HST 211 - Sex, Beauty, and the Body in Brazil and the Caribbean

Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR (students beginning prior to Fall 2024): Meets general academic requirement HU and DE.
This course examines Brazilian and Caribbean conceptualizations of sex, beauty and the body during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Beginning with the theoretical underpinnings of colonialism and the legacies of slavery, we will then examine how contemporary democracies and globalization have formed Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Caribbean identities, particularly among women. Major themes include sex work and sex tourism, plastic surgery and constructions of beauty, and the ways in which recent returns to democracy have shaped these actions and decisions.