Citizenship and Social Justice in Hispanic Cultures Course Descriptor

Course Overview

This course, taught in English, explores how citizenship and social justice  are represented across different Hispanic cultures, focusing on issues such as racism, gender,  LGTBI+  and social inequalities. The course will enable students to analyse and understand social movements, authors , and cultural artifacts.Through the critical analysis of written texts (literary and non-literary), films, visual artifacts (paintings, posters, photographs) and music, students will build an understanding of the complexity and diversity of the Spanish-speaking world.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Employability Skills

Teaching and Learning

Teaching and learning strategies for this course will include:

A minimum of 36 contact hours, typically to include interactive group teaching, co-curriculars, individual meetings, in-class presentations and exams.

Course information and supplementary materials are available on the University’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

Students will receive individualised developmental feedback on their work for this course.

Students are required to attend and participate in all the formal and timetabled sessions for this course. Students are also expected to manage their directed learning and independent study in support of the course.

Assessment

Formative

Students will be formatively assessed in class through class activities, and during office hours. Formative assessments are ones that do not count towards the final grade but will provide students with developmental feedback.

Summative Assessments

Further information about the assessments can be found in the Course Syllabus.

Feedback

Students will receive feedback in a variety of ways: written (including via email correspondence); oral (within office hours or on an ad hoc basis) and indirectly through class discussion.

Feedback on examinations is provided through generic internal examiners’ reports and are made available to the student on the VLE. For all other summative assessment methods, feedback is made available to the student either via email, the VLE or another appropriate method.   

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is used as part of the approval/modification process only.

Journals

• Cortés Gómez, I. “Antigypsyism as Symbolic and Epistemic Violence in Informative Journalism in Spain, 2010–2018”. Critical Romani Studies, Vol. 3, no. 1, Dec. 2020, pp. 4-25, doi:10.29098/crs.v3i1.74.
• Martin, D. and Shaw, D. (2021), Chilean and Transnational Performances of Disobedience: LasTesis and the Phenomenon of Un violador en tu camino. Bull Lat Am Res, 40: 712-729. https://doi.org/10.1111/blar.13215
• Hoy, Rebekah. “Simultaneous Grammars of Domination: A Feminist Rhetorical Study of Alfonsina Storni’s” Tú me quieres blanca”.” Young Scholars in Writing 6 (2009): 73-82.
• Martínez, Miguel A., and Javier Gil. “The struggle against home evictions in Spain through documentary films.” International Journal of Housing Policy 22.3 (2022): 371-394.
• Salmon, Katie. “Shame and Eviction in Juan Miguel del Castillo’s Techo y comida (2015).” Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies 5.1 (2021): 61-89.

Electronic Resources

• Jones, Marcus D., et al. “An Interview with Victoria Santa Cruz.” Callaloo, vol. 34 no. 2, 2011, p. 304-522. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/cal.2011.0051.
• Santa Cruz, Victoria. “Me gritaron negra (They shouted black at me)” Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985 Digital Archive. Los Angeles: Hammer Museum, 2019. https://hammer.ucla.edu/radical-women/art/art/me-gritaron-negra-they-shouted-black-at-me

Indicative Topics

Students will study the following topics:

• Popular contemporary culture
• Social movements in Hispanic Cultures
• LGTBI+ rights in Hispanic Cultures
• Gender in Hispanic Cultures
• Citizenship and democracy in Hispanic Cultures
• Racism in Hispanic Cultures