LSP Courses Fall 2025

DRAM 288: Theatre for Social Change, Writing, and Research

M 1:25-3:55 PM

Dr. Jacqueline Lawton

SPANISH 344: Latina/o American Culture: Migration, Borders, and Hybrid Identities

T/Th 11:00 AM – 12:15 PM

Dr. Oswaldo Estrada

The goal of this course is to critically examine Latin American migration, borders, and the construction of hybrid identities in the U.S. The course explores, among other themes and topics, coloniality, imperialism, discrimination, violence, race, religion, popular culture, and gender. The goals of the course are to broaden the understanding of Latin/o America; to be aware of its diversity and cultural wealth; to critically reflect on the formation and development of its cultural manifestations; to establish a dialogue between the students’ own culture and that of Latina/o immigrants, while questioning and revising current stereotypes; to grasp and critically analyze a variety of texts in Spanish and English from different origins and genres; and to relate texts and acquired knowledge with the historical moment and the cultural environment in which they have been produced.

ARTS 390: Performance as Social Practice

M/W 11:15 AM-2:00 PM

Dr. Dr. Martín Wannam

This course introduces the politics of performance art and its implications on social practice. Through a blend of seminar discussions, group workshops, and critique sessions, we will delve into various strategies for engaging with the medium. Our exploration will involve careful consideration of decolonial gestures, materiality, space, context, and intentionality. We’ll analyze how contemporary artists navigate discourses surrounding race, gender, sexuality, nationality, and class. Active participation in reading discussions, exercises, and artist lectures is mandatory. The culmination of the class will entail students developing either performance pieces or critical essays.

If you are an LTNO minor (or planning to be one) and would like to focus 50% on US LatinX topics in relation to your assignments, please speak with the professor in the first few days of class or before that to obtain the instructor’s permission to dedicate half your assignments to this end. This way you can count this course toward the LTNO minor.

LTAM 390-001: Migration and the Environment in Central America and the Caribbean

M 2:25-4:55 PM

Dr. Hannah Gill

This experiential three-credit course focuses on human migration in Central America and the Caribbean and includes the environment and climate change as key themes. Students will learn about the history and dynamics of migration connecting Central America and the Caribbean and the United States, exploring the factors that shape people’s decisions to leave a homeland. The course will examine how individuals, communities, and governments have shaped environments and responded to the impacts of climate change and migration in the region. The region is disproportionately impacted by climate change, with increased intensity of storms and changes in precipitation patterns that have disrupted crop production. Climate change exacerbates the region’s struggles with poverty and insecurity, which are rooted in a long history of U.S. imperialism and resource extraction. The course will also engage with expressive cultural materials (music, visual arts, literature and/or film) to understand themes in the experiences of people who have migrated.

This course includes a study abroad component and is closed for registration, but offers an opportunity for LSP minor credit for those enrolled.

This course fulfills the following General Education Objectives:

• Global Understanding
• Research and Discovery

LTAM 390-002: The Cuban Revolution

Tu/Th 12:30 AM-1:45 PM

Dr. Louis Perez

LTAM 390 will examine one of the transcendental events of twentieth-century Latin America.  Indeed: an event that had far-reaching global repercussions.  Under the auspices of the revolution, Cubans embarked upon an ambitious project of change.  Virtually all previously existing national institutions were abolished, modified, or otherwise reorganized in the service of a social justice project inscribed in the claim of national sovereignty and self-determination.

The course will focus on the origins and development of the Cuban revolution, spanning the years of the insurrectionary war of the 1950s through the present, with attention the context of social change, the policies and personalities of the revolution, the role played by Fidel Castro, change in gender and race relations, and the evolving character of socialism in Cuba, all through multi-disciplinary perspectives as a way to arrive at a fuller understanding of the multiple and interacting facets of the revolution.

The course will examine the prolonged antagonism between Cuba and the United States, to explore the broad contours of Cuba-U.S. relations, and especially how the antagonism has assumed the form of memory¿memory as personal remembrance, memory taught, and memory acquired, and how memory has acted continually to mediate the context of Cuba-U.S. relations. Attention will be given to the multiple ways that a people recall, and/or are taught to recall,some facets of their respective pasts, and the ways that a people are induced, or choose, to forget others facets of their past.

LTAM 390 seeks to foster cultural competencies in understanding the phenomenon of social change, and changelessness, in Latin America as cause and consequence, as a matter of ambiguities and contingencies.   More than the acquisition of specific knowledge relating to Cuba and the  revolution, students will be encouraged to “think through” controversy, to develop analytical frameworks within which to evaluate competing, and often conflicting, claims, to promote the development of knowledge of the complexities of the Cuban revolution, including the antecedents and sources of the revolution, the “whys” and the “hows” of the revolution, and most of all to develop the skills of critical thinking as a method with which to take measure of issues, often controversial issues, that matter.

DRAM 488: U.S. Latiné Theatre & Performance

*(Courses for graduate students only).

Summer 2024 Courses

AAAD 231: African American History Since 1865

Summer Session I, May 15 – June 22, 2024

M/T/Th 3:15-5:50 PM, online.

Dr. Robert Porter

Maymester 2024

DRAM 288: Theatre for Social Change, Writing, and Research

Maymester Session 1, May 15-31, 2024

Dr. Jacqueline Lawton

Spring 2024 Courses

DRAM 120: Play Analysis

M 9:05-11:35 AM

Dr. Jacqueline Lawton

MUSC 147: Music of the Americas

Tu/Th 9:30-10:45 AM

Dr. Juan Álamo

An introduction to contemporary Latin(o) American popular music, focusing on how musicians have negotiated an increasingly global popular culture industry. Class Notes: Some seats are reserved through a reserve capacity in this section for first year and transfer students. Instruction Mode: in person on campus learners.

This course fulfills the following General Education Objectives:

• Power, Difference, and Inequality

ENGL 164: Introduction to Latina/o Studies 

M/W/F 12:20-1:10 PM

Dr. Ylce Irizarry

This course introduces the concerns, methodology, and aesthetics of Latina/o/x Studies. Authors/identities explored center the Caribbean Basin, especially Afro-Diasporic cultures including Cuban, Dominican, Haitian, and Puerto Rican; Mexican culture, and Central American cultures, especially Guatemalan and Salvadoran. Reading includes poems, stories, novels. Viewing includes films, visual and performance art, music video.

This course fulfills the following General Education Objectives:

• Global Understanding and Engagement
• Aesthetics and Interpretive Analysis

ENGL 221H.001: American Literature, 1900-2000: The Night Optics of 20th and 21st Century U.S. Novels

M/W/F 10:10-11:00 AM

Dr. María DeGuzmán

This course examines major U.S. novels and their night optics. These novels of the night perform a deep questioning of the “American Dream” and the novelistic task of giving form to chaos and refiguring the social order. This course examines the intertwining legacies of the dark side of the Enlightenment, Gothicism, Romanticism, Naturalism, noir, existentialism, Gnosticism, and socio-political and aesthetic dissent. Required reading: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night (1934); Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood (1936); William Styron’s Lie Down in Darkness (1951), Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952), John Rechy’s City of Night (1963), Toni Morrison’s Jazz (1992), Paul Auster’s Oracle Night (2003), and Manuel Muñoz’s What You See in the Dark (2011) in combination with ongoing reading of sections of Dr. DeGuzmán’s Buenas Noches, American Culture: Latina/o Aesthetics of Night and Understanding John Rechy.

DRAM 230: Theatre of the Word

M 1:25-3:55 PM

Dr. Jacqueline Lawton

WGST 233: Introduction to Latina Literature

Tu/Th 3:30-4:45 PM

Instructor Meleena Gil

This course will provide an introduction to Latina literature. We will read a variety of genres from a range of ethno-national perspectives and examine such topics as immigration, identity, mother-daughter relationships, and sexuality.

This course fulfills the following General Education Objectives:

• Power, Difference, and Inequality
• Aesthetics and Interpretive Analysis
• Making Connections Gen Ed: LA; US.

HIST 241: History of Latinos in the United States

M/W/F 11:15 AM-12:05 PM

Instructor Cristian Roberto Walk

This course examines the history of Latinos in the United States from the early 19^th century to the present. We will explore how Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Central Americans, and other Latinos built communities while facing significant political and economic barriers. The course focuses on changing notions of race, class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and citizenship and how those changes shaped the experiences of Latinos. We will consider many facets of Latino life such as work, culture, and politics. The main themes we will cover include migration, empire, resistance, and identity. The goal of this course is to situate Latinos into a U.S. national narrative.

ENGL 394: Latinx Hybrid Narrative: Experimental Fiction and Film

M/W/F 10:10-11:00 AM

Dr. Ylce Irizarry

This course will examine books and films that are narrative in nature to consider how authors and film makers engage concerns intersecting at different points of self-conception including but not limited to experiences of diaspora, dis/ability, gender, geography, nationality, race, sexuality, spirituality, and transnationalism. We will consider the roles of collage, image, genre, language, mise-en-scène and paratext in fiction and film as they de/re/construct individual, communal, and national identities.  This course does not explore film production or offer students training in film creation or creative writing. Course materials will include 5-6 short stories, 6 – 7 novels, and 8-9 shorter length films, which will be viewed in class. Assignments will include Short Homeworks & Analytical Notes (35%); 2 In-Class Exams (20%), 2 Group Projects (20%), and 1 Research Essay(25%).

This course fulfills the following General Education Objectives:

• Power, Difference, and Inequality
• Aesthetics and Interpretive Analysis

ANTH 450: Ethnographic Research Methods

Tu 3:30-6:00 PM

Dr. Angela Stuesse

LTNO Minors can take the course for LTNO credit by designing a Latinx-focused research project.

This course offers an opportunity for students to learn about the methodologies of ethnographic research and put these into practice through a semester-long field research project in the Triangle. Though this project, we explore the theoretical, ethical, and practical promises and challenges of ethnography, from problem definition, research design, and entering the field to data analysis, validity, and “writing up.”  Along the way we focus on the collection and analysis of ethnographic data using participant observation, fieldnotes, interviewing, life histories, visual methods, focus groups, archival and ethnographic survey research, and various strategies for organizing and coding data.

Each week’s readings teach us about (a) new research method(s), which we discuss in class and then implement in our projects through weekly structured ethnographic assignments.  Class meetings are used largely as workshops to discuss what we are learning and provide / receive feedback (both instructor and peer-to-peer) on our ongoing projects.  Students’ work over the semester culminates in an in-class presentation of their ethnographic research, as well as a final ethnographic report.

Tu/Th 9:30-10:45 AM

Dr. Adam Versényi

Fulfills the Aesthetic and Interpretative Analysis Focus and the Power, Difference, and Inequality Focus Capacities.

This course investigates U.S. Latino/a/é theatre texts and performance practices as a discreet genre within the larger context of theatre in the United States. Students will study what distinguishes U.S. Latino/a/é theatre from the larger dominant (European American) culture, as well as the diversity of forms, styles, and theatrical practices present within U.S. Latino/a/é theatre itself.

This course fulfills the following General Education Objectives:

• Power, Difference, and Inequality
• or Aesthetics and Interpretive Analysis

MEJO 490-007: COVERING AND ENGAGING LATINO/A/X COMMUNITIES

M/W 2:00-3:15 PM

Professor Leyla Santiago

We will dive into the nuances of Latino/a/x communities in the U.S. and the best practices to responsibly engage and cover the rapidly growing population. Students will explore the various facets of the community, including history and culture, to understand why it should not be considered a monolith when analyzing issues like health, politics, religion,
immigration, business and the economy. The course will give future journalists and communication professionals a better understanding of how to successfully reach Latino/a/x communities for newsgathering or targeting in strategic communication campaigns.

ENGL 687: Queer LatinX Environmentalisms

M/W/F 2:30-3:20

Dr. María DeGuzmán

Fulfills the AESTHETICS focus and the POWER focus. Any questions, email: deguzman@email.unc.edu

This mixed level graduate and advanced undergraduate course examines queer LatinX literature from the 1990s to the present as it intersects with ecological and environmentalist concerns. LatinX literature is multi-ethno-racial and, even when emerging from the United Sates, is multi-national in terms of dovetailing with other national heritage cultures. We explore how these cultural productions question normative assumptions about the “order of things,” the “naturalness” of nature, and the “inevitability” of the historical exploitations of coloniality and the ongoing predations of neocolonialism.We pay close attention to LatinX cultural productions that approach cosmology, ecology, and environmental justice from queer perspectives and that queer ecological concerns from minoritized perspectives.“Queer” and “LatinX” combined with one another and modifying “Environmentalisms” signal other ways of thinking, doing, being, and becoming. These other ways entail exploring concepts of “nature” entangled with and dis-entangled from the coercive essentialisms of “natural law” and the violent settler-colonialism informing patriarchal capitalist “normalcy”; thinking beyond the blinders of heteronormative and species-hierarchical traditional humanism; perceiving and valuing multiple forms of kinship between humans and between humans and other life forms; ceasing to measure worth by a compulsory procreational model; conceiving sustainable interdependencies and thriving assemblages; andcultivating the diversity of diversity as part of salvaging what remains of biodiversity in this time of human-induced global and planetary crisis. With every text, film, and other cultural production, we will be exploring its aesthetic dimensions (hence FC-AESTH) in relation to its socio-political dimensions (FC-POWER).Assignments: two 8-page essays totaling at least 16 pages for undergraduates (for graduate students the second essay is 22–25 pages long), active class participation, and final exam. The grade percentage distribution is as follows: essay 1 (30%), essay 2 (40%), final exam (20%), and class participationthat includes individual and collaborative oral presentations(10%).

This course fulfills the following General Education Objectives:

• Power, Difference, and Inequality
• Aesthetics and Interpretive Analysis

Fall 2023 Courses

ROML 055H.001: Writing with an Accent: Latina/o Literature and Culture

Tu/Th 11:00 AM-12:15 PM

Dr. Oswaldo Estrada

This seminar focuses on the literary production of Latinos living in the U.S. Using a variety of materials (essays, documentaries, films, music) and English-language texts (novels, short stories, plays, poetry) we will examine works by Chicano, Peruvian-American, Nuyorican, Central-American-American, Dominican, and Cuban-American writers. Topics to be discussed include: Latino or Hispanic? What’s in a Name?; The Politics of Bilingualism; The Search for Home in Migrant, Rural, and Urban Environments; The Many Faces of Machismo; Religion and Spirituality in Latino Communities; Forms of Prejudice and Discrimination; Music as a Cultural Bridge. All readings will be in English, though knowledge of Spanish is desirable. FIRST YEAR STUDENTS ONLY

AAAD 89.001: First Year Seminar: Afro-Latinxs in the U.S. 

Tu/Th 12:30-1:45 PM 

Dr. Maya Berry

What does it mean to be both racially Black and ethnically Latino in the U.S.? This discussion-based course will look at the history, culture, experiences, political struggles, and social dilemmas of “Afro-Latinos”: African-descended peoples from Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean who reside in the U.S. The erasure of these communities, along with their struggles for well-being, prosperity, belonging, and visibility, will be explored. The class provides an opportunity for a deeper understanding of the legacies of the transatlantic slave trade, ethno-nationalism, and U.S. foreign-policy, and their connection to contemporary issues of migration, sexism, inequality, and anti-blackness. In-depth conversations about the politics of “race” and “ethnicity” will trouble dominant U.S. paradigms of identity. We will engage with a variety of sources, from academic books and scholarly articles to film. Students will synthesize their understanding through daily forum posts, a collaboratively-prepared presentation, an essay, and a group research project.

This course fulfills the following General Education Objectives:

• Global Understanding and Engagement
• Power, Difference, and Inequality

ENGL/WGST 666.001: Queer LatinX Literature & Photography 

Tu/Th 11:00 AM-12:15 PM 

Dr. María DeGuzmán

This course explores novels and short stories by LatinX writers that focus in one way or another on photographs & photography and, in doing so, that simultaneously question (or “queer”) certain cultural givens about gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, nationality, class, and other coordinates of identity, identification, and subjectivity. We will give careful consideration to each of the terms in the title of this course (Queer, LatinX, Photography, Literature) as we investigate the connections between this double focus on photography and literature. At the same time, we will examine actual photo-based visual work by a wide variety of LatinX artists. Visual and textual works considered include those by Alma López, Laura Aguilar, Félix Gonzalez-Torres, John Rechy, Achy Obejas, Helena María Viramontes, Emma Pérez, Elias Miguel Muñoz, Graciela Limón, Carla Trujillo, and Rita Indiana.

This mixed level graduate/undergraduate course may count for graduate seminar credit (via its final essay assignment).

This course fulfills the following General Education Objectives:

• Aesthetic and Interpretive Analysis
• Power, Difference, & Inequality
• Making Connections Gen Ed: VP; NA; US.

Grading Status: Letter grade.

Same as: WGST 666.

ENGL 864: Studies in Latina/o Literature, Culture, and Criticism 

W 3:00-6:00 PM 

Dr. Ylce Irizarry

This course explores how post-1992 Latinx narrative–in fiction, film, and visual arts–portray “misbehaving” human, other than human, and topographical bodies (air, land, water). We will explore how bodies that do not conform to desired “norms” are represented, perceived, and treated. Special emphasis will be placed on social, political, and medical contexts where bodies frequently “misbehave.” Bodies to be studied include but are not limited to dissident, queer, transgender, migrant, dis/abled, ill, and/or dead. Authors, cultural producers, and filmmakers will have ethnonational origins from the Caribbean and Central American diasporas. Materials include novels, visual art, performance art, and film.

ENGL 687: Queer LatinX Environmentalisms

Th 3:00-6:00 PM

Dr. María DeGuzmán

Fulfills the AESTHETICS focus and the POWER focus. Any questions, email: deguzman@email.unc.edu

This mixed level graduate and advanced undergraduate course examines queer LatinX literature from the 1990s to the present as it intersects with ecological and environmentalist concerns. LatinX literature is multi-ethno-racial and, even when emerging from the United Sates, is multi-national in terms of dovetailing with other national heritage cultures. We explore how these cultural productions question normative assumptions about the “order of things,” the “naturalness” of nature, and the “inevitability” of the historical exploitations of coloniality and the ongoing predations of neocolonialism.We pay close attention to LatinX cultural productions that approach cosmology, ecology, and environmental justice from queer perspectives and that queer ecological concerns from minoritized perspectives.“Queer” and “LatinX” combined with one another and modifying “Environmentalisms” signal other ways of thinking, doing, being, and becoming. These other ways entail exploring concepts of “nature” entangled with and dis-entangled from the coercive essentialisms of “natural law” and the violent settler-colonialism informing patriarchal capitalist “normalcy”; thinking beyond the blinders of heteronormative and species-hierarchical traditional humanism; perceiving and valuing multiple forms of kinship between humans and between humans and other life forms; ceasing to measure worth by a compulsory procreational model; conceiving sustainable interdependencies and thriving assemblages; andcultivating the diversity of diversity as part of salvaging what remains of biodiversity in this time of human-induced global and planetary crisis. With every text, film, and other cultural production, we will be exploring its aesthetic dimensions (hence FC-AESTH) in relation to its socio-political dimensions (FC-POWER).Assignments: two 8-page essays totaling at least 16 pages for undergraduates (for graduate students the second essay is 22–25 pages long), active class participation, and final exam. The grade percentage distribution is as follows: essay 1 (30%), essay 2 (40%), final exam (20%), and class participationthat includes individual and collaborative oral presentations(10%).

This course fulfills the following General Education Objectives:

• Power, Difference, and Inequality
• Aesthetics and Interpretive Analysis