Latina/o Studies in/and Spanish & Portuguese Departments: Disciplinary Bounds and Limitations
Abstract
This roundtable discussion will explore the disciplinary challenges surrounding Latina/o studies that arise in classes within Spanish & Portuguese departments. Our conversation will focus on experiences in the United States,... [ view full abstract ]
This roundtable discussion will explore the disciplinary challenges surrounding Latina/o studies that arise in classes within Spanish & Portuguese departments. Our conversation will focus on experiences in the United States, drawing on our backgrounds as students and instructors. We will discuss the impact, content and pedagogical practices that we either have implemented or consider relevant to critically engage Latina/o Studies within our discipline and address the needs and experiences of our students. These considerations include the policing of disciplinary boundaries and the linguistic tensions created by the history of our discipline and the shifting demographics of the region. Krista Brune will approach the topic from the perspective of Luso-Brazilian studies. She will consider what recognizing and examining the experiences of Brazilian immigrants in the United States, including our students, could mean for Latina/o Studies. This intervention will explore how interdisciplinary modes of thinking from Latina/o Studies could contest the traditional disciplinary boundaries of language and national literatures within departments of Spanish and Portuguese. Manuel R. Cuellar will draw from his experience teaching heritage speakers and introductory courses of literature in Spanish to explore the need and possibilities of the implementation of a Latina/o Studies framework in highly diverse classrooms through content. He will analyze the absence of racial and ethnic groups in commonly used textbooks, i.e. Central American, indigenous and Afro-Latino cultural production, in addition to an interrogation of the use of Spanglish in diasporic literature. Vanessa Marie Fernández will discuss the pedagogical and disciplinary benefits of including Latina/o Studies components in Latin American literature courses taught in Spanish. This presentation will consider different strategies for incorporating Latina/o Studies that address the needs of very different student populations. First, it will explain how community engagement impacted the learning experience of a predominantly upper-middle class Caucasian student population. Additionally, this presentation highlights the advantages that teaching Latina/o Studies texts as part of Latin American literature has for heritage speakers. Sandra Sotelo-Miller will approach the topic from the heritage speaker language course perspective. She will consider the importance of having separate language courses specifically geared towards these students to better address their goals and needs in learning the language. More specifically, developing beginning of the semester assessments that help filter these students into these alternative language tracks that are specifically tailored to them.
Authors
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Manuel R Cuellar
(University of California Berkeley)
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Vanessa Fernandez
(San Jose State University)
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Daynali Flores-RodrÃguez
(Illinois Wesleyan University)
Topic Areas
Community Based Learning and Research , Education , Latinidades , Literature and Literary Studies , Afro-Latino , Brazilian , Central American , Chicano/a -- Mexican , Humanities
Session
EDU-13 » Roundtable (3:30pm - Friday, 8th July, San Gabriel)
Presentation Files
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