Diasporas, Disasters, and Dissent: Re-Thinking Puerto Rican Studies in the 20th and 21st Centuries

3.0 credits · Undergraduate

Foreign in a domestic sense is the perplexing way that the Supreme Court of the United States chose to define Puerto Rico's status in the so-called Insular Cases of the early 20th century. Written over 100 years ago, this contradictory ruling looms large over Puerto Rico's precarious legal standing, despite the fact that there are now more Puerto Ricans living on the US mainland than in the island itself. Seeking to counter the obfuscation of Puerto Rico in the US imaginary, in this course students will analyze how key historical, political, and social moments connected to diasporas, disasters, and dissent have galvanized Puerto Rican cultural production in the 20th and 21st centuries. (ENGL-GLS, ENGL-LOA, ENGL-PST)