Annual Course (scroll down for the Course List) Course Concept: One of the central goals of the Institute is to create "new" knowledge and to inform new ways of thinking about knowledge. There are several challenges. First, limited access to academic materials in general impedes scholarly research in much of Latin America. Our courses and archive try to make these materials available. Second, performances function as vital acts of transfer, transmitting social knowledge. Third, the hope that globalization would prove a democratizing and 'equalizing' force in global information services has paled as globalization re-creates many of the inequalities that have long characterized relations in the Americas. In our limited way, we contest current models of long distance learning (those creating a product that will be consumed by 'clients' in other countries) by developing a collaborative, interactive, multi-sited web-based project that allows scholars, activists and artists and students the opportunity and the means of learning from and contributing to a shared archive. The concept of the course speaks to these concerns. How do these systems--the written, the performed, the digital--work together in the transmission of knowledge? What happens to the knowledge and social memory of minoritarian communities when only 'book knowledge', accessible to the few is deemed legitimate? Can digital technologies help us span the divide between the high-tech 'haves', and the low-tech, no-tech 'have-nots' as we work together to expand our artistic and cultural/academic 'archives'? Can they span the 'live' embodied knowledge associated with performance and the more durable knowledge of the written archive? The Institute has developed its areas of research and collaboration following a chronological/thematic sequence: Conquest, Colonialism, Nationalism, and Globalization. These themes are unifying topics in a historical trajectory, as well as the trajectory of social and political life in the Americas in the last five centuries. Course List: Summer 2008: Theatre/ Performance/ Memory: Performance and Cultural Politics in Peru Summer 2007: Theatre/ Performance/ Memory: Performance and Cultural Politics in Peru Summer 2006: Theatre/ Performance/ Memory: Performance and Cultural Politics in Peru Theatre/Politics/Memory: Performance & Cultural Politics in Peru (Summer 2005) Performance and/of Indigeneity (Spring 2005) Summer 2004: Theatre/ Performance/ Memory: Performance and Cultural Politics in Peru Performance and Conquest (Spring 2004) Globalization, Performance and the Public Sphere (Fall 2003) Spectacles of Religiosities (Summer 2003) Globalization, Migration and the Public Sphere (Fall 2002) Staging the Nation (Fall 2001) Performing Colonialism (Fall 2000) The Conquest (Fall 1999)   Related Courses: Fall 2008: Performance and Politics Elections Spring 2008: Theories of Spectatorship Fall 2007: Teatro Y Performance Latinoamericano Fall 2007: Performance and Activism Spring 2007: Trauma, Memory, and Performance Fall 2006: Performance and conquest Fall 2006: Performance and Politics in Latin America and Spain Fall 2006: Theatre and Performance in Latin America: 20th c. to the Present Theories of Spectatorship (Fall 2004) Political Performance (Spring 2004) Stages of Conflict: Latin American Theatre 16th - 21st Centuries (Spring 2003) Projects in Performance Studies (Spring 2003) Advanced Readings in Performance Studies: The Archive & The Repertoire (Fall 2002) Political Performance in Latin America (NYU spring 2000) Diversão Popular e Espetáculo (UNIRIO 2000) There have now been four successful Hemispheric Institute collaborative courses including students and faculty at PUCP (Peru),UNI-Rio (Brazil), UNAM-CRIM and UANL (Mexico), as well as three institutions in the U.S.: NYU, OSU and Trinity College. Each course has incrementally increased the use of interactive media in both teaching and student scholarship. Please see the Student Work in our archive as examples of the collaborative types of scholarship that take place between institutions and between students.The courses also rely on web-boards, email communications and live chats. These communications are tri-lingual and inter-lingual. Hemisphere courses are password protected for students and faculty of participating institutions. If you are not a participant and would like more information, please contact us. NYU home page UNIRIO home page PUCP home page UANL home page