Summer 2021 Undergraduate Courses

Fall 2021 Undergraduate and Graduate Courses

We will update course offerings as they are announced, so please continue checking this page to see all of our offerings.

DRAMA 486:  Latin American Theatre

Meeting Times: T/TR: 9:30-10:45 AM

Instructor: Dr. Adam Versenyi  (He, Him, His)

This course explores the historical and aesthetic development of the Latin American theatre, focusing upon the particular factors that distinguish this theatre from the Western European tradition.  Theatre is never created in a vacuum.  It emerges from specific cultural, historical, political, and economic contexts.  By the end of this course students will not only learn about the aesthetic evolution of Latin American Theatre from pre-Columbian times to the present, but also how that theatre reflects and refracts the global forces that have affected the region from the Conquest in the fifteenth century to the waves of migration both to and from the region in the twenty-first century.  Among other topics, we will look at the ways in which Aztec, Inca, and Mayan cosmogony created particular forms of indigenous ritual and ceremonial performance, explore how José Vasconcelos’ rhetoric of “la raza cósmica” led to the “theatre of masses”, and how the horrors of the “National Security State”– supported financially and politically by U.S., French, and Israeli government– led to the creation of new and important dramaturgical forms in the 1970s and 1980s in the Southern Cone.  The environmental effects of the presence of the hidalgo, horse, and pig at the time of the Conquest to the extirpation of rainforests and the stripping of plants and minerals in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have created socially engaged and politically conscious forms of theatrical creation that have subsequently influenced other areas of the world.  Throughout the course we will be looking at the myriad ways in which the colonial project in Latin America led to forms of hybridity and mestizaje unique to the region and to uniquely rich forms of playwrighting, theatrical production, and theatrical performance.

English 666: Queer LatinX Literature & Photography 

Meeting Times T/TH: 11:00 – 12:15 PM

Instructor: Dr. María DeGuzmán (deguzman@email.unc.edu)

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, and Carla Trujillo. [This course is open to both undergraduates and graduate students and can count as a graduate seminar when the graduate student completes a 20-25-page seminar paper as the final assignment for the course.]

MUSC 141:Introduction to Music of the Américas

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

Instructor: Dr. Juan Álamo (jalamo@email.unc.edu)

The class is open to all Carolina undergraduate students regardless of major. Non-music majors are welcome, and no music reading skills are required, as the classroom, subject and textbook will help students to learn and understand the essential musical and historical concepts that will facilitate a greater understanding and appreciation of the music and culture of this region.

Required Textbook:

Robin Moore, Music of Latin America, 1^st edn. (New York: Norton, 2012)

WGST 233: Introduction to Latina Literature.