This course will investigate the cultural representation of the environment in American culture and will discuss methods of Eco-Storytelling, concepts and approaches from environmental humanities. By discussing different cultural and literary theories, climate fiction (especially Young Adult Climate Fiction) will be positioned within their social and historical contexts. Special focus will be on how cultural representations reflect material realities.

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Based on the research and teaching focus of the Center for Inter-American Studies Gender and Generations, this class explores key texts from gender studies and feminist theory from the US and Latin America to negotiate what it means to talk about gender, diversity and intersectionality from global perspective. It is the aim of this class to engage with current debates to locate possible connections within the broader field of cultural studies. To do so, intersectional cultural and social representation of gender will be explored to problematize the terms of intersectionality and interdependencies. Intersectionality will also be approached via a critical discussion of female indigeneity, territories and bodies. Case studies from fieldwork with Amazonian women in Ecuador will provide practical insights. Thinking with post-structural, intersectional, as well as Inter-American approaches, this class invites the participants to jointly explore different theoretical and methodological approaches of gender and diversity..

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What comes to our mind when we think of America and the Western Hemisphere? How do we conceptualize “the Americas” from a European vantage point? And which literary, cultural, social, economic, and political connections are there between North, Central, and South America? Introducing the field of Western Hemispheric Studies and Inter-American Studies to participants, this class investigates various entanglements of the Americas and Europe. In doing so, it also addresses epistemological foundations of the humanities (in comparison to those of the social sciences and the natural sciences) as well as challenges and benefits of interdisciplinary research. How we see and experience research objects – in our case the Western hemisphere – strongly depends on our theoretical and methodological approaches which are based on our ideas of knowledge production and general purpose of research. This class invites participants to jointly explore different theoretical and methodological approaches to researching the Western hemisphere from a perspective inspired by the humanities and social sciences. Throughout the class, participants will be encouraged to develop their own critical research questions in the emerging fields of Western Hemispheric and Inter-American Studies.

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How have women participated in, shaped and contested political struggles in Latin America from the twentieth century to the present? This course explores women’s movements and women in political struggles through a series of historical and thematic focal points, ranging from anti-colonial resistance and early twentieth-century activism to women’s mobilization under military dictatorships and contemporary cultural and political practices. Rather than treating feminism as a unified framework, the course engages with diverse concepts, texts and experiences, including Indigenous women’s movements, critiques of Western feminism and other forms of political engagement. Alongside academic texts, participants will work with popular culture and reflect on how theoretical perspectives shape our understanding of gender, power and political action.

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This seminar examines migration as a central lens for studying the historically entangled relations between Latin America and Europe. Focusing on different forms of mobility from the colonial period to the present, it explores how migration, labour, inequality and different forms of power relations are mutually constituted within global and inter-American contexts. Topics include colonization and slavery, European and intra-American migration, unfree and precarious labour, cultural and political practices and care work within the world market and gendered systems. The participants will reflect on how migration connects regions, actors, and networks and how this interweaves with the world market, revealing complex and often unexpected entanglements.

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