

	Introduction The Program Puebla and Cholula The University The Community Housing Calendar Application Collage of Pictures Fall 1999 Collage of Pictures Fall 2000 Collage of Pictures Fall 2001

Cultural activities

To give students every possible opportunity to develop their understanding of Mexico beyond the classroom, the program will include an intense program of field activities, and visits to sites of cultural and historical interest. Visits to markets, Mayan ruins, schools, museums, cooperatives and churches are included in the program. Three mandatory weekend trips are included in the program, including IN 2001 Mexico City, Oaxaca, and the colonial cities of Morelia and Guanajuato, all of which have relevance for students’ understanding of their courses and of Mexican society.

Wesleyan Program in Mexico: Page 2

Universidad de las Américas, Puebla

The Academic Program

Given the nature of the experience we envision, we have modified the normal horizontal structure of the academic semester to take advantage of the flexibility of a modular system.

Students participate in an initial orientation at Wesleyan at the end of the semester prior to their departure. On arrival in Mexico, students participate in the UDLA-P orientation and visiting Wesleyan faculty will provide additional activities to prepare students for the semester and the linguistic and social expectations of the program.

I. Language and Culture: 6 weeks.
Intensive language and preparation for cultural studies. Classes meet for a total of 3 hours per day, with varied assignments outside the classroom.

Writing Workshop: 1 week.

Participants are expected to write a substantial paper as their final project, and this workshop prepares them for this assignment and for the expectations regarding accuracy in written Spanish that they will face when they return to the home campus.

Modules II and III

These modules are coordinated by teachers of language, but bring to the classroom UDLA-P faculty. The coordinators then work with students to ensure that they continue to develop their language skills while focusing on the content of the lectures, discussions and readings.

II. Cultural History of Mexico: 4 weeks.
This module introduces students to the pre-hispanic and colonial history of Mexico, focusing on the immediate environment. Archeology, anthropology and art history are explored through readings and the examination of artifacts, as well as site visits.

II. Mexico Today: 3 weeks.
North-South relations, economic issues, contemporary politics and political history, are presented in a format designed to introduce students to the social and political realities of the lives of the people among whom they are living.

IV. Mexico Through Literature: 2 weeks.
To ensure that students understand the richness of Mexican literature as a source for the understanding of Mexican society, and in order to provide them with the vocabulary necessary for literary analysis in upper-division literature course on the home campus, we have asked writer and activist Juan Carlos Canales Fernández to work with the students.

This challenging module, which comes at a moment in the semester when students’ language skills are quite highly evolved, takes as its subject the 20th century Mexican short story . Utilizing within the constraints of the time available the methodology proposed by Lucien Goldmann, the module explores the relation between narrative structure and social structure through the reading of short stories and critical essays. Themes to be touched upon include violence and society, myth and history, and Mexico and post-modernity. Stories include classics such as Rulfo’s “Luvina,” Fuentes’ “Aura,” as well as less well-known works.

V. Final project and report preparation
During the second half of the semester, it is expected that students will work with the assistance of the faculty member who teaches the writing workshop, on their final research paper and oral presentation. During the last weeks of the semester the schedule allows time for preparation of a significant work in Spanish. Themes chosen in 2001 were very diverse, and included the role of women in the Zapatista movement; Mexican rock music; an exploration of the concept of sexual harassment in the Mexican context; and gendered expectations regarding education.

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