CHASS Connect: 2008 - 2009 Sequences
LATIN AMERICA
The three courses which make up the Latin America CHASS Connect sequence explore the riches and possibilities of Latin America. When you have completed the sequence at the end of the year, you will have fulfilled 3 college breadth requirements; you will have identified the diverse cultural components at work in the Americas; you will have reflected on the political and economic structures which underlie the region. The discussions of the many facets of Latin American will provide you with the means to understand and value difference and to discover pathways to success at UCR and beyond.
Fall 2008
Hispanic Studies, Raymond L. Williams
We will read novels and short stories by contemporary Latin American writers such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez of Colombia, Carlos Fuentes of Mexico, Jorge Amado of Brazil, and Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru. Consideration of not only what makes these writers modern and innovative in a global context, but also how diverse cultural components originating in Africa, Medieval Spain and among indigenous peoples of the Americas are still, in post-modern Latin America, a key to understanding, analyzing and appreciating selected texts of some of the most accomplished writers in the world.
Winter 2009
Art History, Stella Nair
"Art, Architecture and Urbanism in Latin American: Colonial to Modern periods"
This course will explore how architecture, art and urban form has shaped, redefined and transformed the Americas. We will begin with the dramatic religious buildings, intricate sculptures, and orderly city plans of colonial powers such as the Inca, Aztec and Spanish. We will end with the emotive and highly symbolic creations of the Mexican muralists, the indigenista artists in the Andes, and the planner and architect of Brasilia.
Spring 2009
Dance, Anna Scott
The course will have an emphasis on Brazil, but will work with things like parades, and passeatas/feast days to generate larger discussion about space usage and allocation; parking and traffic flows; tree trimming, leaf blowers, tunas culling & other environmental class issues; redevelopment zoning; noise pollution laws; gender and public space; housing and homelessness, etc. It is a course on mediated performance as political customs in everyday life.