Special Topics: From Empire to Accompaniment: Selected Readings in the US/Central American Encounter

Catalog description

This selected readings course examines the historical relationship between the United States and Central America, with particular focus on Guatemala and El Salvador. Together the instructor and students will explore how the politics of imperialism have shaped the region's enduring struggles with poverty, lack of educational access, homelessness, addiction, and gang violence — and how these realities are inseparable from the theological and cultural frameworks used to justify them. Through directed readings, film study, and cross-cultural dialogue with subject matter experts, students develop a substantive understanding of how colonial wounds have contributed to the complexity of immigration, and therefore immigrant lives, in the present moment. Course meeting dates: 9/25 9:00-10:00am 10/16 9:00-12:00pm 11/6 9:00-12:00pm 11/20 9:00-12:00pm 12/4 9:00-12:00pm