An overview of U.S. Latinx visual culture. Focused on cinema, the course also briefly addresses television, comics, printmaking, muralism, and other cultural forms rooted in communities of Latin American origin in the U.S., combining (audio)visual analysis of works with consideration of their social and political context.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students: Graduate students guest teach one lecture and complete a final paper of 15-20 pages in lieu of a final examination.
Athena Title
Latinx Film and Visual Culture
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student Learning Outcomes
By the end of the class, students should be able to effectively use tools from film and media studies to analyze works of Latinx film and visual culture.
By the end of the class, students should be able to identify specific strategies (such as bilingualism and rasquache) and artistic traditions (such as muralism and political printmaking) that have shaped Latinx film and visual culture.
By the end of the class, students should be able to recognize the diversity within Latinx communities in terms of national origin, race, and other factors and evaluate the political implications of who is included and excluded from specific definitions.
By the end of the class, students should be able to provide a timeline of key moments in the history of Latinos’ presence in the United States, including the Mexican-American War, the Mexican Revolution, post-World War II Puerto Rican migration to the mainland, the Cuban Revolution, and Cold War conflict in Central America, and describe how these histories are represented in film and visual culture.
By the end of the class, students should be able to analyze the career and work of a Latino/a/x filmmaker or artist, considering relationships between individual films or works, social and historical circumstances, and implied or stated political goals, in a final paper or other capstone assignment that makes an argument (such as a video essay or podcast).
Topical Outline
UNIT 1 – KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS
Week 1: Welcome and Film Terms
Week 2: Defining Hispanic/Latino/Latinx - Shifting Labels for a Diverse Community
Week 3: Latinx Images and Audiences in Classical Hollywood
Week 4: Borderlands Identities
UNIT 2: MEXICAN-AMERICAN CINEMA AND VISUAL CULTURE
Week 5: The Chicano Movement on Film
Week 6: Mexican and Chicano/a Political Art (Printmaking and Muralism)
Week 7: Chicano/a Performance Art
UNIT 3: BROADENING THE LENS - CARIBBEAN AND CENTRAL AMERICAN COMMUNITIES
Week 8: Cuban Cinema of Exile
Week 9: Puerto Rican Film on the Mainland
Week 10: The Dominican American Experience on Film
Week 11: Central Americans and the Immigration Narrative, 1980s-present
UNIT 4 – LATINX VISUAL CULTURE ACROSS MEDIA, 1980s-PRESENT
Week 12: Latino Comics
Week 13: From Indie to Hollywood: Robert Rodríguez
Week 14: Feminist Issues in Latinx Film
Week 15: The Telenovela in the Age of Online Streaming
Institutional Competencies
Analytical Thinking
The ability to reason, interpret, analyze, and solve problems from a wide array of authentic contexts.
Social Awareness & Responsibility
The capacity to understand the interdependence of people, communities, and self in a global society.
