Featured Courses

Topics in Luso-Brazilian Culture

Portuguese 642
Indigenous Brazil

This course, taught by Professor Kathryn Sánchez, will focus on the representation of Indigenous people in Brazil through literature, art, film, performance, and rap music. After an exploratory look at Indianismo in late 18^th and early 19^th centuries in literature and art, the class will focus on the contemporary period of Indigenismo and indigenous artivism. We will discuss theories and concepts such as the “Romantic Indian” and the noble savage; cannibalism; the modern vs. the “primitive”; eradication and genocide; indigenous communities in times of the dictatorship, neoliberalism, and COVID; problematic acculturation; decolonizing art and museum culture; indigenous land rights since 1988; the aestheticization of indigenous struggles in urban contexts; and indigenous artivism and interventionism in Brazil and abroad.

The class is theoretically framed by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s Perspectivism, Nicolas Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics, and a variety of critics who have defined “Artivism” over the past decade.

Primary readings: Caramuru by Santa Rita Durão, Iracema or Guarani by José de Alencar, Macunaíma by Mário de Andrade, Maíra by Darcy Ribeiro, and Nove Noites by Bernardo Carvalho

Poetry and short stories: Gonçalves Dias, Daniel Munduruku, Eliane Potiguara, Kaká Wera, and Márcia Wayna

Artists: Albert Eckhout, Grão Vasco, Victor Meirelles, Sallisa Rosa, Denilson Baniwa, Naina Terena, Cranio, Kobra, Daiara Tukano, Jaider Esbell, and prominent indigenous rappers

Films: Como era gostoso o meu francês (1971); Iracema. Uma transa amazônica (1972); O Martírio (2016); Chuva é cantoria na aldeia dos mortos (2018)

requisite: Portuguese 225, 226, 311, or 312
OR Graduate or Professional Standing

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Survey of Latinx Popular Culture

Spanish/Chican@ and Latin@ Studies 364

This ethnic studies course, taught in Spanish by Professor Rubén Medina, offers an analysis of Latina and Latino popular culture to consider the varied make-up of Latinos in the United States, their specific histories, social dynamics, and politics through their creative expressions, performances, and cultural contestations.

We will cover key terms and concepts, cultural developments, and diverse interpretations while focusing on the analysis of Latinx music, performance art, film and media, sports, food, and car culture. Other topics include the production, circulation, and reception of Latinx popular culture, the use of Spanish and English languages, issues of identity, migration and interculturality, the role of the cultural industry, and the context of globalization. We will broadly explore the intersectionality of race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, and nation regarding Latinos.

requisites: Spanish 223 and 224

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