This is a general introduction to and survey of the arts of Ancient America. We will look at both Mesoamerica and the Andean art and architecture beginning with some of the earliest cultures and ending with Aztec, Maya, Muisca and Inca. Questions about the materials, urban planning,meaning and aesthetics will be addressed. The course will also take advantage of the great collections at the Peabody Museum as well as the MFA. There are no prerequisites.
“Latin America” refers to a geographical region, a culture, a form of racialization, a mode of being, and even a concept. How have these different characterizations imagined Latin America and its diaspora, and what kinds of myths and discourses emerged as a result? How have these imaginaries constructed Latin America as a homogeneous, cohesive whole, and to what effect? What do these representations erase, especially considering the heterogeneous cultural and linguistic traditions in the region? Throughout the...
What responsibility do later generations have to remember and atone for the injustices of the past, even as they are perpetuated in the present? This course focuses on how projects of national public memory—especially commissions of “Truth and Reconciliation”—grapple with the demands of the past as they are experienced, ignored, and/or re-narrated by successive generations. Our class discussions will be oriented by readings from the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, which...
In this participatory hybrid course, we explore the creation and implementation of Street Dance Activism as a Co-choreographic somatic[1] healing modality, and form of spiritual transcendence, through participating in the Global Dance Meditation for Black Liberation and deeply engaging with ...
This course will explore how literary and other textual sources can provide the creative stimulus for original vocal and instrumental composition. From popular music to experimental contemporary music, how is it that the integration of words and music can achieve an expressive affect that is greater than the sum of the parts? Likewise, how can the concepts and sounds of a text influence and even determine the creative character of an instrumental composition?
In answering these questions, and by way of establishing...
Religions have functioned throughout human history to inspire and justify the full range of human agency from the heinous to the heroic. Their influences remain potent here in the 21st century in spite of modern predictions that religious influences would steadily decline in concert with the rise of secular democracies and advances in science. Professionals in a wide range of fields need to understand these complex religious influences in order to understand modern human affairs across the full spectrum of...
How does the growing inequality between and within nations—which is the major global issue of our times—impact the Caribbean region and, in turn, its U.S. neighbor?
This course explores the complex, formative role of the Caribbean in the development of Western colonialism and capitalism and the consequences for the peoples of the region. Four major themes will be examined. First, the importance of the region in the origin and early development of Western imperialism...
Climate change has placed Amazonia at the center stage of global socio-environmental consciousness, particularly after the fires of 2019, which revealed the continental scale of land grabbing and deforestation in the region. Highways and paved roads have spearheaded the expansion of resource frontiers. They have also served as conduits for a complex process of state-driven colonization/urbanization which would more accurately be described as a favelization or entropic occupation of the rainforest. In this...
This course is a core requirement for all MPP students. No other students are allowed to enroll at this time. The course is in response to longstanding efforts by HKS students, and most recently, the HKS Equity Coalition, to insist that understanding race and racism and their intersecting forms of power and oppression is essential to an excellent education at a policy school. The United States’ global dominance has long been the envy of the world. But the role of race to native born and newcomer alike has often...
This course will explore the principles and methodologies of equity-centered approaches for knowledge generation, meaning making, and social transformation through inquiry and the research process. We will examine community-based, participatory, action, and decolonizing approaches to inquiry, and engage with various perspectives on the process, practice, and applications of liberatory inquiry methodologies. We will discuss epistemology and research paradigms; explore a variety of approaches and methodologies, including...
What can histories of tension and cooperation at the U.S.-Mexico border tell us about our own nation's public health programs and national racism?
Why does the Mexico-U.S. border continue to be a space for debate and controversy? This course examines how the creation of the U.S.-Mexico border in 1848 shaped modern Mexican society from the nineteenth century to our present. For many, the border served (and serves) as a protective barrier from poverty, violence, and,...
This course is intended to provide hands-on practice toward doing research on Latinx issues, with an approach grounded in the understanding that terms ‘Hispanic’ and ‘Latinidad’ are not static concepts and, at the same time, not a homogeneous mix. We will examine culture, intellectual production, languages, economics, and political thought, as well as the dynamics of Latino/a/e people in the United States. Throughout the class, students will become familiar with a wide range of thinkers, currents, concepts...
Since the last quarter of the XXth century Latin America has lived under the shadow of two parallel, sweeping (and often contradictory) processes: democratization and economic liberalization. These massive shifts have posed enormous challenges to established political actors such as electoral and patronage-based parties, as well as to economic actors such as domestic business and the labor movement. In this context, traditional stakeholders (protected industrial business, populist parties and mainstream...
This tutorial introduces students to qualitative research methods and how they can help us understand the successes, failures, promises, and limitations of human rights. Students will take a close look at “human rights in action,” or the way ordinary people interpret, demand, mobilize around, or resist human rights. We will discuss cases like women’s rights organizations in India, campaigns against female genital cutting in Egypt, truth and reconciliation commissions in Chile and Argentina, and indigenous rights...
This course focuses on the history and phenomenology of African peoples’ religious experiences in the Americas. The historical and social processes that led to the emergence of African diasporic religions in Latin America and the Caribbean will form the core of our reading materials. We will examine the role of myth, ritual, arts, and symbols as well as the social and political processes that explain the evolution of Black Atlantic religious traditions as formed by African indigenous traditions, African Christianity,...