Fall 2023 Course Offerings
Fall 2023 tentative course offerings (this list subject to change)
Fall 2023 course roster
Spanish for Heritage Speakers I – LSP 1250 (also SPAN 1250). This low-intermediate course expands Heritage students' confidence and competence in Spanish by providing opportunities to build upon the conversational skills they have. Through literary texts, other readings, music, films and the visual arts students broaden their vocabulary, improve grammatical accuracy, develop writing skills and enrich their understanding of the cultures of the Spanish-speaking world. The heritage student grew up speaking Spanish and finished high school in the U.S. After this course student may take SPAN 2000, SPAN 2070, or SPAN 2090. Instructor: Mary K. Redmond. MWF 10:10 - 11:00. 3 credits. (This course fulfills an elective option for the LSP undergraduate minor).
Spanish for Heritage Speakers - LSP 2020 (also SPAN 2000). A course designed to expand bilingual student's knowledge of Spanish providing them with ample opportunities to develop and improve each of the basic language skills. Prerequisite: LPS score 56 or higher, SAT II 590 or higher, CASE placement, or permission of instructor. Instructor: Mary K. Redmond. Two sections: MWF 11:15 – 12:05 or 12:20 – 1:10. 3 credits. (This course fulfills an elective option for the LSP undergraduate minor).
Introduction to Latinx Studies – LSP 2100 (also AMST 2106). This course is an introduction to Latina/o Studies, an interdisciplinary field of knowledge production that focuses on historical, sociopolitical, cultural, and economic experiences of Latinx peoples in the United States—both as a nation and as a geopolitical location in a larger world. We will survey and analyze the arts, histories, cultures, politics, and sociological landscapes of Puerto Ricans, Dominican Americans, Cuban Americans, Mexican Americans, Central Americans, as well as other Latinx peoples who have made communities within the United States for centuries, and who are part of Latinx diasporas. Intersections of U.S. Latinx identities are also explored in this course by asking questions related to the fields housed within Latina/o Studies: How is Latina/o/x identity defined and performed? What does the use of an ‘x’ in Latinx mean or do? How do histories of race, class, gender, and sexuality in the U.S. impact one’s Latina/o/x identity? Many of these questions will be answered by using scholarship produced by the Latina/o Studies Program faculty at Cornell, familiarizing students with the breadth of research and expertise of program. Instructor: Debra Castillo. MW 1:25 – 2:40. 3 credits. (This course fulfills required course for the LSP undergraduate minor).
Introduction to U.S. Latinx Literature – LSP 2400 (also ENGL 2400, AMST 2401). Latina/os have always been part of U.S. history, yet the media often represents Latinx as only recent immigrants or as stereotypes that reduce rich cultures into a single, unified category or group of people. This practice hides the many unique and varied voices, stories, experiences, and ideas produced by Latinx expressive practices in forms ranging from novels and poetry to podcasts, tiktoks, films, theater, comics, memoirs, visual arts, and dance. This course will sample all of these forms while considering how artists meditate on their experiences of home, friendship, languages, love, migration, education, racialization, within the contexts of histories of colonization, discrimination, war, invasion, revolution, and ongoing activist organizing for resistance, sustainability, and thriving futures. In addition to common material, students will also have the chance to explore specific expressive practices that interest them. Instructor: Mary Pat Brady. TR 10:10 - 11:25. 3 credits. (This course fulfills Humanities distribution LSP undergraduate minor).
Introduction to the Anthropology of Latine Communities – LSP 2721 (also ANTH 2721): Representation is basic to anthropology, but also in our everyday lives. In the process of examining societies, anthropologists produce authoritative accounts about other people, their lives, and their communities. In this course, we examine, from a critical perspective, how Latinx communities are represented in anthropological texts. Issues to be explored include the relation between the ethnographer and the people they work with, the contexts in which ethnographic texts are produced, the way these texts may contribute to the position that different cultural groups have within the United States, and the implications emanating from these processes. Instructor: Vilma Santiago-Irizarry. TR 10:10 – 11:25. 3 credits. (This course fulfills Social Science distribution for the LSP undergraduate minor).
Migration: Histories, Controversies, and Perspectives - LSP 2810 (also ILRLR/AMST/PAM/SOC 2810). This introductory course introduces students to issues and debates related to international migration and will provide an interdisciplinary foundation to understanding the factors that shape migration flows and migrant experiences. We will start by reviewing theories of the state and historical examples of immigrant racialization and exclusion in the United States and beyond. We will critically examine the notions of borders, citizenship/non-citizenship, and the creation of diasporas. Students will also hear a range of perspectives by exposing them to Cornell guest faculty who do research and teach on migration across different disciplines and methodologies and in different world areas. Examples include demographic researchers concerned with immigrant inequality and family formation, geographic perspectives on the changing landscapes of immigrant metropolises, legal scholarship on the rights of immigrant workers, and the study of immigrant culture from a feminist studies lens. Instructor: Shannon Gleeson. MW 1:25 - 2:40. 3 credits. (This course fulfills Social Science distribution for the LSP undergraduate minor).
“Vamos Pa’l Norte”: U.S. Migration and Communication – LSP 3250 (also COMM 3250). Migrants are a heterogenous group of people. The reasons for relocating to another country under which they relocate, whether they are authorized to remain in a country, their cultural background, their ethnic/racial identities, their education level, their gender identity and sexual orientation, and their socio-economic status are merely a few factors that contribute to immigrants’ diverse experiences. Thus, this course will introduce us to different frameworks, research, and practices that can help us understand the important role of communication in different migration experiences. On the one hand, communication can help mitigate some of the social and structural barriers that migrants face in the United States and elsewhere. On the other hand, communication can also exacerbate or lead to educational, economic, and health inequities among migrants. We will consider both ways in which communication can function for migrant communities. Overall, migration: (1) is a diverse area of research that can incorporate intrapersonal, interpersonal, community, organizational, institutional, cultural, and policy levels of analysis; (2) is studies using a wide range of methodologies; and (3) is affected by a variety of communication channels. Instructor: Monica Cornejo. TR 1:25 - 2:40 pm. 3 credits. (This course fulfills Social Science distribution for the LSP undergraduate minor).
Loving LA: Chicana Feminism – LSP 3635 (also ENGL 3635): This course will explore the kaleidoscopic experiences of Latinx writers, musicians, and filmmakers who have made Los Angeles their home and the subject of their artistry. Featuring the work of renowned writers such as Helena María Viramontes and film makers such as Luis Valdez, the course will explore how Latinx creative thinkers tangle with the city’s history, propel significant resistance movements, and bring new visions of creative possibilities to the world. Students will have the chance to research any aspect of LA artistry that they find compelling as part of this course. Instructor: Mary Pat Brady. TR 1:25 - 2:40. 3 credits. (This course fulfills Humanities distribution for the LSP undergraduate minor).
Medicine, Biomedicine, and Latine/x Communities – LSP 3745 (also ANTH 3745). Medical anthropology has traditionally addressed illness and its treatment among human societies in their wide-ranging multiplicity. Rather than considering medical systems and practices as monolithic, universal approaches to health, though, medical anthropologists document their sociocultural specificities to underscore how structural, ideological, and sociocultural circumstances are relevant to our understanding of human disease and wellbeing. This course will focus on Latine/x communities as a case study and entry point to examine, from this disciplinary perspective, how minoritized peoples fare under the dominant biomedical paradigm that characterizes medical treatment in U.S. society. Instructor: Vilma Santiago-Irizarry. Time TR 1:25 – 2:40. 3 credits. (This course fulfills Social Science distribution for the LSP undergraduate minor).
Refugees – LSP 4851/6851 (also HIST/AMST 4851). Since World War II, over four million people have migrated to the United States as refugees. In this seminar, we will examine some of these refugee migrations and the ways they challenged our understanding of the United States as a “haven for the oppressed”. We will examine how refugee/asylum policy was crafted: the role of non-governmental actors in influencing policy, and the ways it reflected foreign policy interests and security concerns. The second half will pay particular attention to our changing definitions of who “merits” asylum in the United States since the end of the Cold War. Instructor: Maria Cristina Garcia. Wednesday TR 2:55 – 4:10. 4 credits. (This course fulfills Humanities distribution for the LSP undergraduate minor).