Department of English

This course begins with the premise of the alien: landscapes, people, artifacts, language. How and where do we experience or encounter things, people, or places that are “out of this world”?
We survey a diverse range of expressive cultural material from Latina/o/x America such as travelogues, film, advertising, architecture, and artwork to question the categories of the alien, tourist, and the local. Class readings by Latinx and Latin American Studies scholars on Disneyland, cultural heritage, gentrification, and The X-Files will guide our investigation through the intersections of tourism, architecture, and the production and popularity of “alien” environments in the Americas. Class discussions and visits to local tourist attractions will engage students with everyday surroundings to interrogate how social experiences, economic, and political histories shape our understanding of the actual conditions we live in and imagine a possible world we all share.

As we build a hemispheric understanding of the Americas, we will examine dominant and mainstream representations of North American citizenship. This course is organized as a thematic loop: by the end, we will return to our initial point of departure with new questions.
This class aims to develop
1) critical thinking skills through collective close reading of secondary sources and seminar-style discussion of complex texts.
2) ability to engage primary and archival sources and their uses for interpreting the built environment.
3) ability to identify and describe central questions in Latinx and Latin American studies in writing through a progressive research-based assignment.Rationale for Proposal