Latin American Studies Major, B.A.

The five main goals of the Curriculum in Latin American Studies are

1. to enhance students’ knowledge of a world region of vital importance to the national interest of the United States;
2. to encourage the development of Carolina students as global citizens;
3. to promote critical language competencies and cultural skills as a way to prepare students to succeed in public and private sector careers;
4. for students to acquire multi-disciplinary forms of knowledge as a way to understand the array of forces that have shaped modern Latin America; 
5. to foster an understanding of the historical and cultural origins of the Latin American communities in the United States.

Student Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the Latin American studies program, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate knowledge of the political, geographical, and social complexities of the region
• Demonstrate knowledge of the historical and cultural complexities of the region
• Demonstrate proficiency in Spanish or Portuguese (or other language(s) of the region if approved)
• Demonstrate an interdisciplinary grasp of Latin American literatures, arts, and ideas
• Apply basic research methods and skills and synthesize and evaluate scholarly research
• Gain admission to graduate programs or apply knowledge and skills learned in relevant careers

Requirements 

In addition to the program requirements, students must

• earn a minimum final cumulative GPA of 2.000
• complete a minimum of 45 academic credit hours earned from UNC–Chapel Hill courses
• take at least half of their major core requirements (courses and credit hours) at UNC–Chapel Hill
• earn a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.000 in the major core requirements. Some programs may require higher standards for major or specific courses.

For more information, please consult the degree requirements section of the catalog.

Course List

Code	Title	Hours
Core Requirements (10 courses)
LTAM 101	Introduction to Latin American Studies (recommended) 1
LTAM 697	Capstone Seminar (required) 1
Four courses required in the declared primary sequence		12
Two courses in each of the other three sequences		18
Additional Requirements
Spanish or Portuguese at least through the fifth-semester course 2		6
Total Hours		36

¹

both courses may count in any sequence.

²

 The first three levels of Spanish or Portuguese may count toward the General Education Foundations requirements and have not been included as additional hours for the major.

The Curriculum in Latin American Studies is divided into two concentrations: humanities and social sciences. These concentrations are further divided into sequences: humanities, into history and culture-literature sequences; social sciences, into journalism-political science and anthropology-economics-geography sequences. To ensure depth in a single discipline of Latin American and Caribbean studies, four of the 10 courses required for the major must be selected from one of the sequences. To ensure breadth of exposure to other areas of Latin American and Caribbean studies, two courses must be selected from each of the other three sequences.

Listed below are the most commonly offered courses in each sequence. Please note that not all the courses on Latin American and Caribbean topics are listed here, and many other courses may satisfy the major requirements. Special topics courses, first-year seminars, undergraduate seminars, independent studies, and capstone courses taught by Latin Americanist and Caribbeanist faculty members on Latin American and Caribbean topics also may count.

Humanities Concentration–History Sequence

Course List

Code	Title	Hours
AAAD 260	Blacks in Latin America	3
AAAD 385	Emancipation in the New World	3
HIST 142	Latin America under Colonial Rule	3
HIST 143	Latin America since Independence	3
HIST 240	Introduction to Mexico: A Nation in Four Revolutions	3
HIST 241	History of Latinos in the United States	3
HIST 242	United States-Latin American Relations	3
HIST 248	Guerrillas and Counterinsurgencies in Latin America	3
HIST 278	The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade H	3
HIST 315	Nation-Building in Latin America H	3
HIST 531	History of the Caribbean	3
HIST 532	History of Cuba	3
HIST 534	Slavery and the US Civil War H	3
HIST/WGST 280	Women and Gender in Latin American History	3
LTAM 291	The Latino Experience in the United States	3
LTAM 314	Law and Society in Latin America	3
LTAM 350	The United States and Latin America	3

H	Honors version available. An honors course fulfills the same requirements as the nonhonors version of that course. Enrollment and GPA restrictions may apply.

Humanities Concentration–Culture-Literature Sequence

Portuguese

Course List

Code	Title	Hours
PORT 310	Advanced Communication in Portuguese: Media & Entertainment	3
PORT 323	Advanced Communication in Portuguese: History, Nature, and Society	3
PORT 370	Modern Brazil through Literature and Film in Translation	3
PORT 375	Portuguese and Brazilian Fiction in Translation	3
PORT 382	Women Writers: Brazil and Beyond	3
PORT 388	Portuguese, Brazilian, and African Identity in Film	3
PORT 535	Brazilian Drama	3

Spanish

Course List

Code	Title	Hours
SPAN 270	Contemporary Spanish American Prose Fiction in Translation	3
SPAN 344	Latin@ American Cultural Topics	3
SPAN 361	Hispanic Film	3
SPAN 373	Studies in Latin American Literature	3
SPAN 374	Mesoamerica through Its Native Literatures	3
SPAN 381	Studies in Spanish and Spanish American Poetry	3
SPAN 385	Contemporary Spanish American Prose Fiction	3
SPAN 387	Eroticism in Contemporary Latin American Literature	3
SPAN 389	Outside Cuba: Diasporic Literature and Culture	3
SPAN 613	Colonial and 19th-Century Spanish American Literature	3
SPAN 614	Modernist and Contemporary Spanish American Literature	3
SPAN 625	Indigenous Literatures and Cultures of the Américas	3
SPAN/WGST 620	Women in Hispanic Literature	3

Other Courses

Course List

Code	Title	Hours
ARTH 160	Introduction to the Art and Architecture of Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica H	3
ARTH 267	Latin American Modernisms	3
ARTH 277	Art and Architecture of Viceregal Latin America	3
CMPL 133	Great Books II: Imaging the Americas from the Late 18th Century to the Present	3
DRAM 288	Theatre for Social Change	3
DRAM 486	Latin American Theatre	3
ENGL 685	Literature of the Americas	3
LING 558	Ancient Mayan Hieroglyphs	3
LING 560	Mesoamerican Languages and Linguistics	3
LING 561	Native Languages of the Americas	3
LTAM 411	Summer Intensive Introductory Course in Yucatec Maya	6
LTAM 512	Summer Intensive Continuing Course in Yucatec Maya	6
MAYA 401	Introduction to Yucatec Maya	3
MUSC 147	Introduction to the Music of the Américas	3

H	Honors version available. An honors course fulfills the same requirements as the nonhonors version of that course. Enrollment and GPA restrictions may apply.

Social Sciences Concentration–Journalism-Political Science Sequence

Course List

Code	Title	Hours
MEJO 443	Latino Media Studies	3
MEJO 446	Global Communication and Comparative Journalism	3
MEJO 490	Special Topics in Mass Communication H	1-3
PLCY 349	Immigration Policy in the 21st Century	3
POLI 231	Latin America and the United States in World Politics	3
POLI 238	Politics of the Global South: Latin America H	3
POLI 434	Politics of Mexico	3
POLI 435	Democracy and Development in Latin America H	3
POLI 450	Contemporary Inter-American Relations H	3

H	Honors version available. An honors course fulfills the same requirements as the nonhonors version of that course. Enrollment and GPA restrictions may apply.

Social Sciences Concentration–Anthropology-Economics-Geography Sequence

Anthropology

Course List

Code	Title	Hours
ANTH 142	Local Cultures, Global Forces H	3
ANTH 231	The Inca and Their Ancestors: The Archaeology of Andean South America	3
ANTH 232	Ancestral Maya Civilizations H	3
ANTH 320	Anthropology of Development	3
ANTH 360	Latin American Economy and Society	3
ANTH 439	Political Ecology	3
ANTH 453	Field School in South American Archaeology H	6
ANTH/FOLK 130	Anthropology of the Caribbean	3

H	Honors version available. An honors course fulfills the same requirements as the nonhonors version of that course. Enrollment and GPA restrictions may apply.

Economics

Course List

Code	Title	Hours
ECON 450	Health Economics: Problems and Policy	3
ECON 465	Economic Development	3
ECON 560	Advanced International Economics	3
ECON/EURO/PWAD 460	International Economics	3

Geography

Course List

Code	Title	Hours
GEOG 130	Development and Inequality: Global Perspectives F	3
GEOG 259	Society and Environment in Latin America	3
GEOG 430	Global Migrations, Local Impacts: Urbanization and Migration in the United States	3
GEOG 452	Mobile Geographies: The Political Economy of Migration	3
GEOG 457	Rural Latin America: Agriculture, Environment, and Natural Resources H	3
GEOG 458	Urban Latin America: Politics, Economy, and Society	3

H	Honors version available. An honors course fulfills the same requirements as the nonhonors version of that course. Enrollment and GPA restrictions may apply.

F

FY-Launch class sections may be available. A FY-Launch section fulfills the same requirements as a standard section of that course, but also fulfills the FY-SEMINAR/FY-LAUNCH First-Year Foundations requirement. Students can search for FY-Launch sections in ConnectCarolina using the FY-LAUNCH attribute.

Other Courses

Course List

Code	Title	Hours
AAAD 260	Blacks in Latin America	3
AAAD 460	Race, Culture, and Politics in Brazil	3
ANTH/LING 303	Native Languages of the Americas	3
LTAM 411	Summer Intensive Introductory Course in Yucatec Maya	6
LTAM 512	Summer Intensive Continuing Course in Yucatec Maya	6
RELI 245	Latina/o Religions in the United States-Mexico Borderlands H	3

H	Honors version available. An honors course fulfills the same requirements as the nonhonors version of that course. Enrollment and GPA restrictions may apply.

Additional Requirements

Majors are encouraged to work toward proficiency in both Spanish and Portuguese. Language across the curriculum (LAC) courses allow students to use their Spanish or Portuguese in select courses. Students taking LAC courses with Spanish or Portuguese recitation sections may receive one hour of additional credit by enrolling in SPAN 308.

All General Education requirements apply. First- and second-year students are strongly encouraged to enroll in LTAM 101, an interdisciplinary introductory course offered each year, usually in the fall.

The following courses are recommended for fulfilling General Education requirements for students interested in majoring in Latin American studies:

Global Language

Spanish or Portuguese should be used to satisfy the global language requirement. The global language 1 through 4 sequence (PORT 101, PORT 102, PORT 203, and PORT 204 or SPAN 101, SPAN 102, SPAN 203, and SPAN 204) may be completed in two semesters by enrolling in intensive courses (PORT 111 and PORT 212, or SPAN 111 and SPAN 212).

Special Opportunities in Latin American Studies

Honors in Latin American Studies

Latin American studies majors with an overall grade point average of 3.3 are invited to pursue a degree with honors by writing an honors thesis during the senior year. Each honors thesis is written under the direction of an appropriate faculty advisor; when completed, the thesis must be defended orally before an examining board of faculty members. Honors candidates enroll in the two honors courses (LTAM 691H and LTAM 692H). LTAM 691H counts as a course in the student’s concentration.

Experiential Education

Students who are committed to field experience or experiential education in Latin America may be able to arrange for this through independent study credit. Students wishing to do so should have the academic support of a regular faculty member and contact the institute’s associate director well in advance of the semester in which the experience is to take place.

Intensive Yucatec Maya

Each summer the Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of North Carolina and Duke University offers intensive instruction in modern Yucatec Maya, with a secondary focus on ancient, colonial, and modern Maya culture. The courses include classroom instruction in Chapel Hill (LTAM 411) or in Mérida, Mexico (LTAM 512 and LTAM 690), and a field study experience in Yucatán, Mexico. See the Maya program website for current course information.

Independent Study

Any student may enroll in independent study (LTAM 396) with the permission of the curriculum faculty advisor and the agreement of a Latin American or Caribbean studies faculty member who will supervise the student’s independent study project. This course may be used to fulfill the requirements of the major, and it is often linked to internships or to undergraduate grants for summer research travel.

Study Abroad

Study abroad is not a requirement of the major; however, living and studying in Latin America or the Caribbean is highly recommended as an experience that majors should consider. The UNC–Chapel Hill Study Abroad Office offers a broad range of programs in Latin America and the Caribbean. Visit the Study Abroad Office website. ISA and the Study Abroad Office offer competitive scholarships for majors wishing to undertake study in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Undergraduate Awards

Each year the Latin American Studies major offers funding opportunities for students conducting research or studying abroad in Latin America or the Caribbean. These include the Julia Crane, Halpern, and Mellon Awards. The Federico Gil award recognizes the best undergraduate honors thesis written on a Latin American or Caribbean topic. The LTAM Major Book Fund provides funding to defray the costs for required textbooks in Latin American-content courses. Contact the director of undergraduate studies for information.

Undergraduate Research

Latin American Studies majors are eligible to develop independent and/or senior thesis projects. A small number of grants are available for undergraduate field research related to Latin America or the Caribbean.