Latino Studies (2020 - 2022)
Introductory Core
Social and Cultural Analysis 101
SCA-UA 101 Offered every year. 4 points.
Introduces theories, methods, and political trajectories central to the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis (SCA). SCA addresses how individuals and populations structure their worlds and navigate the resulting social, cultural, and political terrain. It privileges scholarly work with an intersectional approach, drawing on theoretical insights from such fields as social geography, feminism and queer studies, ethnic studies, urban and metropolitan studies, critical race theory, labor studies, and cultural studies.
Cultures and Contexts: Contemporary Latino Cultures
CORE-UA 529 Offered every fall. 4 points.
See description under College Core Curriculum in this Bulletin.
Research Core
Advanced Research Seminar
SCA-UA 90 Prerequisite: either Social and Cultural Analysis 101 (SCA-UA 101) or Cultures and Contexts: Contemporary Latino Cultures (CORE-UA 529). Offered every semester. 4 points.
Students write a 20-25 page research paper with a focus on a specific research method. Topics vary by semester; see Albert for details.
Honors Courses
Senior Honors Seminar
SCA-UA 92 Prerequisites: 3.65 GPA or higher (both overall and in the major), Social and Cultural Analysis 101 (SCA-UA 101), Cultures and Contexts: Contemporary Latino Cultures (CORE-UA 529), and permission of the department. Offered every fall. 4 points.
Senior Honors Thesis
SCA-UA 93 Prerequisites: Senior Honors Seminar (SCA-UA 92), 3.65 GPA or higher (both overall and in the major), and permission of the department. Offered every spring. 4 points.
SCA Theory and Practice: The Internship Program
The 4-point internship program complements and enhances the formal course work of the Latino studies major. Students intern at agencies dealing with a range of issues pertaining to Latino studies and take a corequisite seminar that enables them to focus the work experience in meaningful academic terms. The goals of the internship are threefold: (1) to allow students to apply the theory they have gained through course work, (2) to provide students with analytical tools, and (3) to assist students in exploring professional career paths. The internship is open to juniors and seniors and requires an interview and permission of the director of internships.
SCA Theory and Practice: The Internship Program
SCA-UA 42 Requires ten hours a week of fieldwork. Offered every spring. 4 points.
Elective Courses
Independent Study
SCA-UA 197, 198 Prerequisite: permission of the program director. Offered every semester. 1 to 4 points per term.
Approaches to Latinx Studies
SCA-UA 501 Identical to ANTH-UA 501. Dávila. 4 points.
Explores a set of principles that have guided Latino/a presence in the United States. These principles can be found in many but not necessarily all of the readings. They include urban/rural life, freedom/ confinement, memoir as source of voice/other sources of voice, generational separation and identity, and loss and healing. The course traces a movement through time from masculinist nationalism to the recognition of variations in gender, sexuality, race, class, region, and national origin. Other principles may be added to this list as the course proceeds.
Latino/a Art and Performance in New York City
SCA-UA 532 4 points.
Topics: Latina/o music, the extensive history of Latina/o contributions to the artistic vitality of the Lower East Side, contemporary Latina/o art and the institutions that support it, and the city as a site for artistic possibility. Requires attendance at performances and visits to art galleries.
Latinx Art and Visual Culture
SCA-UA 533 4 points.
Examines the history of Latinx contributions to the artistic vitality of the United States and introduces students to some of the contemporary artists, debates, and institutions that support Latinx art in NYC and beyond. Pays special attention to the relationship between Latinx and Latin American art and consider linkages between museums, private and governmental art stakeholders, and communities.
Latino/a Popular Culture
SCA-UA 534 4 points.
Interdisciplinary examination of contemporary popular culture products—music, film, graphic novels, performance—by and for Latinos, especially issues of production, circulation, and consumption. Is popular culture a site of Latino/a cultural expression? How and in what ways? How is it circulated and consumed, and how is it mediated by different culture industries?
The Latinized City, New York and Beyond
SCA-UA 540 4 points.
Topics: economic and political factors that fuel the immigration of Latin American peoples to U.S. cities, their incorporation into U.S. society and culture, the impact of global economic restructuring of U.S. cities on urban race/ethnic relations and cultural politics, the contestation of space and power in global cities, issues of immigration and citizenship, and the politics of languages.
Topics in Latino Studies
SCA-UA 541 Offered every semester. 4 points.
Topics vary and include race and racism, politics, migration and immigration, language, assimilation, education, labor, citizenship, social movements, and expressive culture.
Latino Politics in the U.S.
SCA-UA 542 4 points.
Historical analysis of Latino political incorporation and of Latino efforts to gain political power and influence. Topics: identity-based social movements, voting behavior, the politics of transnationalism and globalization, and recent activism surrounding immigration.
Latina Feminist Studies
SCA-UA 548 4 points.
Contemporary cultural production by Latina feminist artists. Cultural objects as social and political texts. Topics: the borderlands as geographical and psychic boundary; the “mestiza” or “mulata” body as metaphor; assimilation experiences and familial relations; racism and education; revolution and political violence; the literature of exile; and the figure of the Malinche/La Llorona as race traitor or victim. Consideration of racial politics within post-nationalist movements for social justice.
NAFTA and Narcos
SCA-UA 562 Colloquium. 4 points.
Political and economic consequences of NAFTA on Mexican and U.S. foreign direct investment, industrialization, labor formation, and immigration. Traces flows of drugs, arms, and drug profits, as well as the relationship between violence, militarization, and changes in drug war policy in Mexico and the U.S. Considers gender dynamics of free trade and the drug economy and critically examines the figure of the narco or drug trafficker in popular culture.
Afro-Latino Culture and History
SCA-UA 565 4 points.
The historical background of African-descended peoples in the Spanish-speaking Americas and the social experience of black Latinos in the United States. Migration patterns, community formation, and narrative accounts of Afro-Latino life and traditions of cultural expression. Afro-Latino poetry and music. Theoretical and political consequences of this increasingly self-conscious transnational identity formation.
Caribbean Women Writers
SCA-UA 570 4 points.
How distinct colonial trajectories and independence movements shaped “modern” conceptions of female identity/sexuality, both in the region and in the U.S. diaspora. Feminist authors revisit and revise the trauma of colonialism and neocolonialism, the origin-stories of patriarchal nationalisms deployed by independence leaders, and the narrative of neoliberal development so often imposed by Western democracies.
Postmodern Travel Fictions
SCA-UA 572 4 points.
Post–World War II authors/filmmakers of the Americas. Topics: the legacy of colonialism; the concept of “freedom” embodied in travel writing and the ideology of conquest engraved in historical memory; the gendered dynamic of travel writing; literary representation (and perpetuation) of racialized myths about North and South America; and the symbolic meanings of locations and locales that protagonists, authors, and directors choose to visit.
Related Courses
The following courses count as faculty electives for Latino studies majors and minors. See the departmental or program sections in this Bulletin for course descriptions and prerequisites.
AFRICANA STUDIES
Language and Liberation: At Home in the Caribbean and Abroad
SCA-UA 163 Identical to LING-UA 26. Offered every year. 4 points.
AMERICAN STUDIES
Comparative U.S. Ethnic Studies
SCA-UA 224 4 points.
Intersections: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in U.S. History
SCA-UA 230 4 points.
Ethnicity and the Media
SCA-UA 232 Identical to ANTH-UA 232. 4 points.
The Criminal Justice State
SCA-UA 235 4 points.
Race and the American Right
SCA-UA 236 4 points.
Disability and Sexuality in American Culture
SCA-UA 238 4 points.
ASIAN/PACIFIC/AMERICAN STUDIES
The Constitution and People of Color
SCA-UA 366 Identical to POL-UA 801 and LWSOC-UA 327. 4 points.
Reading Race and Representation
SCA-UA 368 4 points.
METROPOLITAN STUDIES
Race and the Neoliberal Metropolis
SCA-UA 614 4 points.
Cross-Listed Electives
Majors and minors may take no more than two. See the departmental or program sections in this Bulletin for course descriptions and prerequisites.
ENGLISH
Latino Literature in the United States
SCA-UA 815 Identical to ENGL-UA 755, SPAN-UA 755. 4 points.
SOCIOLOGY
Race and Ethnicity
SCA-UA 803 Identical to SOC-UA 135. 4 points.
SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES
On Eating Others: Cannibalism and Anthropophagy in the Circum-Atlantic World
SCA-UA 846 Identical to PORT-UA 403 (formerly PORT-UA 600). 4 points.
STEINHARDT SCHOOL OF CULTURE, EDUCATION, AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
American Dilemmas: Race, Inequality, and the Unfulfilled Promise of Education
SCA-UA 755 Identical to TCHL-UE 41. 4 points.