CAR332Y0 Puerto Rican Culture and Environment
The University of Toronto will offer one course in Puerto Rico, worth one full-year credit. The course has limited space and is contingent on adequate enrolment. Classes and mandatory field trips will take place Monday through Thursday.
Based on readings, lectures, experiential activities and discussions, this course will examine the cultural and environmental history of Puerto Rico. The course will explore debates on colonialism, capitalist modernity, development, ecosystems, religion, race and politics. Such analysis will help with the consideration of Puerto Rico as the last colony of the Americas within the larger context of the Caribbean. The course will include on-site excursions related to the lectures and reading material covered.
Prerequisites
Completion of 4.0 full-course equivalents.
Breadth Requirements = Creative and Cultural Representations (category 1) + Society and Its Institutions (category 3)
2024 draft course syllabus
Field Trips
Field trips, which are designed to complement the course readings, will include visits to the San Juan (Puerto Rico Museum of Arts, Piñones Forest, Old San Juan tour), a day trip to Adjuntas to visit Casa Pueblo (community-based environmental organization) and La Olimpia Forest School.
Instructor
Dr. Conrad James is an associate professor in Comparative Literature and Director for the Centre of Caribbean Studies.
Professor James was awarded his Ph.D. in modern and medieval languages by the University of Cambridge in 1997. He taught at the University of Durham and the University of Birmingham prior to joining the University of Houston as an Associate Professor in World Cultures and Literature. In 2021, Professor James joined the University of Toronto as an Associate Professor with tenure in the Centre for Comparative Literature and New College (Caribbean Studies).
Professor James’s research focuses on Spanish Caribbean literature and visual culture and more broadly on Afro-Hispanic cultural production. He has published widely on Afro-Cuban writing of the late 20th century and has also written on contemporary Dominican fiction. In addition to scholarly articles, Dr. James is the author of Filial Crisis and Erotic Politics in Black Cuban Writing: Daughters Sons and Lovers (Tamesis 2019). His other major publications include Writing the Afro-Hispanic: Essays on Africa and Africans in the Spanish Caribbean (2012) and The Cultures of the Hispanic Caribbean (2000). He is currently working on a monograph on the transnational geographies of 21st-century Caribbean fiction and another on Black Cuban Theatre (1960 - 2000).