Certificate in Latino/a Studies in the Global South (LSGS)
**Scroll down to view NEW Intro Course**
General Certificate Requirements:
The undergraduate certificate in Latino/a Studies in the Global South is administered by Latino/a Studies. This interdisciplinary certificate is designed to provide students with comparative, historical, and cultural knowledge of peoples of Latin American descent living in the United States (and moving transnationally); understanding of the concepts of Hispanics/Latino/as, latinidad and hispanidad, and the Global South (and Global North); and the construction and assertion of Latino/a identities, involving convergences and divergences, over space and time. The certificate is open to students from any discipline; it may be combined with any major and minor (maximum total of 3 majors, minors, and certificates).
The course of study for program participants is interdisciplinary, with a minimum total of six courses. Students working toward a certificate in Latino/a Studies in the Global South are encouraged (but not required) to declare it by their fourth semester.
To qualify for the certificate, students will take:
1) LSGS 100: “Introduction to Latino/a Studies in the Global South”
Preferably in their first or sophomore year, all students will take this interdisciplinary introductory course with socio-historical basis.
2) Language courses: all students will either a) take one course in Spanish at the 100-level or above, preferably a Spanish Service Learning course or b) apply to receive credit for a language taken other than Spanish (for ex, a less-commonly taught Latin American language such as Quechua. Decisions regarding language credit in circumstance b) will be made on a case-by-case basis, dependent upon applicability of the language to the student’s focus of study and capstone research project.
3) Three elective courses: two of which must be at or above the 100-level.
Of the three elective courses, at least one must be a humanities course, and one a social science course. Qualifying courses may come from the list provided below, or may include other courses not listed (new courses, special topics courses, and independent study) that have at least 50 percent of course content on Latino/as or Latino/a Studies and with term papers or other major projects focusing on this field. To determine if specific courses meet requirements for the certificate, students should consult the program coordinator. Regular courses are described under the listings of the various departments. Students may take up to two elective courses for the certificate at UNC-Chapel Hill, following the 50 percent guideline above, in consultation with the program coordinator. Students are strongly encouraged to take part in study abroad programs in Latin America or Spain. Courses taken abroad with Latino/a Studies content that appear on the Duke transcript may count toward the three elective course total. Students may also wish to take advantage of house courses offered on Latino/a Studies topics, although house courses cannot satisfy any requirement of the certificate.
4) LSGS 200: “Capstone in Latino/a Studies in the Global South”
All students will take this interdisciplinary capstone seminar, preferably in their senior year.
In meeting the total requirements, a minimum of three departments must be represented, with no more than half (50%) of the courses originating in a single academic unit. Students may count toward this certificate no more than two courses that are being used to fulfill the requirements of any major, minor, or other certificate.
To enroll in the certificate program, students should officially declare their intention to pursue the certificate through Academic Advising (first- and second-year students) or through the Registrar (juniors and seniors) and should also meet in person with the Executive Director of Latino/a Studies to complete required paperwork and discuss the academic plan.
For further information on the certificate program, contact: Jenny Snead Williams, Executive Director of Latino/a Studies, jennysw@duke.edu.
Intro Course Description as taught for the first time Spring '09:
(Note: Course will be taught again in Spring '10 by Latino/a Studies Postdoctoral Associate, Prof. Monika Gosin - details to follow)
LSGS 100: Introduction to Latino/a Studies in the Global South
Taught by: Prof. Antonio Viego, Prof. Walter Mignolo, Jenny Snead Williams
Crosslisted with: AAAS 199S, Span 120S, and Lit 162ES
Areas of Knowledge: ALP, SS; Modes of Inquiry: CCI
The very basics:
Pundits, critics and fortune tellers have announced that by the year 2050 U.S. Latinos will number close to 100 million, constituting the third largest Latin American “nation” within a nation, behind Brazil and Mexico. While this interdisciplinary course will provide a general introduction to the field of Latino studies and how it is reconfiguring the study of the United States and the Americas, we will work critically, so as not to view “Latino/as” them/our selves as an object of study. We will consider literature, history, sociology, economics, politics, culture, and language as we contemplate the terms: Latino, latinidad, Global South, transnational, and multinational. We will cover contemporary theoretical and critical drifts in Latino studies, such as moments where Latino and Chicano studies cross and overlap and where they may be said to separate due to historically different institutional trajectories and differently elected points of focus and objects of study. We will explore how Latino/a Studies as a field aligns in some ways with African and African American Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and Critical US Studies. We’ll meet other faculty members teaching Latino/a Studies courses, and we’ll also connect our learning in the classroom with the community outside of Duke.
Why does this matter?:
How can one think of the U.S. Latino population as a “nation” within a nation (as suggested above)? Does it matter that we don’t precisely know what we mean or whom we mean to include or exclude when we invoke the label “Latinos” or the term Latinidad? In Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the U.S. Big City, Mike Davis writes, “Yet, if there is no reducible essence to latinidad-- even in language or religion-- it does not necessarily follow that there is no substance... To be Latino in the United States is rather to participate in a unique process of cultural syncretism that may become a transformative template for the whole society.” In other words, it is not so much a question of what “Latino” is but rather what “Latino” does. Given the lack of clarity related to the term right now, can we expect it to continue to swell and lengthen its sticky tendrils’ reach or will it shrink, become miserly in its old age and begin to hold stubbornly to a ruthless, discerning door policy? Does the ubiquitous announcement in Latino cultural and political critique that the future will be Latino (and will be broadcast, by the way, in Spanglish) hold water?
In this course, we will explore the assumed critical and political potentialities announced by some theorists regarding the post-raciological subject that is inherent in the nominatory term, “Latino"-- a subject construction supposedly outside and beyond the prison houses of race and ethnicity. We will also examine the tasks at hand for the Latino studies educator and the Latino student in the context of globalization, contemporary U.S. universities’ preferred brand of diversity discourses, critical multiculturalism, and “coercive mimeticism.” This last term, coercive mimeticism, was recently coined by Asian American Studies scholar, Rey Chow (2003) to identify the process whereby ethnic-racialized subjects are bullied into resembling what is “recognizably ethnic” in order to claim some modicum of social and cultural intelligibility. What could this mean? Have you seen this process at work? Enroll in LSGS 100 to discover such meanings, share your critiques, and explore these and many other relevant topics.