Latin-American Culture and Current Affairs

The course offers a broad overview of some of Mexico's iconic and traditional beverages, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. Throughout the course, various recipes, ingredients, preparation techniques, and cultural meanings associated with these beverages are explored. Regarding alcoholic beverages, icons such as tequila, mezcal, and various types of Mexican beer and wine are studied. Additionally, the history of these beverages, their production process, the producing regions, and their distinguishing characteristics are examined. The course also delves into their role in Mexican culture, including celebrations, traditions, and rituals. On the other hand, the course also covers some non-alcoholic beverages, such as agua fresca, atole, and pozol, analyzing their importance in Mexican cuisine and daily life, as well as their relevance in social and ceremonial contexts. In summary, this course provides an initial approach to the diversity and richness of Mexican beverages, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, highlighting their cultural, historical, and gastronomic significance in Mexico's national identity.

The course aims offering an overview of the indigenous cultures that live in Mexico today. The objective is for students to become familiar with Mexico's ethnic diversity and its most representative characteristics. The course will take a historical, social, and cultural approach. The course includes an introduction to the general historical background, an in-depth look at the ethnic families in Mexico (their geographic distribution, language, and number of speakers), their characteristics (festivals, music, religion, cuisine, and social and political organization), and their indigenous identity (attitudes toward their own ethnic groups). During the sessions, active participation from students is expected, allowing them to assimilate and gain an intercultural perspective on each of the topics.

This workshop offers Spanish students a space to develop, discuss, and contrast critical opinions in Spanish on various current topics. Participants receive material (a newspaper article, a radio or television news piece) before each class, which serves as a premise to explore and debate current social and cultural realities from different Spanish-speaking countries. Each class is preceded by a resource section to develop opinions and argue ideas (vocabulary and expressions, syntactic structures, connectors, oral and written examples of critical opinion) and some practice activities. The presenter acts as a moderator, inviting students to apply the resources seen, argue their own opinions, show agreement and disagreement, or nuance their opinions. Among the topics to be discussed are the rise to power of Milei in Argentina, the shift in Chavismo in Venezuela, the migration crisis at the northern border, the historical memory in Spain, and other interesting issues in current politics.