I have three main pedagogical principles in my classes. First, I expect students to develop critical and analytical skills. Second, I believe students bear the burden of the work. I understand my role as a teacher and mentor to be a guide in their journey, providing engaging readings, posing questions, challenging assumptions, and encouraging their quest for social justice. But they are the ones who have to do the work. Third, I engage in ongoing evaluation and adaptation of the syllabus. Every semester, I ask for feedback from students and TAs, consider my own perceptions, and adapt the classes accordingly.I structur most of my class around pre- and post-class assignments. Pre-class consists of reading the material before class. Post-class consists of traditional quizzes that assess all the readings related to a given topic. All classes include a final paper that is developed in stages to help students become familiar with sociological research. Students submit partial work (topic, research question, literature review, fieldwork) and drafts before the final version.
SOCY 1036 — Intro to Latin American Societies
This course aims to introduce students to sociology while exploring inequality in Latin American societies and the strategies Latin Americans develop to address it. We discuss what sociology is and focus on Latin American societies and their particularities. To that end, we take time to study pre-colonial and colonial periods, the wars of independence, and the birth of modern Latin American nations. We learn about the main revolutionary and reformist movements in the twentieth century and the reactions against them. Building on this historical background, we then explore Latin American societies through sociological constructs such as race, gender, crime, religion, and culture. We pay attention to US-LA relations and Latinxs in the United States. I keep pushing the students to relate the topics we discuss to the situation in their community.
SOCY 2000 — OMG! Religion in America
It presents students with a basic sociological approach to religion in the United States and to how it interacts with ethnicity, gender, social class, and politics. We pay attention to historical developments and theological ideas, but the goal is to understand how people live religion in their daily lives and how that practice relates to other aspects of their social life.I expect that, by the end of the semester, students will have an informed sociological understanding of religion and will better understand how religion is present in their lives and in American social life.
SOCY 3222 — Closed on Sundays. Religious change in modern societies
The course is, essentially, a seminar in the sociology of religion. It addresses the following questions: What is going on with religion in our world? How do we understand religion? What is the role of religion in contemporary societies, if any? During the semester, we explore current and classic answers to these questions. We study what some “Founding Fathers” of sociology (Weber and Du Bois) said and the main theoretical frameworks for understanding religion from a sociological perspective: Secularization and Rational Choice theories. We debate emerging trends in understanding religion in our globalized societies. The course covers quantitative and qualitative methodological perspectives as well as different geographical and cultural regions.
SOCY 3223 — Tattoo and Religion. Studying a neglected spiritual practice
This course explores tattoos as a religious practice from a sociological perspective. We begin by analyzing the relevance of tattoos in today’s society and examining how sociologists of religion have understood them so far. Later, we study tattoos from a lived religion perspective. Students will explore the history of religious tattoos in the Western world and the influences of other spiritual traditions on Western tattoos. Like many human creations, tattoos also have a ‘dark side’. They have been used as a tool of punishment. In that context, we will critically study religious mandates about tattoos.We will investigate contemporary religious and spiritual tattoos in the U.S., the Americas, and Europe. After paying attention to the role of tattooists, we will discuss who has the power to define whether tattoos are religious practices or not.
SOCY 3342 — Faith and Conflict in Latin America
This seminar explores the interaction between social changes and religion in Latin America. We study national cases, examining the political and religious changes in Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s. Then, we investigate the interactions of religiosity with some social transformations (environmental and gender-related movements, marginality, and migration). During the semester, students will write a paper on “religion and migration” among Latino immigrants to the U.S. After the course, students will be able to explain the origins, context, and consequences of religious transformation in Latin America, develop a critical assessment of the role of religion in society, and engage in clear, concise, and analytically sharp reading, writing, and speaking.