HISP 206 - Reading and Writing about Hispanic Culture

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

Topic for 2024/25a: Labor in Latin America and the Caribbean. The racialized and gendered exploitation of human labor has long structured everyday life across Spanish-speaking geographies. In this course, we explore visual and written narratives from the 19th to the 21st centuries that depict labor in Latin America, the Caribbean, and minoritized sectors in the United States. We take a historical view by focusing on three periods: the mid-19th century age of state-building and high economic liberalism, the state-led “development” of the mid-20th century, and the present era of neoliberalism, beginning in the 1970s. Among other issues, the materials studied problematize the continued racialized polarities between areas of labor considered more worthy of dignity than others, the accelerated pace of capitalist extraction of human and non-human value, and the anxieties created by forced migration of populations considered criminal, undesirable, or superfluous. Students hone their Spanish speaking, reading, and writing skills by analyzing a variety of media genres that mediate labor and power, including literature, film, poetry, testimonials, journalism, social media, radio, performance art, grassroots activism, and policy. Examples include works by José Martí, José Mariateguí, Nicolás Guillén Landrián, Radio Venceremos, Sayak Valencia, #NiUnaMenos, Regina Galindo, and others. Veronica Brownstone.

Two 75-minute periods and one hour of conversation.

Course Format: CLS