Spanish & Gender and Women – 434, Le Moyne College (Spring 2024)

This course explores cinema’s role in reinforcing or challenging exoticized sexual representations in the Latin America, impacting transnational tourism. Students will analyze how film depict the interplay of tourism and gender, how these portrayals influence global film consumption and how filmmakers navigate tourism’s commodification. Additionally, we will investigate the intersection of race, gender, and ethnicity in these narratives. Through film analysis and anthropological literature, students will gain insights into how cinema and tourism interact in shaping perceptions of Latin America.

Spanish – 440 & Communication – 225, Le Moyne College (Spring 2023)

Situated in a region characterized by stark contrasts, encompassing some of the world’s most populous cities alongside vast rainforests, today’s Latin American filmmakers confront pressing global debates, ranging from ecological sustainability to migration, inequality, and violence. This course explores the intersection of Contemporary Latin American cinema with pivotal contemporary issues. Through film discussions and readings, students will contemplate themes such as indigenous cultures and the quest for environmentally sustainable societies, social justice and migration, and the dynamics of race amidst uneven urban development, among others. These films serve not only as a portal to witness the intricacies of Latin America but also as a means for students to view their own reality from a not-so-distant perspective.

Spanish – 431, Le Moyne College (Fall 2022)

This course aims to introduce students to different illustrative styles, cultural expressions, writers, and movements in Latin American literature. It mainly focuses on fundamental themes in twentieth and early twenty-first-century Latin American fiction, particularly the short story. During the course, students will read and analyze key issues related to Latin American fiction in the selected time period. Moreover, secondary sources will be referred to during class activities and written and oral assignments. Close reading of texts and group discussions will be an integral part of this course.

Spanish – 412, Le Moyne College (Fall 2023)

This course explores the transformation of Latin American cultures through issues of race, gender, and social justice, as well as interdisciplinary topics in history, social sciences, politics, and economics. The class will examine how telenovelas introduce these intersectional and interdisciplinary issues to working-class Latin American viewers. Although telenovelas (soap operas) are widely stigmatized in academia, they have served as a long-term referent for the Latin American general public to reflect on pressing social topics. As the philosopher Jesús Martín Barbero asserts, telenovelas have shaped Latin America’s collective imagination of the historical past, present, and future for many decades. A significant part of the course also examines the misrepresentations of diverse communities in Spanish-speaking mainstream media. Additionally, students will engage with literary, visual, and musical products ranging from canonical novels to less prestigious art forms, including narcocorridos, tattoos, and fashion.

Spanish – 300, Lehman College (Fall 2020, Spring 2019)

This course is an introductory exploration of literary analysis, with a focus on poetry, narrative, and theater texts. By studying this course, students will develop the ability to recognize and identify the most significant illustrative styles, movements, influential writers, and cultural expressions present in Spanish and Latin American literature.