Introduction to Latino/a cultural studies.
The Afro-Latinx Studies course focuses on the lives, identities, communities, struggles and cultural productions of Afro-Latinx people, or Afro-descended people from Latin America. We’ll attempt to complicate the already troubled political and social identifier of Latinx. Race as a socially constructed phenomenon with concrete, real-world consequences requires us as Latinx cultural theorists to examine the multiple and diverging ideas of Latinidad alongside the contextualization of how anti-Blackness functions in Latinx and Latin American cultures. By lifting back the layers of Latindad we’ll see how Afro-Latinx people have claimed citizenship, culture and rights through literature, music, art, media and activism, while also critiquing Latinidad for how it continues to erase and commit violence against Black Latinx people. Before the more formal term of “Afro-Latino” was theorized, Afro-descended people in both Latin America and the United States have grappled with the complex positionality of being racialized in the Americas. From Piri Thomas’ Down These Mean Streets to the current day Afro-Latina social movements like Black Latinas Know Collective, we’ll attempt to historize and contextualize shifts in racialization. Ultimately, we’ll ask ourselves if it is possible to resolve the problems of white supremacy and anti-Blackness entrenched in Latinidad/Latinx.
Tracing and elaboration of a selected theme in Latino/a cultural studies.
Introduction to the study of language. Language is the ability to produce and comprehend spoken and written words.
Language acquisition is the study of how humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language, as well as to produce words and sentences to communicate.