ANTH 214 - Peoples & Cultures of Latin America

The term “Latin America” covers a wide range of cultures and peoples: from the Caribbean Islands to Mexico, from Central America to South America, from the Amazon to the Andes. Latin America, therefore, is a world of great contrasts–contrasts between megacities and rural hinterlands, between the wealthy and the impoverished, between industrialized zones and areas of rudimentary subsistence production, and between images of a peaceful paradise and those of extreme violence and terror. This course will examine the construction of various cultural identities in this diverse region and introduce students to the key issues confronting Latin Americans today as they are revealed in selected ethnographic studies.

3 credits