In this course, students will read and write about a survey of U.S. Latinx and Chicanx fiction, poetry, history, autobiography, and film. Beginning in the mid-19th century and moving chronologically to the 21st century, we will examine the historical development of Latinx and Chicanx literature as writers engage with and debate about a wide array of common themes and concepts, including assimilation, gender, nationality, race, geography and territory, law, and colonialism.

This course invites students to explore regional and intercultural styles that inform New Mexican performative arts, such as music, literature, installation art, performance, and other forms of expressive culture to gain a better understanding of the intricacies of New Mexican culture and identities. Students are introduced to multiple disciplinary approaches such as history, literature, cultural studies, anthropology, ethnomusicology, and performance theory to better understand understanding of the ways in which the regional and transnational perspectives intersect in New Mexico. Students will participate in site-based learning opportunities through which they engage directly with local New Mexican performance artists, ethnomusicologists, singers, and composers. Together, we will analyze the complexities and multiplicities of perspectives within the New Mexican culture and challenge reductionist and monolithic viewpoints that have historically been imposed on the peoples and places of New Mexico. Students will experience deep engagement with the communities about which they are learning during a course trip to New Mexico (Covid situation permitting).

From structure and aesthetics to philosophical approaches and environmental topics, this course will ask how a region can shape its literary landscapes. In particular, we will read texts by Native America writers from and about the Southwest to better understand regional issues within specific tribes and tribal histories. This is a discussion-based course with writing assignments, visual presentations, and visiting speakers.

This course explores music and cultural belonging in the contemporary American Southwest, and the many interweaving forms of music-making across the region. We will examine how tapestries of ethnicity and cultural identity are crafted, reflected, negotiated, and altered through musical expression. Our investigation will consider processes of settler- colonialism that have contributed to waves of migration across the region, and the forms of musical practice that have emerged from, and shaped, these processes. We will focus on various genres that comprise the musical fabric of the region, including modern Latin pop, Pueblo music, Mariachi, Hispanic folk music, Navajo country, Ranchera, Flamenco, Tejano, and Indigenous rock, and will explore the relationship of landscape with identity and musical practice among local musicians. 1 unit - Carrizo

Reading, reading: this is a course about reading focused on the contemporary literature of the Southwest, in the form of two works of imaginative nonfiction, four novels, and assorted shorter works I will hand out and/or assign during the block. The Southwest you will experience is one projected through the creative lenses of writers and novelists and film directors, essayists, poets, in imaginative interpretations of history and political and personal dramas of our era.

An introduction to the peoples and places of the ancient North American Southwest. In addition to close attention to the contributions and problems of archaeological practices, we learn from the words, voices, and places of Indigenous peoples of the region. The temporal focus is 500 to 1600 CE, a period of dramatic growth and change in the region. (Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement.) 1 unit - Ingram.