This course introduces students to methods of American Studies, Asian American Studies and Latino Studies through discussion of some of the signature ideas, events, and debates in and about America's past and present. It presents students various scholarly approaches to historical and mythic manifestations of America from local, national, and global perspectives and considers the historical and cognitive processes associated with the delineation of America. The course examines a wide range of material and media from the point of view of multiple fields of study.

The 1970s are one of the most fascinating periods in recent American history, marking a turn from the countercultural turmoil of the 1960s to the rising conservatism of the 1980s. Often overlooked, these years nonetheless encompass tremendous social, political, and cultural change. In this seminar, we'll examine the 1970s through 10 intriguing objects--some famous, some obscure---that shaped and reflected the decade's art, politics, economics, technology, and culture. We'll use each object as an occasion for looking deeper at the issues it encapsulates or represents, how those issues reverberate across the decade, and their legacy for today.

This interdisciplinary course examines the cultural and political significance of Puerto Rican mega star Bad Bunny who has transcended musical genres to become a global phenomenon. Through an interdisciplinary lens, students will engage in a critical analysis of his music, lyrics, aesthetics, activism, gender non-conforming performances, and savvy business strategies. We will examine how Bad Bunny/Benito uses his platform and artistry to negotiate the complexities of being both a global Latinx icon and a child of Puerto Rico's colonial context.

This course explores the construction, imaging, and experience of the racialized Latinx body while considering modern regimes of power. It examines legacies of White supremacy and Coloniality in relation to cultural production and the Latinx body. This course's pedagogical approach is rooted in Chicana/o Studies and will examine power in relation to Latinx and other communities of color--it does not focus on Mexican/Latinx communities exclusively. When analyzing power, it recognizes the importance of contextualizing visual, audio, and embodied performative representations of culture to understand how the body constantly speaks back to power.

This course examines Hurricane Maria's impact on Puerto Rico and the push for a resilient, equitable future. We will explore the disaster's effects on infrastructure, economy, and communities, and the role of colonialism and environmental injustice in setting the stage. Through research projects, students will have the opportunity to investigate specific aspects of Puerto Rico's post-Maria recovery and to propose innovative solutions that prioritize equity, sustainability, and community empowerment.

By taking a comparative approach, this course examines the role of social, economic, and political factors in the emergence and transformation of modern cities in the United States and selected areas of Latin America. We consider the city in its dual image: both as a center of progress and as a redoubt of social problems, especially poverty. Attention is given to spatial processes that have resulted in the aggregation and desegregation of populations differentiated by social class and race.

This course offers an introduction to modern Latin American literature and culture. It focuses on the complex ways in which cultural and intellectual production anticipates, participates in, and responds to political, social, and economic transformations in the 20th and 21st centuries. Through a wide spectrum of sources (essays, fiction, poetry, film, and art), students will study and discuss some of the most relevant issues in Latin American modern history, such as modernity, democracy, identity, gender, memory, and social justice.

How are ideas of belonging to the body politic defined in Spain, Latin America, and in Spanish-speaking communities in the United States? Who is "Latin American," "Latinx," "Boricua," "Chino," "Moor," "Indian," etc.? Who constructs these terms and why? Who do they include/exclude? Why do we need these identity markers in the first place? Our course will engage these questions by surveying and analyzing literary, historical, and visual productions from the time of the foundation of the Spanish empire to the present time in the Spanish-speaking world.

This course is an introduction to the theory and practice of oral history. Students will learn the principles and applications of oral history. The class will collaborate with the Historical Society of Princeton and the Princeton Public Library to continue developing the "Voces de la Diáspora" Oral History project, a project partner of "Voices of Princeton". Discussion on readings will be combined with hands-on activities to prepare students for conducting oral history interviews in Spanish.

This seminar examines Black Latinidad as an epistemology; as a way of knowing that allows us to better understand the historical relationship between race, colonialism and diaspora. Through the analysis of cultural texts: including novels, music, film, and visual art, we will engage in a genealogical examination of Black Latinidad beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century and through the present. Expanding the conceptual, geographical and temporal limitations that continue to produce Latinx Studies as a contemporary, U.S. based field of knowledge, our course will engage a historical approach to Latinx thought that centers blackness.

In this course students will be reading works from the Latinx literary canon as a survey of diverse Latinx voices. Through the course theme, students will examine how select Latinx authors write about community, identity, race, gender, resistance, and culture in a manner that captures The Latinx Experience. Selected texts will showcase how home is contested as their characters navigate their lives 'here' and 'there' via notions of diaspora, migration, and belonging, languages, and borders. This course analyzes Latinx literary works, including the course novels, Fruit of the Drunken Tree, Sabrina & Corina, and The House on Mango Street.

This course proposes a counter-narrative of the myths and fantasies that have been created about the Caribbean and of the historical and cultural realities surrounding them. Through a close reading of literary, artistic, critical, and historical texts we will examine race, ethnic, and gender identity constructions; the rise of the plantation economy; and the emergence of modern nations. The relationship between coloniality and the emergence of diasporic Caribbean voices of dissidence will be a guiding tone for our conversations throughout the semester as we unpack the links between colonialism and diaspora in the Caribbean.

This course explores how Latina sexualities and sexual economies are integrated with U.S. development and expansion of capital in Latin American countries. We trace the history of capitalism and its reliance on the construction of racialized, gendered, and sexualized subjects. We will explore how, similar to Asian and Black women, Latina's sexualities are integral to the accumulation of wealth in the United States. We focus on the sex trades, such as sex tourism in Cuba, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic, the booming online sex work industries in Colombia, and independent pornography industries like OnlyFans in the U.S.

This course examines the paradoxical position of Spanish in the United States. The course aims to place the issues and controversies related to linguistic subordination and the maintenance of Spanish in the broader context of Latino communities and their social and historical position in the United States. In addition, it tries to equip students with critical resources to address topics such as the relationship between language and identity, political debates around Spanish and English, and bilingualism and the processes of racialization of linguistic minorities.

This course is an introduction to the theory and practice of oral history. Students will learn the principles and applications of oral history. The class will collaborate with the Historical Society of Princeton and the Princeton Public Library to develop the first stage of the "Voces de la Diáspora" Oral History project, a project partner of "Voices of Princeton". Discussion on readings will be combined with hands-on activities to prepare students for conducting oral history interviews in Spanish.