Courses Fall 2007

(see also Spring 2007)

CULANTH 180S – Human Rights in the Americas
Instructor:: Robin Kirk  Tu Th 10:05 AM-11:20 AM (Franklin C 230/232)  
This course will introduce students to the concepts, history and practice of human rights, using as its lens Latin America and the activists who have developed and promoted rights in the region. Students will begin with the basic texts that human rights activists use to ground and coordinate their efforts to promote human rights. Through the work of activists, we will examine human rights theory and legal grounding, the development of human rights as a practice, the history of human rights, and the future of human rights as a political, cultural and social force. The course is designed to impart some of the skills activists use to further their cause, including public speaking and writing. Due to the subject matter, some of the materials we will read, view and discuss are of a violent or graphic nature.

ENGLISH 271ES – The South and the Global South  (section 02)
Crosslisted as Lit 255S
Instructor: Jose David Saldivar   Th 4:25 PM-6:40 PM (French Sci 2237)
This seminar is an intensive and rigorous course in the literature of the Americas and in trans-American literary and cultural criticism. We will be reading intensively and extensively, and the format of our course requires constant attendance. Our seminar is a detailed trans-American study of William Faulkner, Gabriel García Márquez, Toni Morrison, and Sandra Cisneros’ major imaginative writings in the aesthetic and geopoliticalontexts of the South and the Global South. What does it mean to read, South by South? South by North? We will be considering the idea of the South as a real and imaginary territory, a rich ideological geography, and a geo-culture, where regional mythology, ethnic and racial formations and divisions, national and transnational contestations, and the new imperialism together produce extraordinary narratives. Topics will include the significance of William Faulkner's "The Bear" and Absalom, Absalom! for modern and post-contemporary writers from across the Americas. Readings will also include Gabriel García Márquez's "Big Mama's Funeral," One Hundred Years of Solitude, “The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Eréndira and Her Heartless Grandmother,” “The Solitude of Latin America,” Living to Tell the Tale, Toni Morrison's Sula, Beloved, and Playing in the Dark, and Sandra Cisneros’ Caramelo. Additionally, our seminar will look at the photographs of the South by Walker Evans, some of the Global South's paintings by Kara Walker and Fernando Botero, and film adaptations of Eréndira and Beloved by Ruy Guerra and Jonathan Demme. Throughout the seminar, we will grapple with the research question--do the Américas have a common literature?

HOUSECS 79.08   LATINOS IN DURHAM:  Exploring the Issues As Students
Student Instructors:John Stokes  and Ryan Perdomo; Faculty Advisor: Liliana Paredes   Tuesdays 6:30 - 8:00pm, Few FF 108
This course aims to provide a strong context for the student interested in working with the Durham Latino community or who is already working with this community. Together, we will strive to explore and ultimately better understand the situation of the Durham Latino community by the end of the semester. The class will focus on a different topic each week and will primarily involve facilitated discussion surrounding each issue.  By providing the information, perspective, and context necessary to be effective social change agents, the class will promote active engagement with the community and a more nuanced understanding of Latinos in Durham. The overarching goal of the class will be to capacitate students to create an “action plan” by the last session of the course on how they can be change agents. Students will keep a journal of reflection on class discussion and time will be set aside at the end of each class session for journal writing.
The course will also have a capstone project, a Fiesta dinner at Immaculate Conception Church where students will interact with members of the community. More details will be given as the course progresses. We will periodically have guests at our class sessions, such as community leaders and members of the Duke community. The course advisor is Dr. Liliana Paredes, Director of the Spanish Language Program. Dr. Paredes will join us for three class sessions throughout the semester and serves as a valuable resource for the course.

PUBPOL 229S - POVERTY, INEQUALITY, & HEALTH
Crosslisted as AAAS 229S
Instructor: Sherman James
Impact of poverty and socioeconomic inequality on the health of individuals and populations. Attention given to both United States and non-United States populations. Topics include the conceptualization and measurement of poverty and socioeconomic inequality; socioeconomic gradients in health; globalization and health; socioeconomic deprivation across the life-course and health in adulthood; and public policy responses in the United States and elsewhere to growing health inequities in the age of globalization. Prerequisite: An introductory course in statistics. Seniors and graduate students only.

SPANISH 106C - ISSUES EDUCATION/INMMIGRATION
Instructor: Talia Weltman  Tu Th 2:50 PM-4:05 PM (Social Sci 311)
Explores issues of cultural assimilation, literacy, and access to educational opportunities for the growing Latino community in the United States. Required participation in service-learning with a local community partner. Design, implement, and evaluate an original community-based research project. Pre-requisite: Spanish 76 or equivalent. Consent of instructor required.

SPANISH 106E - LATINO/A VOICES IN DUKE, DURHAM
Instructor: Melissa Simmermeyer   Tu Th 1:15 PM-2:30 PM (Allen 318)
Current cultural, political, and social issues related to the construction and representation of Latino/a identity and community formation within a local and global context. Gateway Research Service-Learning course with twenty hours of service within the Latino community. Recommended that students take a 100-level Spanish course prior to enrolling in this course. Prerequisite: Spanish 76 or consent of instructor.

SPAN 181S/ LIT 162ZS/ HIST 195S - US LATINA/O LITERATURES and CULTURAL STUDIES  (section 01)
Instructor: Walter Mignolo.   Tu 4:25 PM-6:55 PM (Franklin C 028)
THE HISPANIC CHALLENGE AND THE POLITICS OF FEAR (WHY HISPANICS ARE NOT WHITE?)
In 2005 noted Harvard political scientist, Sammuel Huntington, published an influential article, "The Hispanic Challenge" that then became part of his book, Who Are We? What constitute the Hispanic Challenges? Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez? Migrant workers? The uprising of April and May of 2006? The transformation of knowledge and understanding that Hispanics, Afro-Caribbean, Native Americans, Women of Color are introducing?
This seminar, already in its seventh year, is an attempt to introduce students to the understanding of the historical foundation of racism (and its relationship with knoweldge, politics and ethics) through the emergence of Hispanics and Latinas in the US in the 1970's. Indeed, where are Hispanics or Latinas coming from? How do they fit in the ethno-racial pentagon (White, Native Americans, Afro-Americans and Asian Americans?). And what are the connections between the ethno-racial pentagon in the US and globalization? Where, indeed, is Latinidad coming from? The seminar explores, also, the interconnections between identity, knowledge and politics, distinguishing identity politics from identity IN politics and the politics of identity both in politics and in scientific knowledge.
Students will be introduced also to issues in the Humanities through trans-disciplinary thinking grounded in the department of Romance Studies and cross-listed with African and Afro-American Studies, Cultural Anthropology, Literature and History.
The seminar will be conducted in English. Reading will be in English and/or Spanish depending on student’s needs and desires.

WOM STUD 150S: SEX & THE GLOBAL CITIZEN
Crosslisted as SXL 120S
Instructor: Caroline Light
What differentiates a citizen from an “exile” and how is s⁄he constituted through dominant understandings of sexuality? How is sexual shame generated on a mass scale, and how does it assert control over people’s lives and choices? This course investigates the role that sexuality — defined both as an anatomical designation that supposedly determines gendered behavior and as an identity related to sexual desire — plays in proscribing citizenship in the Americas, specifically in the U.S. and Latin America. We will investigate some of the multiple and shifting ways in which sex is considered a natural difference that distinguishes citizens from non–citizens, and we will seek to understand how sex influences different groups’ efforts to exercise power, challenge the powerful, or reinforce their own powerlessness. We will also address the ways in which knowledge about citizenship is filtered through assumptions about sex and race. How, for example, do we come to know what we know about sex, gender, race, and citizenship? What does globalization contribute to the distribution of this knowledge? Readings and assignments will also help us address the ways in which sexual rights remain a site of contestation and struggle in the global Americas.

Writing 20: Topic: FRAMING THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE
Instructor Elizabeth Drogin Tu Th 8:30 AM-9:45 AM (Art Bldg 116)  and Tu Th 10:05 AM-11:20 AM (Art Bldg 105) 
The topic for these two sections of Writing 20 is "the immigration debate" - how people write about/visually portray/make meaning of the immigrant experience, American identity, and immigration policy. Significant focus will be on Latinos in the US and in the local community. More information will be available soon.