This course will investigate the cultural and linguistic representations of environmental issues within Inter-American contexts. Focusing on the intersection of climate crisis narratives and communication, we will explore how language shapes public perception of environmental urgency and how temporal frameworks influence understandings of ecological change. Drawing from the environmental humanities, intersectional environmentalism, and eco-linguistics, the course investigates how the climate crisis and its temporalities are constructed across various media and cultural discourses, with particular attention to the intersections of gender, race, and colonial histories. Through the analysis of diverse texts and media outlets, students will engage with key concepts, methodologies, and pedagogical approaches central to understanding the climate crisis through the lens of environmental humanities.

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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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What does it mean to rebel, and how have women in Latin America participated in and shaped different forms of rebellion from the nineteenth century to the present? This proseminar explores women’s rebellious practices across a broad range of historical and political contexts, from everyday forms of resistance and food protests to organized political struggles, revolutionary movements and feminist activism. Drawing on debates on rebellion, including the work of Eric Hobsbawm, we will examine how women challenged social, economic, political and gendered forms of power, and how their actions have been understood and represented. Particular attention will be paid to Indigenous women’s political practices and to approaches such as feminismo comunitario, which challenge dominant understandings of feminism and political action. Alongside academic texts, students will engage with historical sources, political writings, popular culture and creative self-reflection to explore different forms and meanings of female rebellion across time.

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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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This proseminar explores the exoticization and erotization of performers—including dancers, musicians, circus artists, and individuals displayed in human zoos, panopticons, and colonial exhibitions.
Beginning with European expansion and the early violent encounters in the Americas, we examine how performance functioned as a medium of popular culture to shape ideas about race, sexuality, and difference. Through body history and the analysis of prejudices, skill, and power, we will investigate the lives of these performers and the boundaries of their agency.
Using diverse historical media—both as primary sources and as cultural tools—we will trace how constructs of the body were created, reinforced, and contested over time.

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