Afro American Cultures in Latin America
*Three-week course, first session*

The course Afro American Cultures in Latin America will teach students about the specific characteristics of people of African descent and their contributions to the cultures of the societies of which they are part. We will see that through complex socio-historical cultural resistance, syncretism and adaptation to new contexts, descendants of Africans who suffered the Atlantic slave trade began to write their own history.

Additionally, we will examine how this diaspora was the origin of the current communities of African descent; communities without whose presence and contributions to the national cultures it would not be possible to understand neither the present nor the history of America. The objectives of this course include performing an in-depth analysis of this substantial component of Latin American societies from an anthropological perspective, as well as highlighting the originality of the contributions of the Afro American cultures and their different ways of expression. (.5 unit)

Required text: Electronic material provided at Middlebury.