230655 The United States and Latin America in the 20th Century: Empire, Migration, and Hemispheric Counter-Cultures (S) (WiSe 2026/2027)

The twentieth century was marked by a deeply unequal and conflictual relationship between the United States and Latin America. This seminar examines the expansion of US imperial power and regional hegemony, from the construction of the Panama Canal and military interventions in the Caribbean and Central America to the Cold War, the Cuban Revolution, and US support for military dictatorships such as Augusto Pinochet’s regime in Chile. At the same time, it explores the many ways in which Latin American activists and intellectuals contested US dominance.
A central focus of the seminar is the circulation of political ideas, activist practices, and popular cultures across the Americas. How were US-based movements—including the New Left, the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, feminism, and the anti-war counterculture—received and transformed in Latin American contexts? Rather than treating these influences as one-directional, we will examine how activists adapted them to local struggles over dictatorship, revolution, class, race, gender, and national sovereignty.
Conversely, Latin American and Caribbean migrants profoundly reshaped popular culture and political activism in the United States. Movements such as the Chicano Movement, the United Farm Workers, and the Young Lords connected struggles over labor, migration, and civil rights to broader anti-imperialist politics. Cultural forms such as salsa, muralism, and hip-hop articulated experiences of displacement, racialization, and hybrid identity while transforming US popular culture.
By tracing these reciprocal exchanges, the seminar asks how empire, migration, protest, and popular culture shaped one another—and how activists, artists, and diasporic communities created counter-cultures that challenged national borders and dominant visions of the Americas.

Requirements for participation, required level

The ability to read academic texts in English and a basic knowledge of U.S. history are required.