Art and the Politics of Blackness and Indigeneity in Peru's Past and Present

By visiting three different regions of Peru, one of the most diverse countries in Latin America, this program offers students the opportunity to think critically about identity and diversity in a setting outside the United States. In particular, the program will focus on the study of Blackness and Indigeneity in Peru, and that focus will take two forms. First, students will study artistic production both historically and through hands-on activities, including workshops in the plastic and performing arts with some of Peru's leading artists. In doing so, they will examine how Afro-Peruvian and Indigenous populations have used artistic expression to negotiate and creatively reinvent identity over time. Second, students will study the histories of Afro-Peruvian and Indigenous communities since Spanish colonization, the forms of discrimination they have confronted, and the means by which they have resisted, challenged, and endured in a society where racism has long been pervasive. The course will emphasize how this history of struggle has shaped the resilience of Afro-Peruvian and Indigenous populations in the present day. Students will thus gain not only a deep exposure to Peruvian history, society, culture, and artistic production, but also a sense of how the politics of diversity and multiculturalism work differently in Peru and the United States.