacies of early modern slavery today.

This course explores major texts and themes of the Hispanic tradition from the 11th to the 17th centuries. We will examine general questions on literary analysis and the relationship between literature and history around certain events, such as medieval multicultural Iberia, the creation of the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century and the expulsion of the Jews in 1492; the encounter between the Old and the New Worlds; the 'opposition' of high and low in popular culture, and of the secular and the sacred in poetry and prose. Readings may be drawn from medieval short stories and miracle collections; chivalric romances, Columbus, Lazarillo de Tormes, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calder?and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, among others.

Interdisciplinary course offered every spring. Topics vary by semester, but readings always focus on current research in various disciplines and regions of Latin America. The range of issues addressed include the economic, social, cultural, and political trends and transitions in the area. In the weekly meetings, instructors and guest lecturers facilitate student discussions. Students taking the course are required to participate in all class discussions and write a research paper in their chosen focus area.

This seminar examines the Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Dominican diasporas in the United States. We will examine US relations with these three countries; the root causes of this Caribbean migration; their history in particular urban areas of the United States; and the political, social, and cultural issues that have attracted attention.

This seminar will introduce students to the expanding and dynamic historiography of the African diaspora. The most astute scholars of the African diaspora argue that diaspora is not to be conflated with migration for diaspora includes the cultural and intellectual work that constructs and reinforces linkages across time and space. Much of the early historiography of the African diaspora disproportionately focused on Anglophone theorists whose intellectual output engaged thinkers and communities in Anglophone West Africa, Britain, the Caribbean and the United States. Recent interventions in the historiography of the African diaspora has significantly broadened its geographical conceptualization by including a larger segment of Western Europe, Latin America and Asia. In addition, scholars of Africa are increasingly exploring topics in the African diaspora. Using a range of archival and secondary sources, students will explore the material, cultural and intellectual factors that are remaking the historiography of the African diaspora.

This course examines the development of the Caribbean since the Haitian Revolution. It will focus on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and our readings pay particular attention to the ways in which race, gender, and ethnicity shape the histories of the peoples of the region. The course uses a pan-Caribbean approach by focusing largely on three islands - Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba - that belonged to competing empires. Although the imperial powers that held these nations shaped their histories in distinctive ways these nations share certain common features. Therefore, we examine the differences and similarities of their histories as they evolved from plantation based colonies to independent nations.

This course explores how first-generation American and immigrant musicians from the Caribbean and Latin America arranged and commodified the folk music of their countries for audiences in the United States. Whether for entertainment, as political protest, or as a way to understand themselves, artists like Harry Belafonte and Franz Casseus in the 1950s to Nathalie Joachim and Layla McCalla in recent years embraced the music of Haiti, Jamaica, and Trinidad for musical inspiration. We will first consider the nature of folk music as a repository for cultural heritage and then examine its relationship to other genres of music. We will listen to many albums and compose our own folk arrangements. Other course themes will include: transnationalism, hybridity, commercialism, cultural appropriation and social justice. (HC)

Corruption in politics and economics has become a significant issue in the modern world. This course introduces students to the study of corruption and collusion from the perspective of early America and the Caribbean from 1500 through 1800. By examining the historical evolution of corruption, the course addresses questions such as: What is corruption and, by contrast, what is good governance? Who creates law and when is it enforced? Can societies be corrupt or only institutions? And, does economic corruption help or hurt financial development? Our readings and discussion will examine the intersection of politics, culture, gender, and economics. We will reflect on how early Americans understood corruption and collusion and what that can tell us about similar modern issues. In the end, the course focuses on the concept of corruption as a complex social function through the lens of bribery, piracy, sex crimes, and other forms of social deviancy.

This course examines the history of Chile from the 1700s to the present, always with an appreciation for its place in a broader world but always also with attention to its regional and national specificities and its links to the Pacific. Lectures will be paired with readings from various genres: fiction, poetry, journalism, manifestos, speeches, historical monographs, and short stories.

This course provides an introduction and overview of Brazilian culture. It will study different periods of Brazilian history, through the analysis of films, literature, essays, visual arts, and music. Students will explore different definitions of Brazilian identity and Brazilianness focusing on key topics including the formation of the colonial Brazil and the emergence of the nation of Brazil as a tropical paradise; slavery and abolition; the particularities century; and the contradictions of the modernization process throughout the 20th century. We will consider elements of Brazilian popular culture such as Carnival, Samba, and telenovels, and some of the most important cultural movements of the 20th century, such as Modernismo, Cinema Novo, and Tropicalia. The primary objective of the course is to provide students with the relevant background to understand Brazilian cultural history.

In this course, we will develop a toolbox of performance techniques based on methods developed in the Spanish-speaking and Latinx contexts. These techniques will be used in preparing short, original, collectively-created or scripted plays for production and public presentation in the October 2024 regional microtheater festival in upstate New York and/or the annual downtown Ithaca holiday pastorela in December.

This course provides a general, critical introduction to the history of Mexico since its independence from Spanish rule in the early nineteenth century. Rather than a chronological summation of events and great leaders, emphasis will be placed upon certain themes and trends with respect to economic, social and cultural development and change. We will be particularly interested in the patterns of conflict and negotiation that shaped Mexico's history and emphasis will be given throughout the course to the ways in which everyday people participated in and influenced the political events of their times and to the important regional, class, ethnic, and gender differences that have figured prominently in Mexico's history. The course also pays attention to the history of what one could call greater Mexico and relations with the United States. Finally, we will be concerned with the historiography, not just the history, of Mexico: that is, the ways in which the history of Mexico has been written and the political dimensions of writing those histories.

This course provides intermediate level students with the opportunity to advance their oral and written fluency, proficiency, and understanding of the grammar of Portuguese. In addition, students will be introduced to several cultural aspects of the Lusophone world, including regionalisms of Portuguese language. This goal will be achieved with the aid of literary and journalistic texts. Students will be expected to give individual and group presentations, as well as to write short pieces in the target language. The course is tailored to bridge language learning and content-based courses and research in Portuguese.

This course is a survey of the rise and decline of civilizations in the Andean region of western South America before the European invasion. We begin with a consideration of Andean environments and an overview of some of the common features of Andean societies, then examine the organization and interrelationships of social relations, economic patterns, political institutions, and ecology in the best understood precolumbian society in the Andes, the invasion-period Inka. We will then look at Andean prehistory in chronological sequence, with an eye to recognizing the emergence of these patterns in pre-Inka material remains. We will also consider issues of general theoretical interest - the use of invasion-period texts and ethnographic information to interpret precolumbian societies, the emergence of settled farming life, the development of cities and states - in comparative perspective.

This course is designed as an introduction to political, economic, and social issues in 20th century Latin America. Topics are organized chronologically, beginning with the crisis of agro-export economies and oligarchic rule in the 1930s, the onset of state-led development and mass politics in the 1930s and 40s, the military takeovers and revolutionary struggles of the 1960s and 70s, patterns of democratization and market liberalization in the 1980s and 90s, and the recent experience with populist and leftist governments in much of the region. Among the main issues covered are populism and corporatism, dependency theory and import-substitution industrialization, different patterns of authoritarian rule, social movements and revolution, democratic breakdowns and transitions, the debt crisis and market reforms, and U.S.-Latin American relations. Throughout the semester, we will draw on examples from the entire region, but focus on paradigmatic national cases. Knowledge of Spanish or Portuguese is not required.

This course focuses on a place and a concept where two of the most urgent issues of our times - migration and environmental degradation - converge, collide, and shape each other. It examines borders not as abstract lines on the map, but as dynamic hubs that connect human societies, politics, and cultures with the natural and built environments that we inhabit and transform. Through scholarly and creative work from an array of borders around the world, we will develop new theoretical approaches and methodological toolkits for rethinking and re-visioning borders in an era of climate change, toxic pollution, and mass extinction. The course encourages multi- and inter-disciplinary projects from students and will feature guests from diverse areas, disciplines, and practices.

In the early 1590s, a mysterious cartographer drew a map of the Americas for eager and curious European audiences. The orientation of the map was from the perspective of a ship crossing the Atlantic and arriving in the Caribbean, with Newfoundland marking the northern boundary and the islands of the Caribbean marking its southern boundary. The mapmaker knew what he was doing, an entire literary genre in sixteenth-century Europe was devoted to the islands of the Americas. Sixteenth-century Europeans' obsession with all things maritime and insular point to an important historical fact often overlooked in more land-based histories of colonies and empires: West and West Central Africans, Europeans, and Native Americans encountered one another initially from the bows of canoes, the decks of ships, or sandy beaches. And maritime cultures and technologies continued to influence the development of colonial societies-and resistance to colonization-throughout the colonial period. This course explores the history of Early America from the deck of a ship. Through lectures and readings, we will analyze how the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean created opportunities for some and cataclysmic misfortune for others. Self-liberated African and Afro-descended mariners, women running port towns in the absence of men, Kalinago pilots, and impressed European sailors will serve as some of our guides through a maritime history of early America.

This course connects Cornell and USFQ students to study Sustainability Education Policy in the U.S. and Ecuador. Focusing on UN SDG 4, the course includes collaborative research, international exchange, and direct engagement with local educators and policymakers to address global education challenges and promote sustainable development.

An introduction to ancient Mesoamerica, focusing on the nature and development of societies that are arguably the most complex to develop anywhere in the precolumbian Americas. The course provides a summary of the history of the region before the European invasion, but the emphasis is on the organization of Mesoamerican societies: the distinctive features of Mesoamerican cities, economies, political systems, religion. We begin by considering Mesoamerican societies at the time of the Spanish invasion. Our focus will be on descriptions of the Aztecs of Central Mexico by Europeans and indigenous survivors, in an attempt to extract from them a model of the fundamental organizational features of one Mesoamerican society, making allowances for what we can determine about the perspectives and biases of their authorsWe then review the precolumbian history of Mesoamerica looking for variations on these themes as well as indications of alternative forms of organization. We will also look at such issues as the transition from mobile to sedentary lifeways, the processes involved in the domestication of plants and animals, the emergence of cities and states, and the use of invasion-period and ethnographic information to interpret precolumbian societies in comparative perspective.

This course surveys the artistic and architectural traditions of Latin America during the period of Spanish colonial rule (ca. 1520s-1820s). It will center primarily on visual cultures of the viceroyalties of New Spain (Mexico) and Peru, but will also cover works of art and architecture from the Caribbean and the northern Andes. The course explores the legacy of pre-Columbian visual traditions in the colonial era as well as the lasting impact of colonial artistic practices in modern and contemporary Latin America. It will also examine colonial Latin America as the crossroads of dynamic artistic and cultural interaction between Indigenous, European, and Afrodescendant groups. Topics to be explored include issues of visual translation and transmission, art and agency, and the creation of new colonial artistic practices and idioms.

This course introduces students to the arts of the ancient Americas from circa 2000 BC to the Spanish invasions of the 15th and 16th centuries. The term pre-Columbian refers to the span of time during which indigenous cultures flourished before Christopher Columbus’ voyage of 1492. This course covers the arts of indigenous Mesoamerica (Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras), the Caribbean (Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and the Greater and Lesser Antilles), and Andean South America (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile). Students will become familiar with the history, archaeology, and visual arts of the earliest cultures that populated these regions up through the Inca, Aztec, and Maya cultures that encountered the Spaniards. This course also explores the legacies of pre-Columbian cultures among contemporary Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x artists in the United States.

In recent decades the Andean region of Latin America has become a focal point of international debate over alternative models of economic development and their environmental consequences. Windfall revenues from oil, gas, and mineral extraction have stimulated economic growth in the region, but they have also sparked opposition from environmental organizations and indigenous communities concerned about the effects on land and water resources and community livelihoods. This engaged learning course explores the political ecology of development in Ecuador, focusing on the tensions between extractive models of development and more environmentally-sustainable alternatives. The course will count for four credit hours spread across three modules in the fall, January, and spring semesters. The fall module provides an introduction to Ecuador's political and economic development as well as its racial and ethnic cultural diversity. It will also include background material on theoretical debates over sustainable development and the methods and purpose of community-based engaged learning. This will be followed by an intensive, two-week field trip to Ecuador in January to work on group projects with community partners, and a wrap-up module in the spring semester to complete and present final group projects.

The Cornell Steel Band explores the wide variety of music for an orchestra of instruments fashioned from 55-gallon oil drums, and an engine room of non-pitched percussion. Interwoven into the focus on hands-on practice is reflection on the meanings of steel band, historically and in the present, in its native Trinidad and Tobago and here in the United States. Formal musical training is not necessary, though a sense of rhythm and a good ear are helpful.

In recent decades the Andean region of Latin America has become a focal point of international debate over alternative models of economic development and their environmental consequences. Windfall revenues from oil, gas, and mineral extraction have stimulated economic growth in the region, but they have also sparked opposition from environmental organizations and indigenous communities concerned about the effects on land and water resources and community livelihoods. This engaged learning course explores the political ecology of development in Ecuador, focusing on the tensions between extractive models of development and more environmentally-sustainable alternatives. The course will count for four credit hours spread across three modules in the fall, January, and spring semesters. The fall module provides an introduction to Ecuador's political and economic development, its cultural diversity, theories of sustainable development, and community-based engaged learning. This will be followed by an intensive, two-week field trip to Ecuador in January to work on group projects with community partners, and a wrap-up module in the spring semester to complete final group projects. While in Ecuador in January, students will meet with local scholars, government officials, and representatives from civic and community organizations engaged in efforts to promote environmentally-sustainable forms of economic development, and they will divide into small groups to work on projects with community partners. Initiatives related to sustainable agro-forestry, food security, the protection of biodiversity, land and water conservation, and community-based participatory planning will be highlighted in group meetings and engaged learning projects.

In recent decades the Andean region of Latin America has become a focal point of international debate over alternative models of economic development and their environmental consequences. Windfall revenues from oil, gas, and mineral extraction have stimulated economic growth in the region, but they have also sparked opposition from environmental organizations and indigenous communities concerned about the effects on land and water resources and community livelihoods. This engaged learning course explores the political ecology of development in Ecuador, focusing on the tensions between extractive models of development and more environmentally-sustainable alternatives. The course will count for four credit hours spread across three modules in the fall, January, and spring semesters. The fall module provides an introduction to Ecuador's political and economic development, its cultural diversity, theories of sustainable development, and community-based engaged learning. This will be followed by an intensive, two-week field trip to Ecuador in January to work on group projects with community partners. The wrap-up module in the spring semester will give students an opportunity to write their final research papers and complete their group projects based on engaged learning experiences with community partners.

This course concerns a selection of influential artistic movements in Latin American from the early twentieth century to the present. Attention is given to issues such as the effects of colonialism and imperialism on Latin America's visual arts, the creation of national art, the relation of Latin American art and artists to cultural centers in Europe, The United States and other regions of the globe, the interaction of high art and popular culture, and the role of gender and race in various aspects of artistic practice. Students will also become acquainted with Latin American and Latinx artists working with new technologies.

As globalization draws the Americas ever closer together, reshaping our sense of a common and uncommon American culture, what claims might be made for a distinctive, diverse poetry and poetics of the Americas? How might we characterize its dominant forms and alternative practices? What shared influences, affiliations, concerns and approaches might we find and what convergences and differences emerge? Ranging across North and South America, Central America and the Caribbean, this course will place in conversation such figures as Poe, Pound, Stein, Williams, Neruda, Vallejo, Borges, Parra, Bola?Cesaire, Nourbese Philip, Hong, Long Soldier, Rankine, Lamar, Kaminsky, and Xie.

This course examines war and revolution as drivers of migration from Latin America and the Spanish Caribbean to the United States and Canada. From the War of 1898 to the wars in Central America, war and revolution have displaced millions of people, prompting internal and cross-border migration. This history underscores how migration is multicausal-that is, produced by a wide and complex range of intersecting drivers. War and revolution disrupt livelihoods, produce scarcity, and create the insecurity that makes it impossible to exercise a basic human right to stay home. The course also examines how Latinos have become actors in U.S. wars and interventions in their countries of ancestry.

Interested in Latino Studies and Latin American Studies? This course will explore topics in Anthropology, Art, Economics, History, Literature, Government, Sociology, etc., of US Latino and Latin American contexts. Course features guest speakers from Cornell and other institutions.

Topic: Latin American Moderinsims and Technology. The involvement of Latin American artists with modern media technologies dates at least to the late nineteenth century and has especially flourished in the last three decades. The canonical histories and criticism of Latin American art for the most part depict a history of artistic production in which technology plays a minor or invisible role. This construction of history reinforces the assumption that experimentation, innovation, and theorization in technological art are exclusive provinces of the developed world. As the history of art expands to include diverse areas of media arts and visual culture, the recognition of Latin American artists' involvement with technology is not only overdue but also essential to the development of more diverse and rigorous understandings of both modernity and modernism.

The colonial period in Latin America (circa 1521-1820s) witnessed the formation of one of the most diverse societies in the world. Labor regimes, religious activities, marriage alliances, and commercial contacts engendered by the Spanish colonial enterprise brought Spaniards, Africans, and Indigenous peoples into dynamic contact. This cross-fertilization of cultures resulted in the construction of new cultural categories and colonial identities whose reverberations continue to be felt into the present day. This course explores the role that visual culture played in the articulation of identity in Latin America. For the purposes of this seminar, identity can be loosely defined as the overlapping allegiances to which one ascribes, whether racial, cultural, gendered, religious, or community-based. The visual culture of colonial Latin America can reveal multitudes on the construction of self and community across temporal and geographical contexts. We will explore a variety of colonial Latin American objects and images, including paintings, textiles, and material culture. Our discussions of images will be guided by readings on hybridity, coloniality, cross-cultural exchange, and the early modern Atlantic world.

This seminar immerses students in the diverse painting traditions of colonial Latin America (1500s-1800s), with a focus on artistic practice in Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, and the Hispanophone Caribbean. Themes include the pluralism and material makeup of devotional images, aesthetic constructions of race and class, the development of artistic workshops, and the role of rebellion and revolution in art. Students will participate in the curatorial development of Cornell's first exhibition of colonial Latin American art, scheduled to open in June 2024. They will research the paintings selected for the exhibition; devise the installation layout and design; write wall texts; and collaborate on the development of educational programming. Activities will also include a field trip to Buffalo State University observe scientific analysis of select paintings from the exhibition.

This course is an exploration of Maya understandings of their own history as it is reflected in ancient texts. We will begin by looking at episodes in Colonial and recent history to illustrate some of the ways Maya thinking about history may differ from more familiar genres. We will then review basic aspects of precolumbian Maya writing, but we will focus mainly on analyzing texts from one or more Classic period Maya cities.

An introduction to belief systems in ancient Mexico and Central America, emphasizing the blending of religion, astrology, myth, history, and prophecy. Interpreting text and image in pre-Columbian books and inscriptions is a major focus.

Examines the structure and history of the largest polity in ancient Mexico, the empire of the Aztecs, using descriptions left by Spanish invaders, accounts written by Aztecs under Colonial rule, and archaeological evidence. Explores Aztec visions of the past, emphasizing the roles of myth, religion, and identity in Aztec statecraft and the construction of history.

In this course, we will take an inter-and multidisciplinary approach that examines works of fiction, film, performance, and photography to explore how specters intervene in and mold the social, political, and cultural landscape of contemporary Latin America. We will discuss how different spectral figures challenge official narratives of memory, ground political authority, complicate transitions and endings, and fuel social movements and revolutions. As we engage with overlapping times, uncanny spaces, and restless bodies, we will also consider how spectrality shapes is shaped by the development of new media, the contemporary resurgence of populist discourse, the global migration crisis, and the urgency of ecological concerns.

This course provides an introductory overview to environmental thought in Latin America and the Latinx diaspora. We will discuss pre-Columbian approaches to the nonhuman and colonialism's transformative impact on ecosystems in the hemispheric America's. We will then turn to contemporary debates about whether nature should be treated as a resource or as a commons, with special attention paid to Indigenous philosophers like Ailton Krenak, Latinx scholars like Laura Pulido, and visual artists like Laura Aguilar and Carolina Caycdo.

Plastics are a staple of everyday life. Yet, the oil and petrochemicals that make them possible remain largely out of sight. Their afterlife either as microplastics inside our bodies, or as trash that will take centuries to decompose, are subjects of fear and avoidance. This course explores why plastics are everywhere, how they affect our societies and cultures, and how artists, thinkers, and activists across North and South America are working to imagine alternatives to a life dependent on plastics and other petrochemicals.

This course examines Latin American literature in the context of the visual and auditory of the twentieth century and early twenty-first century, in which mass media such as photography, film, and the Internet have threatened writing's representational privilege as a technology of information processing and storage. We will analyze how literature has been able to sustain its visibilty in the competitive media ecology: the power of mass media fantasies to mold the individual's subjectivity, and of the visual image to manipulate reality; the relationship between literature and popular culture and the market place: and the young writers' engagement with the new technologies of the information age.

Guided independent study with a faculty member.

Interested in Latino Studies and Latin American Studies? This course will explore topics in Anthropology, Art, Economics, History, Literature, Government, Sociology, etc., of US Latino and Latin American contexts. Course features guest speakers from Cornell and other institutions.

In this course, we will develop a toolbox of performance techniques based on methods developed in the Spanish-speaking and Latinx contexts. These techniques will be used in preparing short, original, collectively-created or scripted plays for production and public presentation in the October 2024 regional microtheater festival in upstate New York and/or the annual downtown Ithaca holiday pastorela in December.

Topic: Latin American Modernisms and Technology. The involvement of Latin American artists with modern media technologies dates at least to the late nineteenth century and has especially flourished in the last three decades. The canonical histories and criticism of Latin American art for the most part depict a history of artistic production in which technology plays a minor or invisible role. This construction of history reinforces the assumption that experimentation, innovation, and theorization in technological art are exclusive provinces of the developed world. As the history of art expands to include diverse areas of media arts and visual culture, the recognition of Latin American artists' involvement with technology is not only overdue but also essential to the development of more diverse and rigorous understandings of both modernity and modernism.

The colonial period in Latin America (circa 1521-1820s) witnessed the formation of one of the most diverse societies in the world. Labor regimes, religious activities, marriage alliances, and commercial contacts engendered by the Spanish colonial enterprise brought Spaniards, Africans, and Indigenous peoples into dynamic contact. This cross-fertilization of cultures resulted in the construction of new cultural categories and colonial identities whose reverberations continue to be felt into the present day. This seminar explores the role that visual culture played in the articulation of identity in Latin America. For the purposes of this seminar, identity can be loosely defined as the overlapping allegiances to which one ascribes, whether racial, cultural, gendered, religious, or community-based. The visual culture of colonial Latin America can reveal multitudes on the construction of self and community across temporal and geographical contexts. We will explore a variety of colonial Latin American objects and images, including paintings, textiles, and material culture. Our discussions of images will be guided by readings on hybridity, coloniality, cross-cultural exchange, and the early modern Atlantic world.

This seminar immerses students in the diverse painting traditions of colonial Latin America (1500s-1800s), with a focus on artistic practice in Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, and the Hispanophone Caribbean. Themes include the pluralism and material makeup of devotional images, aesthetic constructions of race and class, the development of artistic workshops, and the role of rebellion and revolution in art. Students will participate in the curatorial development of Cornell's first exhibition of colonial Latin American art, scheduled to open in June 2024. They will research the paintings selected for the exhibition; devise the installation layout and design; write wall texts; and collaborate on the development of educational programming. Activities will also include a field trip to Buffalo State University observe scientific analysis of select paintings from the exhibition.

An introduction to ancient Mesoamerica, focusing on the nature and development of societies that are arguably the most complex to develop anywhere in the precolumbian Americas. The course provides a summary of the history of the region before the European invasion, but the emphasis is on the organization of Mesoamerican societies: the distinctive features of Mesoamerican cities, economies, political systems, religion. We begin by considering Mesoamerican societies at the time of the Spanish invasion. Our focus will be on descriptions of the Aztecs of Central Mexico by Europeans and indigenous survivors, in an attempt to extract from them a model of the fundamental organizational features of one Mesoamerican society, making allowances for what we can determine about the perspectives and biases of their authors. We then review the precolumbian history of Mesoamerica looking for variations on these themes as well as indications of alternative forms of organization. We will also look at such issues as the transition from mobile to sedentary lifeways, the processes involved in the domestication of plants and animals, the emergence of cities and states, and the use of invasion-period and ethnographic information to interpret precolumbian societies in comparative perspective.

This course is an exploration of Maya understandings of their own history as it is reflected in ancient texts. We will begin by looking at episodes in Colonial and recent history to illustrate some of the ways Maya thinking about history may differ from more familiar genres. We will then review basic aspects of precolumbian Maya writing, but we will focus mainly on analyzing texts from one or more Classic period Maya cities.

This course focuses on a place and a concept where two of the most urgent issues of our times - migration and environmental degradation - converge, collide, and shape each other. It examines borders not as abstract lines on the map, but as dynamic hubs that connect human societies, politics, and cultures with the natural and built environments that we inhabit and transform. Through scholarly and creative work from an array of borders around the world, we will develop new theoretical approaches and methodological toolkits for rethinking and re-visioning borders in an era of climate change, toxic pollution, and mass extinction. The course encourages multi- and inter-disciplinary projects from students and will feature guests from diverse areas, disciplines, and practices.

This seminar is a readings course on works from the past two decades that have wrestled theoretically, empirically, and narratively with the boundary between geography and history. The course is purposefully promiscuous, temporally and spatially, and the readings traverse wide swaths of time and space. Topics to be covered may include mapping, surveying, and exploration; the production of space; histories of property and enclosure; non-state spaces and counter-territorialities; development and 'nature'; and spatial subjectivities.

In this course, we will take an inter-and multidisciplinary approach that examines works of fiction, film, performance, and photography to explore how specters intervene in and mold the social, political, and cultural landscape of contemporary Latin America. We will discuss how different spectral figures challenge official narratives of memory, ground political authority, complicate transitions and endings, and fuel social movements and revolutions. As we engage with overlapping times, uncanny spaces, and restless bodies, we will also consider how spectrality shapes is shaped by the development of new media, the contemporary resurgence of populist discourse, the global migration crisis, and the urgency of ecological concerns.

Plastics are a staple of everyday life. Yet, the oil and petrochemicals that make them possible remain largely out of sight. Their afterlife either as microplastics inside our bodies, or as trash that will take centuries to decompose, are subjects of fear and avoidance. This course explores why plastics are everywhere, how they affect our societies and cultures, and how artists, thinkers, and activists across North and South America are working to imagine alternatives to a life dependent on plastics and other petrochemicals.

Explores the ways Mesoamericans understood the world and their place in it, and the ways they constructed history as these are reflected in the few books that have survived from the period before the European invasion. Examines the structure of writing and systems of notation, especially calendars, and considers their potential for illuminating Mesoamerican world views and approaches to history. Primary focus is detailed analysis of five precolumbian books: Codex Borgia, a central Mexican manual of divinatory ritual; Codex Boturini, a history of migration in central Mexico; Codex Nuttall, a Mixtec dynastic history; and two Maya books of astrology and divination, Codex Dresden and Codex Madrid.

This course asks how anthropologists articulate the relevance of our work in theoretical and political terms by staging an encounter between three disparate strands of scholarship: anthropology of the contemporary, engaged/public anthropology, and anthropology of everyday violence and ordinary affects. Designed to bring together pre-fieldwork and post-fieldwork graduate students, this seminar functions as a laboratory for expanding existing conversations and exploring further articulations of engaged anthropology of the contemporary. Participants will reflect on how their political commitments, ethnographic and other sensibilities, and theoretical perspectives inform each other, and will invigorate their research design, writing, and analytical frameworks in light of these reflections and engagement with course texts. The course is open to students from across the disciplines.

Examines the structure and history of the largest polity in ancient Mexico, the empire of the Aztecs, using descriptions left by Spanish invaders, accounts written by Aztecs under Colonial rule, and archaeological evidence. Explores Aztec visions of the past, emphasizing the roles of myth, religion, and identity in Aztec statecraft and the construction of history.