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The Minor in Latin American Studies
The USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences offers a Minor in Latin American Studies for students in any major who want to pursue a complementary concentration on the region. This minor is designed to deepen undergraduates' understanding of Latin American societies and cultures by combining conceptual, area, and language studies during their time at USC. It includes courses from multiple disciplines, taught by more than 30 permanent faculty, visiting professors, and lecturers. Undergraduate students participate in their study of the region within a framework of close faculty guidance while fulfilling their departmental major requirements. Departments contributing courses include American Studies and Ethnicity, Anthropology, Art History, Comparative Literature, Economics, Geography, History, International Relations, Political Science, Sociology, and Spanish & Portuguese. Classes with Latin American content are also offered by the Annenberg School for Communication, the School of Education, and the School of Policy, Planning, and Development.
Students are encouraged to register in this minor by the end of their sophomore year.
Requirements
Students are required to complete 20 units of course work. Specifically, the minor stipulates that they take the gateway requirement of one 4-unit course and 16 elective units or four courses. These four courses must be spread across at least two disciplines and/or departments.
Required Course (1):
Students are required to take one of the following 4-unit gateway INTRODUCTORY courses, which can be at any level from 100-300:
| REL/AMST 133: | Religions of Latin America |
| COLT 250: | Cultures of Latin America |
| HIST 273g | Colonial Latin America |
| HIST 372: | Modern Latin America |
| IR 364 | The Political Economy of Latin American Development |
| IR 365: | Politics and Democracy in Latin America |
| POSC 350: | Politics of Latin America |
New courses that offer surveys of Latin America will be added to this list as they become available from different departments.
Area Courses (4)
Students choose four courses on Latin America outside of their department and dedicated exclusively to the minor. These courses must be spread across at least two disciplines or departments. If the student has chosen a lower-division (100- or 200-level) course among the introductory choices, all Area Electives must be at the upper-division (300- or 400-) level.
Courses
| Humanities Courses on Latin America | |
|---|---|
| AHIS 127: | Arts and Civilizations of Ancient Middle and South America |
| AHIS 128 | Arts of Latin America |
| AHIS 318 | Arts of the Ancient Andes |
| AHIS 319: | Mesoamerican Art and Culture |
| AHIS 411 | Studies in Arts of the Ancient Americas |
| COLT 250: | Cultures of Latin America |
| HIST 272: | Native History and Historians: Mexico and Peru to 1615 (Intro to Pre-Columbian and Early Colonial Latin America) |
| HIST 370: | Spanish America, 1492-1821 |
| HIST 371: | Colonial Latin America |
| HIST 372: | Modern Latin America |
| HIST 374 | Modern Mexican History |
| HIST 451: | The Mexican Revolution |
| HIST 456: | Race, Slavery, and the Making of the Atlantic World |
| HIST 470: | The Spanish Inquisition in the Early Modern Hispanic World |
| HIST 473 | Colonial Latin America Seminar |
| HIST 474: | Colonial Latin American Women and Gender History |
| PORT 250 | Cultures of Brazil and Lusophone Africa |
| SPAN 320: | Iberian and Latin American Cultures |
| SPAN 321: | Iberian and Latin American Cultures: Reading on the Arts |
| SPAN 372: | Modern Latin American Fiction |
| SPAN 495: | Between Empires: Sexuality and Writing in Latin America |
| Social Science Courses on Latin America | |
|---|---|
| AMST 170: | La Frontera: The US/Mexico border and transnationalism in the Americas (also under SOCI 170gm) |
| AMST 420: | Sociology of Violence, with a focus on Latin America (also under SOCI 420) |
| ANTH 425: | Peoples and Cultures of Latin America |
| ECON 340: | Economics of Less-Developed Countries (with flexibility to concentrate on Latin America) |
| IR 364: | The Political Economy of Latin American Development |
| IR 365: | Politics and Democracy in Latin America |
| IR 408: | Global Democratization (with certain emphasis on Latin America) |
| IR 426: | Trade Politics in the Western Hemisphere |
| IR 454: | The International Political Economy of Development (with emphasis on Latin America) |
| IR 465: | Contemporary issues in US-Latin American Relations |
| IR 466 | Contemporary Issues in Latin American Politics |
| POSC 350: | Politics of Latin America |
| POSC 430: | Political Economy of Mexico |
| POSC 431: | The Political Economy of Central America and Central American Migration |
| SOCI 170gm: | La Frontera: The US/Mexico border and transnationalism in the Americas |
| SOCI 366m: | Chicana and Latina Experiences, taught from a hemispheric perspective |
| SOCI 420: | Sociology of Violence, with a focus on Latin America |
Language Courses
Language courses for the minor in Latin American Studies are optional. In light of the College's built-in language proficiency requirement, this minor assumes that students who wish to pursue the most commonly spoken languages in Latin America (Spanish or Portuguese) will either already have done so, or could do so in one of USC's study abroad programs in a Latin American country. One of the four Spanish courses (all taught in Spanish) on the list of electives above can also satisfy those who wish to strengthen their Latin American language skills.
For more information, contact Josephine Le, Office of College Advising, CAS 120, kpn@usc.edu, 213-740-2534
Ready to declare Latin American Studies as a minor?
1) Download the AddDrop Application in PDF format
Sign and date the top of the AddDrop form (the advisor will fill out the rest).
Submit the AddDrop file along with the form below:
2) Download the ApplicationMinors in PDF format
Acrobat Reader is needed to open the files and can be downloaded for free online: www.adobe.com.
Have questions? Email the advisor (Josephine Le) at kpn@usc.edu.