HIST-LIT 90FI: Race and Empire in the Americas

Semester: Fall

Offered: 2024

Professor: Hannah Waits
Th - 3:00pm to 5:00pm 

This course explores the culture and politics of imperialism in the Americas from the early 19th century to the present, with particular attention to race and ethnicity. We will ask how formal and informal imperial relationships developed by looking at French, British, and especially United States imperialism across the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. Focusing on topics like revolution, migration, military occupation, tourism, climate change, and humanitarianism, we will examine how empire functioned on the ground for those who imposed it and those who resisted, appropriated, or accommodated it. Course texts will include theory from Frantz Fanon and Gloria Anzaldúa, fiction by Jamaica Kincaid, films like Aftershocks of Disaster and West Side Story, and primary sources like political cartoons, tourism posters, international adoption applications, and humanitarian aid commercials.

Link: Course Site