Feit Interdisciplinary Seminar in the Humanities
Spring 2013
IDC 4050H / NTH
Tuesdays 2:30-5:25
Global Brazil: Critical Perspectives on Brazilian Culture and Society
Professor Michele Nascimento-Kettner (Modern Languages and Comparative Literature)
Professor Ana Y. Ramos-Zayas (Black and Latino Studies/Anthropology)
This course is designed as an interdisciplinary and critical introduction to the history, society, literature, and culture of Brazil, the largest nation of Latin America. Students will learn about Brazil’s colonial experience as the only Portuguese colony in the Americas, its unique experiment with monarchical institutions in the nineteenth century, and the trajectory of its uneven modernization in the twentieth century. The course will examine diverse topics including contemporary race relations, gender, sexuality, religion and spirituality, class conflict, and migration, as well as various aspects of Brazilian cultural production and performance, as reflected in film, music, literature, and other forms of popular culture. Students will engage in the critical analysis of a variety of texts, including films, fictional work, ethnography, and historical accounts, as they also pursue their own areas of intellectual and research interests. Situating Brazil in a global context, the course could be of particular interest to students who intend to pursue study abroad programs in Brazil, who might go into international professional fields (business, journalism, education, etc.), or who are considering graduate school in various disciplines in the humanities or social sciences.
IDC 4050H / MTH
Tuesdays 11:10-2:05
From Civil Rights to Black Power
Professor Johanna Fernandez, History
Professor Clarence Taylor, BHS
The modern civil rights movement, perhaps the most important social protest movement of the twentieth century, eradicated the American Apartheid system known as Jim Crow and catalyzed the passage of some of the most important laws in twentieth-century America. While prominent figures were important in shaping the civil rights struggles, the movement was also influenced by countless numbers of ordinary men and women whose names shall never be recorded in history books. This course examines the social roots and origins of the civil rights and black power movements and their relationship with broader and concurrent political and social developments in American society as a whole.
