MAS 301
introduction to mexican american and latina/o studies MWF 12-1pm TTH 2-3:30pm TTH 11-12:30pm
#40455 #40458 #40459
RLP 0.130 Julie Minich BIO 301 Alheli Harvey GEA 114 Andie Flores
In 2006, the massive nation-wide May Day protests and marches, were not only emblematic of immigrant worker resistance, but a turning point in evolving Latina/o/x pan-ethnoracial identities. Through the rallying cry of “Day Without an Immigrant,” across cities from Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago to Atlanta, diverse peoples of the United States became exposed to the fundamental ways Latin@/x populations are embedded within the very fabric of the nation through their endless labor, contributions, innovations, and community-building. In this introductory course, students study the field of Mexican American and Latina/o/x Studies as an interdisciplinary and intersectional arena of academic inquiry, which centers on challenging and dismantling the inherent inequalities and multiple oppressions foundational to the making of the United States through the eyes of the Mexican American, Chican@/x, Latin@/x experience. We survey the historical, political, socioeconomic, and cultural fabric, which shapes this heterogenous populace and examine the formation of Latin@/xs as an ethnoracial group(s) in the United States. We explore the multifaceted histories of colonialism in the Americas and U.S. imperialism through an investigation of transnational, transborder contexts of corporate, military, and political interventions that have (re)defined national boundaries and human migrations in the Americas. Last, students use an intersectional approach to unravel how race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, language, migration, indigeneity, and citizenship are integral to the multiplicity identities forming Latinidad.
CD
MAS 308
introduction to mexican american policy studies MWF 10-11am
#40465
CMA 3.114
Antonio Vasquez
This course examines contemporary Mexican-American issues from the perspective of a policy analyst. Students will learn the basic tools of policy analysis and apply them to a variety of issues and proposed policy solutions. The course has two objectives: (1) To train students how to inform public policy by providing decision makers with objective policy analysis. (2) To help students understand why public policy decisions often diverge from the recommendations made by policy analysts. In other words, this is a course about both policy analysis and the politics behind policymaking. While the focus of this course is on policy issues that affect Mexican-Americans and/or Latinos, students will learn that policies often have widespread impact on many groups. Policy also often results in unintended consequences. Students will also learn about the challenges policy analysts face when they attempt to use objective public policy metrics to analyze policies that often have moral or symbolic frames.
CD
MAS 311
ethnicity & gender: La Chicana TTH 9:30-11am
#40470
BIO 301
Lilia Rosas
Among the many catalysts that centralized the narratives of Chicanas into the discourse the U.S. Southwest/Mexican Borderlands, the 1971 La Conferencia de Mujeres por la Raza in Houston inspired how Chicanas/Xicanas, xicanindias, mestizas, indigenous, Mexican American, and brown women defined themselves, asserted their roles and identities, and shared their stories. This course privileges the stories, struggles, contestations, imaginations, writings, and accomplishments of Chicanas in the United States in the mid-twentieth and early twentieth-first centuries. Through a close examination of literature, and attention to historical and theoretical materials, we will create a growing understanding of the significance of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, language, spirituality, and citizenship in affecting the daily lives and social worlds of Chicanas. By end of the semester, we will also gain a complex insight into the importance of how Chicana feminism, Xicanisma, intersectionality, migration, borders, and community are formative in the Chicana experience(s).
CD
MAS 314
Mexican American Literature and Culture TTH 9:30-11am
#40475
PAR 206
Lydia Cdebaca
The stories Chicanas/os tell about Mexico reveal the manifold ways in which we imagine Chicanidad, or Chicana/o identities. By examining how Mexican American authors construct “Mexico” as a political force, a spiritual homeland, and an imagined nation, this course explores the place of Mexico in twentieth and twenty-first century Chicana/o narrative. Examining questions of indigenism, spirituality, mestizaje, gender, class, migration, and popular culture, the course will survey how Mexican Americans define Mexicanidad (Mexicanness) and how Mexican identity and nationalism affect Chicana/o identity and questions of borders, cultural nationalisms, and transnationalisms. Complicating a neat dialectic, we’ll also examine the works of Mexican authors and artists who look to Chicana/o cultural productions to complement their own understanding of Mexicanidad. Pairing short stories, novels, autobiography, live performance, and film with histories and criticism, we will discuss the various ways in which narratives shape material realities, allowing us to envision nations and cultures as shared, contested, mediated, and imagined spaces of story.
CD WR
MAS 316
History of Mexican Americans in the United States TTH 12:30-2pm
#40480
MEZ 1.306
Emilio Zamora
The reading and lecture course examines the historical development of the Mexican community in the United States since 1848, with an emphasis on the period between 1900 and the present. The primary purpose of the course is to address time and place specific variations in the incorporation of the Mexican community as a national minority and bottom segment of the U.S. working class. One of my central concerns is to explain two inter-related historical trends in this incorporation, steady upward mobility and unrelenting social marginalization. I emphasize work experiences, race thinking, social relations, trans-border relations, social causes and larger themes in U.S. history such as wars, sectional differences, industrialization, reform, labor and civil rights struggles, and the development of a modern urbanized society. Also, I incorporate relevant aspects of the history of Latinos, African Americans, and Mexico.
CD
MAS 318
Mexican American Culture
MW 2:30-4pm #40490
WCP 4.174
Martha Menchaca
This course seeks to develop a student’s understanding of Mexican American culture in the United States. We will begin with the anthropological debate over the concept of Mexican American culture. After situating the role of anthropology in the study of Mexican-origin groups an overview of Mexican American history and culture will follow. The analysis of Mexican American culture will be examined by studying four texts that review Mexican American history but focus on different events and cultural issues. In general, the texts will examine: the mestizaje in Mexico and the United States, racial and ethnic history of Mexican Americans, segregation, immigration, globalization, and U.S.-Mexico relations.
CD
MAS 319 3 latinx histories
TTH 11-12:30pm #40495
UTC 3.122 Annette Rodriguez
This course focuses on the lived experiences of Latinx peoples in the United States. Those who are called, or call themselves, Latinx comprise myriad communities, with distinctive histories, languages, political and social concerns, languages, cultural practices and cultural products. Thus, in our course we emphasize plurality—histories. Throughout the course, we will ask: What constitutes the category “Latinx”? Who are Latinx? Why does this matter? Our course will proceed through a series of microhistories of Latinx peoples, and we will be attentive to Indigenous, and Afro-Latino peoples being ascribed, claiming, or resisting the category Latinx. Using historical methods, we will ask, to quote photo historian Ken Gonzales-Day: “What is it to be Latinx? How much of it has to be recognized by others? Much of our identities require community, acknowledgment, consensus. The importance of the past, the importance of ancestors, the question of our connection to an ‘other’ are tied to the idea of our being diasporic. Are we displaced? Are we where we should be? Are we a new identity? I believe Latinx people are very much part of U.S. history, yet we continue to be underrepresented at every level.”
CD
MAS 319 4
Mexican American women 1920-present
TTH 3:30-5pm
#40500
RLP 0.112
Annette Rodriguez
In this course we will examine the history of ethnic Mexican women in the United States in the twentieth century. We will study the lived experiences of ethnic Mexican, Chicanas, xicanindias, mestizas, indigenous, Mexican American, and brown women within the U.S., and along the U.S.-Mexican borderlands. We also will explore how gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, language, spirituality, and citizenship shaped their experiences, and how the writing of their history has changed in the last one hundred years.
CD
MAS 320c
power/place making texas history
INTERNET
#40505
Bethzabeth Colón-Pizzini; Edmund Gordon
What are the stories told about Texas’ history? Where are the places that help those stories be told? The State Capitol grounds, the Alamo in San Antonio, the South Mall on UT’s campus, and even the Barbara Jordan statuary at the Austin Bergstrom Airport are but a few examples of the commemorative and memorialized sites that convey accounts of Texas history. This course explores places in the Texas landscape as windows into Texas history and the political and social thinking that have formed our understandings of Texas’s past. It does this by teaching students to interpret Texas sites that convey public history. We will read these sites by delving into the making of the histories behind them, including the historic silences that also form them. At the same time, we will interrogate these places and their meanings for what they reveal about the power relations arrayed along lines of race, culture, gender, and economic status that underlie their creation as memorable and historically meaningful. In this way, students are provided with an understanding of the “facts” of Texas history from a variety of positions, an understanding of the work historical narratives do in the present, and how power operates in the making, telling, and remembering of Texas history.
CD
E
II
MAS 320F
Texas, 1900 to the present
TTH 9:30-11am
#40510
MEZ B0.306
Emilio Zamora
The reading and lecture course surveys change and continuity in the history of Texas within the context of U.S. history and Mexico-U.S. relations. Special attention is given to Mexico-U.S. relations, politics and social relations between 1900 and 1970, as well as the home front experience of Texans during the Second World War. The overriding theme is the incorporation of Texas into the national socio-economy from the state’s early “colonized” status to its modern position as a fully integrated part of the nation. The course is organized around our readings. The De la Teja/Marks/Tyler text provides a synthesis of Texas history while the Zamora text provides a closer examination of home front experiences. The two chapters from the Campbell book will serve as a basis for an examination of the post-war period extending into 2001.
CD
MAS 340S latina/o spirituality
MWF 1-2pm #40415
WCP 5.102
Rachel Gonzalez-Martin
In this course, students will be introduced to the idea that the human body is a “mobile canvas” (Santos 2009). We will spend time mapping different forms of artistic expression onto racialized bodies in the hemispheric Americas. Students will complete weekly observational ‘style profiles’ to document examples of body art in everyday life. Through in-class discussion and weekly reading, we will contextualize how individuals and groups make meaning in their lives through temporary and permanent modification to their bodies.
CD WR II
MAS 345D Life/Literature Us/mex borderlands
TTH 9:30-11am #40520
PAR 204
Jackie Cuevas
Through collective study, we will examine how Chicanx, Latinx, Indigenous, and other writers narrate, imagine, theorize, and reshape the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands as a geographic region and discursive construction. Through class discussions and close readings of short stories, novels, plays, poetry, and films, we will consider how the texts contendwith questions of race, class, gender, sexuality, geopolitics, genre, and other concerns. We will considervarious critical approaches—such as regional, transnational, and decolonial—in an effort to deepen our understanding of the texts andthe sociohistorical conditions that characterize this dynamic region.
CD WR
MAS 345G
Contemporary US Latina/o literature/culture
TTH 11-12:30pm
#40525
PAR 303
Lydia Cdebaca
This course focuses on contemporary fictions by Latino/as in the US through the lens of performance and literacy. By critically analyzing short stories, novels, and/or films, alongside recent literary and cultural theory of the relationship between identity performance, Amerindigenous literacies, and multimodal literature, the course will explore some of the major themes and issues that inform and are found in the cultural production of Mexican Americans/Chicanas/os, Dominican Americans, and Cuban Americans. Topics discussed include latinidad, gender, community, class, migration, exile, nationalisms, and literary, social and political movements.
CD
MAS 364D
Latino migrations and asylum MW 1-2:30pm
#40530
GEA 114
Antonio Vasquez
In this undergraduate seminar, we will critically examine the contemporary politics, geographies, and practices of Latina/o migration and asylum in the United States. We will begin our discussion with an assessment of the current migration crisis at the international level. This includes an overview of increased border enforcement and militarization as well as the varied challenges confronting migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers from the mid-twentieth century through the contemporary period. Secondly, we will situate processes of Latino/a migration within the larger historical trajectory of U.S. economic and military conquests in the Americas, focusing on the region of Central America in particular. Causes and consequences of Latino/a migration with respect to Honduras and El Salvador will serve as important case studies in this regard. Lastly, we will examine U.S. asylum policy and practices in concert with the expansion of immigration detention and deportation and the racialization and criminalization of Latinos/as.
CD
MAS 364I
mexican american political thought
MWF 11-12pm
#40535
CMA 3.114
Antonio Vasquez
The 1967 publication of El Grito: Journal of Contemporary Mexican American Thought and Aztlan: Chicano Journal of the Social Sciences and the Arts in 1970 marked the emergence of a distinct Mexican American intellectual formation in academia. At the one hand, this discourse demonstrated a continuity of oppositional consciousness as reflected in writings by preceding generations of intellectuals. At the same time, early writings contextualized experiences of inequality confronting Mexican American communities as a condition of colonialism and anti-colonialism. The purpose of this undergraduate seminar is to collaboratively and critically explore the multiple complementary and contradictory counter-hegemonic intellectual variations that have contributed to Mexican American political thought, and, in turn, Mexican American Studies. In addition to analyzing first works from the discipline, students will engage in writings by earlier generations of intellectuals and their contemporaries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as more recent reconfigurations in Latina/o Studies.
CD
MAS 364P Puerto Rico in Crisis
MWF 11-12pm
#40540
PMA 5.122
Monica Jimenez
This course will provide a history of the island’s relationship with the United States focusing in particular on questions of catastrophe and capitalism. The course will center around two questions: What is Puerto Rico to the United States? And how did we get to the present moment of crisis? In answering these questions, we will focus in particular in the ways that law has racialized islanders and conceived of them as unprepared and undeserving of rights and full citizenship. This conception has thus shaped the way that capitalism has worked as a force in shaping the islands possibilities throughout the 120 years of its relationship with the US. Ultimately, we will examine how the early 20th century imperial moment, which created the US-Puerto Rico relationship, continues to define that relationship today. As was made glaringly visible when Hurricane Maria hit the island in September 2017, the island’s long-standing colonial relationship with the US continues to have real ramifications for Puerto Ricans living there today. This course will focus in particular on topics of law, economic policy, politics and migration to understand Puerto Rico’s continuous exclusion and precarious status.
WR GC
II
MAS 364R
Race Politics and Caribbeans
TTH 12:30-2pm
#40545
MEZ 1.120
Danielle Clealand
Race, Politics and Caribbeans is a course dedicated to the study of racism, race and racial politics among Spanish-speaking Caribbeans both on the islands (Cuba, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico) and in the United States. We will discuss racial politics in the three countries and compare notions of identity, experiences with racism and anti-racist protest with the United States. Topics such as black social movements, race and the Cuban Revolution, migration, racial conflict in the Dominican Republic and Haitians, silence around racism, government policies, political attitudes, race and party affiliation, Black Lives Matter and experiences with racism among Black Caribbeans will all be covered in this course. We will follow these topics and debate how racial politics migrate from the Caribbean to the United States. Finally, we will talk about how Caribbean Latinos in the U.S. compare to other Latino groups as well as Black Americans and Black immigrant groups with regard to allyship, inequality and socioeconomic position.
CD
MAS 374
history of mariachi music
TTH 12:30-2pm
#40555
MRH 2.610 Monica Fogelquist
The mariachi is considered to be the national folk orchestra of Mexico. The music has social, cultural, and political ties to what it means to be Mexican and/or Mexican American. Through this course, we will explore how this music went from rural, humble roots to a commercialized, urban music and became Mexico’s sonic ambassador around the world. We will see how the music has developed on both sides of the border and how it has evolved based on who and what comes into contact with it. We will listen to mariachi music regularly and learn to identify the sub-genres that comprise a large part of the mariachi’s vast repertoire. Learning about key figures and groups that established the style, configuration, and standardization of the music will also be covered.
CD
MAS 374 23
Mexican American indigenous heritage
MW 10:30-12pm
#40570 WCP 4.118
Martha Menchaca
This course examines the cultural prehistory and racial history of Mexican Americans from 1519 to the present. The purpose of the course is to examine how policies and laws enacted by the governments of Spain, Mexico, and the United States impacted the ethnic and racial identities of Mexican Americans. The geographic focus of the course is Mexico and the U.S. Southwest.
CD
MAS 374 42 united States Immigration
TTH 9:30-11am
#40575
RLP 0.102
Nestor Rodriguez
Immigration patterns have significantly affected the development of U.S. society. No country accepts more immigrants than the United States; yet, the history of US immigration is dotted with policies to restrict immigration. In the 1990s, the United States experienced a record number of new legal immigrants, primarily from Asia and Latin America (Mexico), breaking the 1900 – 1909 record, and in 2000 – 2009 the number of immigrants admitted again set a new record. But at the same time, the United States deported record numbers of migrants. This course uses a sociological perspective to gain an understanding the social forces that drive migration to the United States, how migrants organize their migration, how immigration affects US society, and US policies towards immigration patterns.
CD
MAS 390
introduction to mexican american/latina/o studies T 2-5pm
#40600 GWB 1.138 Karma Chavez
In this course, students will be introduced to the interdisciplinary field of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies primarily through the lens of the scholarship of the MALS core graduate faculty (Richard Flores, Michael Hames-García, Deborah Parra-Medina, CJ Alvarez, Karma Chávez, Danielle Clealand, María Cotera, Rachel González-Martin, Laura Gutiérrez, Julie Minich, and Angela Ocampo). Students will thus learn different theoretical and methodological approaches, as well as current trends within the field. Students will be encouraged to map key concepts in the field across readings, to learn about important Latino/a/x Studies publication outlets, and to frame their own scholarship within the field.
MAS 392
borderlands history
TH 2-5pm
#40605
PAR 10
CJ Alvarez
This course is designed to provide graduate students an introduction to borderlands history and historiography. We will begin by examining the development of the field and then move on to read some of the most influential examples of borderlands monographs in recent years. Under the broad umbrella of “borderlands” we will explore more specific topics related to indigenous history, history of slavery/labor history, police/legal history, gender history, and environmental history. In addition to our weekly discussion of these texts, I will supplement our conversation with ongoing guidance about spatial analysis and approaches to place-based research and writing. And finally, using my own work as an example, I will try to demystify as much as possible the process and experience of academic publishing. In terms of written work, students will have the option to write either a historiographical essay or conduct original research based on primary sources.
MAS 395m interpretive methods
M 2-5pm #40610 MEZ 1.122 Rachel Gonzalez-Martin This seminar will introduce graduate level students to an array of cultural studies inflected interpretive methods. We will do readings from a variety of disciplinary areas, while foregrounding post-structuralist Women of Color Feminist practices and theories. We will explore qualitative and community-based research with collaborators, as well as doing content or media analysis, as program evaluation and intervention assessments. Ethics and the politics of public scholarship, activism, and arts-based practices will also be central to the course.
MAS 398T
supervised teaching mexican american/latina/o studies W 2-5pm #40630 RLP 0.122 Lilia Rosas
In the groundbreaking collection, Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education,editors Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Nga¯ti Awa, Nga¯ti Porou),Eve Tuck (Unangaxˆ), and K. Wayne Yang pose a necessary and revolutionary challenge to educators and their pedagogies. By asserting, “Water is life. Land is our first teacher,” they remind us, as indigenous educators (and I would add educators of Ethnic Studies), it is our first imperative to unhinge and unsettle the Western and colonist approaches, which permeates educational settings, learning practices, and theoretical and methodological approaches around teaching. Courses in Ethnic Studies are a unique opportunity to fulfill, broaden, and complicate the roots of social justice and liberation inherent to this trans/interdisciplinary field, which centers intersectional perspectives and recognizes the heterogeneous student population we engage. This seminar prepares students for university/college teaching as well as nontraditional learning environments. It will emphasize an interactive forum for discussing learner-centered teaching in Mexican American and Latina/o/x Studies, and Ethnic Studies at large. We will also examine diverse classroom strategies and pedagogical techniques specific to this interdisciplinary field(s) that stresses race, gender, sexuality, class, and disability as crucial frameworks to learning. Ultimately, student will engage in the praxis of teaching by writing courses and leading a mock class.