Latin American & Caribbean Studies
WPI’s Latin American and Caribbean Studies program brings together a scholarly community from across the Humanities, Social Sciences, and STEM fields to engage with critical issues that affect the region and its relations with other parts of the world. Our students and faculty engage in research, activism, and teaching and learning focused primarily in three areas that build from WPI’s strengths as a global institution and shape WPI’s interactions with the region and its people:
- Environment, sustainability, ecocriticism, and climate adaptation
- Migration, mobilities, diaspora, and transregional communities
- Intercultural understanding, literary and cultural studies, ethnicity and race, and social activism
Latin American and Caribbean Studies take place in and out of the classroom at WPI. Students, faculty, and staff work together through:
- Courses in Environmental Studies, History, International and Global Studies, Spanish, and more
- Field work in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, and Puerto Rico
- Events, student groups, and on-campus activities that bring together the WPI community and facilitate engagement with scholars and practitioners.
For more information, contact program directors John Galante and Aarti Madan.
WPI Resources
Our faculty conduct research in disciplines including Literary and Cultural Studies, Development, History, Political Science, Sociology, Anthropology, Geography, and Engineering as well as interdisciplinary fields like Mobilities Studies, Environmental Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies, Global Studies, Science and Technology Studies.
Several times per year, WPI’s program in Latin American and Caribbean Studies brings to the campus scholars to engage with faculty and students during events and in the classroom. We also maintain relationships with scholars and institutions of higher education in Worcester, New England, other parts of the US, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, and beyond.
Our podcast series Crossing Fronteras addresses topics such as knowledge production and technological adaptation in the Global South; trans activism and feminism in transnational perspective; indigenous perspectives on the cosmos and the capitalist state; and processes of cultural hybridization though migration and South-South relations. Have a listen!
