Cultural Analysis in Latin American Studies examines Latin American culture through digital media, film, music, arts, and literature. You will explore the ways in which modern social dynamics in the region both shape and are shaped by Latin American cultural production and identity representations. Also significant is the study of how cultural narratives enable different voices and sections of society to articulate their experiences, even those that have traditionally been silenced or marginalized. Staff expertise spans disciplinary fields including literary studies, film and media studies, cultural studies, visual and performing arts, and new media. Examples of research you can conduct include specific cultural expressions found in Latin American cities, ranging from graffiti to blogs, and from mass cultural events to neighborhood initiatives aimed at preserving local identity. During fieldwork, methods such as interviews and participant observation can be complemented by archival research (for example film archives or cultural journals) to examine how specific current issues are addressed in film and television production.

If you choose Public Policies in Latin America (Modern Latin American History), you will have the opportunity to study the fast-changing nature of current state-civil society relations in the region. Special attention is paid to the formulation and implementation of public policies addressing key areas such as education, citizen security, poverty alleviation, indigenous rights, gender equality, health, and the environment, alongside the ways civil society interacts with these initiatives. Our staff expertise spans modern history, political economy, politics, international relations, anthropology, and sociology.

You will also have the chance to conduct fieldwork research on specific programmes implemented by state agencies, local governments, NGOs, and citizens' initiatives across several Latin American countries. By interviewing citizens, policymakers, and field experts, you will gain unique, firsthand experience in Latin America.

Within the Language Variation and Bilingualism track you will study a series of current issues related to bilingualism and language variation in the Spanish and Portuguese language as spoken in Latin America. Our faculty members do research on topics such as second language acquisition, grammatical aspects of bilingualism and language contact and syntactic variation. Moreover, faculty members and students bring a strong interdisciplinary focus to scholarship and teaching and actively collaborate with other Leiden University programs, such as the Leiden University Center for Linguistics (LUCL) and the Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC). Staff expertise covers disciplinary fields within sociolinguistics, bilingualism, second-language acquisition, morphosyntax, heritage languages, minority and indigenous languages, language policy, language contact.

During the master, main theoretical and methodological issues will be discussed based on examples drawn from studies of bilingualism and language variation in Spanish and Portuguese. Several topics will be presented, from first to second language acquisition, individual to social bilingualism and finally language instruction and language policies concerning bilingualism.

You can conduct research on, for instance, second language acquisition, language variation, heritage Spanish and Portuguese in the Netherlands.

Public Policies

• National Identity and Nation Branding in Chile
• The project of the Nicaraguan Canal: Nationalism versus economic development

Cultural Analysis

• The representation of domestic servants in Brazilian cinema
• The conceptualization of the border in contemporary Mexican literature

Language Variation and Bilingualism

• The phenomenon of Code-switching among Polish Immigrants in Argentina
• The acquisition of Grammatical Gender in Dutch: a comparison between Dutch Monolingual Children and Spanish-Dutch Bilingual children

Topics within the courses are connected to the evolving social, linguistic and cultural issues shaping Latin America. Each year, we organize a rich programme of invited academic speakers, including guest lecture series by scholars from Brazil, and a dedicated course taught by a prominent scholar from Chile. Speakers from other Dutch and foreign universities, NGOs, embassies and International Relations also regularly speak at guest lectures. 

The aim of the MA in Latin American Studies is to ensure you graduate with state-of-the-art knowledge about key academic issues that are currently under discussion in and on Latin America in the fields of modern history, cultural analysis or linguistics. In addition, you will have learned how to carry out independent research in a Latin American country, and how to develop this research into an academic piece of work in the form of a written dissertation.