Latin American Studies 201bh - Colloquium: Topics in Latin American and Latino/a/x Studies- (De)Tangling the Meanings of Afro-Latinx & Black Women's Hair
Colq: T-Black Women's Hair
Fall
2025
01
4.00
Katie Milagros Duarte
M W 9:25 AM - 10:40 AM
Smith College
LAS-201bh-01-202601
kduarte@smith.edu
This colloquium interrogates the social and cultural meanings of Black women’s hair as a lens to understand race, gender, class, and identity. Utilizing feminist theories of color, this course examines how Black and Afro-Latinx women’s embodied experiences with hair can be understood through broader systems of power, as well as community and individual agency. Through theoretical and empirical texts, short films, and classroom discussions, students critically analyze hair as a site of beauty, power, and resistance, focusing on the experiences of Black and Afro-Latinx women in the United States navigating U.S. beauty standards. Enrollment limited to 20. (E)