This is an advanced Seminar meant to deepen understanding of central themes in American Studies, Asian American Studies, and Latino/a Studies.The Seminar concentrates on historical trajectories, social and economic evolution, and cultural contributions to nation making on the part of Asian Americans and Latino/as. We will investigate colonial antecedents and processes of exclusion/stigmatization but also acts of resistance and claims on citizenship that have consistently identified the trajectory of immigrants and their descendants throughout American history.

The Oral History Lab is a hands-on course that will teach students how to conduct, catalogue, and archive oral histories. The course will be analyzing oral histories completed in SPA 364: Doing Oral History in Spanish and using them as a jumping off point to conduct more oral histories in the Princeton Latino/a/e community. The goal is to collect oral histories and write articles intended for a website on the Latine community in Princeton. Spanish-language skills are not required for this course.

This course explores Latin America's history from independence to the present. We examine the contentious process of building national polities and economies in a world of expansionist foreign powers. The region's move towards greater legal equality in the 19th century coexisted with social hierarchies related to class, race, gender, and place of origin. We explore how this tension generated stronger, even revolutionary demands for change in the 20th century, while considering how growing U.S. power shaped possibilities for regional transformation. Primary sources foreground the perspectives of elites, subalterns, artists and intellectuals.

History 306 studies all Latinos in the US, from those who have (im)migrated from across Latin America to those who lived in what became US lands. The course covers the historical origins of debates over land ownership, the border, assimilation expectations, discrimination, immigration regulation, intergroup differences, civil rights activism, and labor disputes. History 306 looks transnationally at Latin America's history by exploring shifts in US public opinion and domestic policies. By the end of the course, students will have a greater understanding and appreciation of how Latinos became an identifiable group in the US.

This introductory course examines what it means to be Latinx in the United States. We explore Latinx identity through an analysis of history, social processes, and gender. We analyze how processes of racialization are connected to class, gender, and sexuality, as well as other identity markers. This course studies experiences and events through cultural texts comprising verbal and non-verbal communication and representation and analyzes how Latinx communities negotiate empire, identity, language, and notions of home.

This seminar examines contemporary Latiné cinema, focusing on films produced in the U.S. by the Latiné diaspora who represent a significant and growing portion of the US population. Through an analysis of cinematic techniques, narrative styles, and thematic elements, the course will investigate how Latiné filmmakers address issues such as identity, gender, race, family, migration, colonialism, the Dreamers, and politics. Students will explore how Latiné cinema serves as a medium for both cultural heritage and resistance, offering visions of defiance against socio-political restraint and aspirations for a transformed future.

This course looks closely at how contemporary Latinx artists are reimagining photographic encounters and arrangements. The longer history of photography is traditionally told in terms of documentation, truth claims, the democratization of art, and colonial surveillance regimes. This course gives pride of place to Latinx artists who use the medium and its iterations (e.g. video installations, cyanotypes, photo collage, repurposing archival prints) to figure unconventional notions of intimacy, diaspora, identity, archives, revolution, futures, and immediacy.

An introduction to modern Latin American cultures and artistic and literary traditions through a wide spectrum of materials. We will discuss relevant issues in Latin American cultural, political, and social history, including the legacies of colonialism, the African diaspora, national fictions, gender and racial politics. Materials include short stories by Jorge Luis Borges and Samanta Schweblin; poems by Afro-Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén and Mexican poet Sara Uribe; paintings by Mexican muralists; films by Santiago Mitre and Claudia Llosa; writings by Indigenous activist Ailton Krenak.

This course explores the issues and controversies surrounding the linguistic subordination and maintenance of Spanish within Latino communities, situating them within the broader social and historical context of the United States. Students will gain critical insights into bilingualism, the interplay between language and identity, language policy, and the racialization of linguistic minorities. Additionally, the course introduces fundamental concepts of second language teaching, preparing students for the community-engaged component in which they will volunteer as ESL instructors with El Centro.

This seminar offers an intensive introduction to the principles and practices of dramaturgical and performance analysis of stage plays as written works, as blueprints for theatrical performance, and as exercises in worldmaking. This seminar also rehearses how the techniques of dramaturgical and performance analysis might be applied to modes of embodied enactment - whether historical or contemporary, whether in art or everyday life - beyond the theatrical frame. In Spring 2025, the course will focus on the life, work, and legacy of the pathbreaking Cuban-American playwright, director, designer, and teacher María Irene Fornés (1930-2018).