COURSE DESCRIPTIONS FOR SPRING 2006

 

Introduction to Chicano Studies                                                       Call # 19147

CHMS 201.001                    MWF      11:00-11:50am                                    Perea, P                                                                                                                                                                                 

This courses will serve as an introduction to Chicana/o Studies and include topics such as history, nomenclature, gender, civil rights, activism, and ideology.  Chicana/o Studies will prepare students for upper division Chicana/o Studies courses and will serve as an introduction to the minor in Chicana/o Studies.             Approved by A &S  as:  Group V Humanities

 

Introduction to Chicana/o Studies                                                                   Call # 17999

CHMS 201.002     TR         17:00-19:30pm                                                    Encinias, M

What does it mean to be a descendant of an Aztec princess and a Spanish conquistador? What do César Chávez and Selena mean for the Chicano/as of today? What do Lowrider art, Chicano murals, and Santo art say about Chicano/a culture? And, do Chicana/os have rights to bi-lingual education, affirmative action, and land grants? In short, what does it mean to  be "Born in East L.A.” but with a New Mexico twist? We will explore these and other questions through small group discussions and lectures. We will read a book or two and several handouts. We will look at Chicano/a film and art and read Chicano/a poetry and  literature. 

Approved by  A &S:  Group V Humanities   

 

Introduction to ChicanA  Studies                                                                     Call# 14308

CHMS 332.001                    TR          14:00-15:15pm                                                    Vizcaino,M

In this course, we will look at the ways identities have been shaped by family relations, religion and society. Why do we call it Chicana Studies? Why not Hispana, Latina, or Mexicana Studies? We will look at Pre-Colombian ideas of gender roles, through the Chicano Movement of the 1960’s and 70’s, and Chicanas’ reactions to the movement. We will also look at the Chicanas’ roles in the U.S. Feminist Movement as well as their exclusion from it. Current trends in Chicana feminist thought, including issues of sexuality and biracial identity, will be discussed featuring guests who are living Chicana theory in their own ways. Texts include Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands/La Frontera, the novel Mother Tongue by Demetria Martinez, the collection of essays Living Chicana Theory, and a course reader to be given at the beginning of the semester. Emphasis will be placed on the varied nature of Chicana Studies, from Chicana history to literature and art, to theoretical writings.        TW Women Studies  332

 

Senior Seminar:  Intellectual History of Chicanos                                                      Call # 14887

CHMS 490.001                    MW        16:00-1715                                                         Truxillo, C

This course will survey the intellectual evolution of Chicanos from Ancient Meso-America, Medieval Iberia, Colonial New Spain to the Contemporary Southwest.  Emphasis will be placed on mentalities and cultural paradigms such as Toltec Ideology, Hispanic Thomism, Creole Patriotism, Mexican Liberalism, “Indigenismo’ National Liberation, Chicanismo, and Cultural Nationalism.  Students will develop a  grounding in the main themes and evolutionary trends of Chicano Intellectual History.  Class is mandatory to complete the Minor

 

Environmental Justice                                                                                       Call #  12002

CHMS 393.001    R             16:00-18:00pm                                                          Kosek, J

23.001          Environmental Justice    R  4:00 - 6:30          MH 206  Kosek

                     The intersection of nature, identity and politics pepper the pages of newspapers almost every day from stories of toxic waste sites, to immigration policies, crime, genetic engineering to indigenous struggles and terrorist tendencies.  In all these and many other cases, ideas of race, class, and gender intersect with ideas of nature in often tenacious and troubling ways. Starting with the traditional environmental justice movement in the U.S., we will look at how people disproportionately experience exposure to hazards, are denied access to resources, and excluded from decision making processes, along lines of race, class and gender.  Our approach will be to understand these traditional ideas of environmental justice as well as to examine less traditional sites of environmental justice such as the laboratory, the war zone, the urban mall, and the courtroom.

                     The course therefore seeks to define environmental justice more broadly. We will look at cases beyond the U.S., comparing concepts of environment and justice from Dixieland to Gangland, Yosemite mountain parks to Gambian community gardens, Indonesian rainforests to Aboriginal science, as a means of exploring the daily expressions and lived consequences of key terms such as race, class, nature and politics.   Using diverse material--such as historical documents on Eugenics to contemporary Walt Disney productions -- and methods --from History and Anthropology, to Geography and Science Studies- we will explore the complex engagements of nature, culture and power and the effects these formations have on contemporary political struggles. The central goal of the course is to improve students' ability to think conceptually and critically, and to question received wisdom, cherished assumptions and common sense ideas of nature, identity and politics.                                            TW American Studies

 

New Mexico Culture thru Film                                                                         Call # 10920

CHMS 393.005                    MWF 12:00-12:50                                                          Wilson, D

In this course we will concentrate on continued development of the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) through the study of New Mexico culture.  We will consider how historical phenomena such as conquest, isolation, cultural contact and conflict have contributed to the formation a of Nuevomexicano identity, to the evolution of cultural behaviors and to the production of artifacts which demonstrate both resistance and hybridity.  Such an approach will allow us to view the arena in which Nuevomenxicano culture has developed as a site of struggle wherein strategies for coping with unequal power distribution have constantly been and continue to be, formulated and performed.  Some of the films to be viewed will be,  Chicano!  Salt of the Earth,  Milagro Beanfield War, and several 30 minute De Colores films.   Course prerequisite:  Spanish 2002 or 212 or 276                     TW Span 301.005

 

Introduction to Chicana/o Literature                                                                              Call # 18803

CHMS 393.017                    TR          12:30-13:45                                                         Aleman, J

This introductory course to Chicano/a literature will examine a variety of literary genres-poetry, plays, short fiction, and novels-to explore the historical development of Chicano/a social and literary identity.  We'll cover several time periods, beginning with the nineteenth century and concluding with contemporary works, and we'll focus on important issues such as race, class, gender, religion, family, education, language, and the act of writing itself.  In the process, we'll examine the way writers represent the complexities of being caught between Mexican and American cultures.  In fact, we'll see how this "in-between" identity shapes Chicano/a literature and perhaps even distinguishes it from other literary traditions.  By the end of the course, we should have a comprehensive understanding of the literary and historical formation of Chicano/a identity and the complex, even contradictory, experiences of life "between" two worlds. 

Jesse Alemán, Associate Professor                                                  TW English 265

Director of Graduate Studies              Department of English -MSC03-2170                (505) 277-3103(office)                        

Mexican Feminist Writers                                                                                                17676

CHMS 393.019                    MWF 2:00-2:50                                                   Rosas Lopatequi, P

This class will look at some Mexican feminist writers and intellectuals from the first half of the 20th century. These writers build a progressive cultural consciousness concerning and patriarchal oppressive values that form both men’s and women’s traditional roles. Antonieta Rivas Mercado, Carmen Mondragón (Nahui Olin), Nellie Campobello, Elena Garro, Rosario Castellanos, and Amparo Dávila will be contributing authors. The class will compare the misogynous cultural view of women with current events, such as serial murder in Juárez and other cities in Mexico. Please consider the feminist theme and by enrolling, agree to study accordingly. We will read short stories, novels, theater, poems, as well as journal and news paper articles. The class will be required to participate daily, write various essays, and participate in a final presentation or play.

 

CHICANO HUMOR                                                                                            Call # 21025

CHMS 393.007                    TR          1730-1845                                                            Lamadrid, E

With deep roots in the classic satires of Lucian and Juvenal, the slapstick of Commedia del Arte, the political ironies of agit prop theater, traditional Pastorela, and the Mexican Carpa traveling carnivals, Chicano Humor blooms in many forms: from historic anti-clerical and agringado joke cycles and diablo stories, to Teatro Campesino, the Royal Chicano Air Force, and the guerrilla satire of the Chicano Secret Service and others. All genres from chistes to film and political cartoons will be explored. The rhetorical strategies of comics from Tin Tan to Paul Rodríguez and beyond will be examined in the light of cultural theory to the roar of popular acclaim.

TW Am ST 350.007              Approved for Group IV Social Sciences

 

THE  AZTECS                                                                                                      Call # 19897

CHMS 393.008                    MWF      12:00-13:50                                                         Truxillo, C

This course will examine the rise and fall of the imperial Mexico-Aztec nation from the founding of Tenochtitlan (1325) to the Spanish Conquest (1521).  Aztec culture, religion, and mentalities will be discovered.  Furthermore, the Meso-American background of Mexico-Aztec Imperialism will be highlighted.  Quetzal-Coatl, Topiltzin, Tlacaelel, Moctezuma II, Guatehmoc, Malinche, and the god Huitzilopotchil are some personalities we will study.

TW Am ST 350.008              Approved for Group IV Social Sciences

 

Expediciones to  Mexico                                                                                                     Call #  21285

CHMS 351. 001                   MWF      12:00-12:50pm                                                  Truxillo, C

COURSE DESCRIPTION:  This course will be taught on campus and on site in Mexico during the Spring 2006.  The class will depart for a two week tour of Mexico City and the Yucatan Peninsula.  All of the major Meso-American, Spanish Colonial, and modern Mexican  sites will be visited.  Lectures will be conducted on site.  The purpose of the course is to examine the connections between Mexico and the Chicano people of the American Southwest, or El Norte. Course Requirements:  Class credit will be established by way of a 15-20 page travel journal which explores students’ interpretation of Mexico.  

Approved by A& S  as:  Group V Humanities