Latinx & Latin American Studies Minor

Director: Elaine Padilla, Ph.D.

The Latinx & Latin American Studies minor is an inclusive curriculum that looks at both classical and contemporary topics in Latinx and Latin American Studies. The minor integrates intercultural communication and community action as a way to develop opportunities for praxis, research and exploration of the multiple identities of the Latinx and Latin American diaspora.

The program connects ethnic and area studies to provide an interdisciplinary focus. Students will critically examine the relationships of Latinxs, Latin Americans, people of the Caribbean and of the Iberian Peninsula to larger social, institutional, political, technological, economic, scientific, historical, religious, and cultural processes, ecologies, epistemologies and values. Students will examine the formation and position of group and individual identities through systematic study, active learning, and research which includes:

1. Understanding Historical and Cultural Knowledge
   1.  Pre-colonial, colonial, post-colonial, and decolonial socio-political histories of Latin America.
   2.  Historical and political developments of Latinx communities in the US and elsewhere.
   3.  Arts, literature, and representation as mechanisms for establishing identity and promoting social change.
   4.  The processes and implications of Latinidad as an umbrella term that both connects and obscures group and individual identities and differences.
   5.  The relationship between language and identity.
2. Analyzing Systems of Power, Oppression, Privilege, and Affordances
   1.  Social processes and stratification across race, class, gender, ethnicity, locale, language(s), generations, sexuality, religion (and so on).
   2.  Colonial and de-colonial epistemologies.
   3.  Transnational, border, diaspora, social, meta-barrio, slavery, and migration ecologies.
3. Applying the above to Community Engagement
   1.  Through critical perspectives and de-colonial theories (e.g., Asset-based understandings of community interactions) to students’ respective local and global engagements.
   2.  In students’ roles as global citizens who understand that group and/or individual actions have real life ethical ramifications.

Degree Requirements

Total program: 28 semester hours

Core Requirements

16 semester hours

Course List

Code	Title	Semester Hours
LLAS 100	Introduction to Latinx Studies	4
or SOC 336	Latino Experience
PHIL 319	Border Theory in Religion and Philosophy	4
or RCS 265	Decolonial Rhetorics
One of the following		4
LLAS 300	Latin American and Latinx Histories and Culture
HSTY 315	Intro to Latinx Histories
SPAN 321	Hispanic Civilization and Culture II
LLAS 400	Government and Politics in Latin America	4
or HSTY 455	Topics in Modern Latin America
Total Semester Hours		16

Electives

12 semester hours

Natural and Social Sciences Electives

Course List

Code	Title	Semester Hours
ANTH 221	Peoples and Culture of Mexico	4
ANTH 252	Forensic Anthropology	4
ANTH 453	Human Adaptation and Variation	4
BIOL 385	Community-Engaged Health Research	2,4
EDUC 113	Critical Pedagogies	4
HONR 380	Honors Colloquium II	2
HSM 306	Systemic Racism, Disparities, and Health: The Impact on Latinx Community	4
SOC 315	Race and Ethnicity	4
PADM 313	Urban Studies	4
PSY 450	Selected Topics 1	4

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Humanities and Fine Arts Electives

Course List

Code	Title	Semester Hours
ART 390	Art History: Selected Topics	4
CWRT 336	Latinx: The Magical & the Real	4
LIT/FREN 364	Caribbean Francophone Literature & Culture	4
MUS 106	Latin Music: Cajon Band	1
MUS 362	Music of Latin America	4
PLSC 415	Borderlands and Migration in North America	4
or HSTY 415	Borderlands and Migration in North America
REL 352	Latin American-Latinx Liberation Thought	4
RCS 390	Queer Theory and BIPOC Rhetorics	4
SPAN 350	Indigenous Writer-Translator	4
SPAN 386	Chicano Literature	4
SPAN 430	Caribbean Literature	4
SPAN 431	Word & Image: Mexico 1920-1940	4
THAR 113	Theatre, Acting, and Performance	4
THAR 344	Staging the Latinx Revolution	4
TV 408	Selected Topics	1-4