RS2234 Challenges

in Latin America

Spring 2011 (March-June)

Challenges in Latin America: a Post-Colonial situation

• Socio-economic inequality-the greatest in the world

• Weak and questioned political institutions + Corruption

• Local needs -global demands• Class, ethnicity, gender and other identity

conflicts• Environmental disasters• Criminal and political violence• Cultural blooming production in harsh conditions

Course “Challenges in Latin America”

• A multidisciplinary perspective (historical, sociological, political and cultural).

• Focus on three main regions: Mexico, the Southern Cone and the Andean region.

• International guest teachers from Bolivia, Peru and Argentina.

• Lectures, seminars, the presentation of films/documentaries, role-plays and group discussions.

Exchange students

• Also: students from our exchange programs with Argentina (University of Tucuman) and Bolivia (UMSA) participate in the course

• Possibilities to know better and establish good contacts with these exchange students

Spring 2011

• Thematic focus on Poverty, Gender and Revolution

• 1.Struggles and politics in Latin American social history,

• 2. Social, political, economic, and environmental challenges, with a gender perspective (with guest lecturers from Bolivia and Peru)

• 3. "Revolution and Poetry in Modern Latin American" (guest lecturer fr Argentina)