We’re so excited to welcome you to the re-launched Johns Hopkins Program in Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies, or LACLxS (pronounced Lac-Lax. This is Hopkins, after all!). This is the new home for the interdisciplinary study of the histories, cultures, societies, and political systems of Latin America, the Caribbean, and Latinx populations globally – across Hopkins campuses and throughout the Baltimore region. We’re looking forward to new courses, new programming, and new community collaborations.

We’re especially thrilled to welcome our new Program Director, Dr. Angelina Cotler. Dr. Cotler holds a PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she completed a dissertation examining microcredit programs in Peru. She was the Senior Associate Director of UIUC’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies for more than ten years, and was then Associate Director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, before taking up a position as the Director of Membership and Development at the Latin American Studies Association (LASA). At JHU, Dr. Cotler oversees all aspects of LACLxS programming, curriculum, and advising, and serves as the Director of Undergraduate Studies and a Senior Lecturer in the program. 

LACLxS is a collaborative project of a host of faculty across Hopkins campuses. The program is initially co-chaired by Dr. Casey Lurtz, Assistant Professor of History, and Dr. Christy Thornton, Assistant Professor of Sociology. We also have a new and fabulous faculty advisory board with wide ranging interests and areas of expertise, including multiple faculty working on Mexico, Brazil, and the Caribbean, among other places. We are especially excited to welcome new faculty who join us in 2022, including Zophia Edwards, Assistant Professor of Sociology, and Dr. Johaina Crisostomo, Assistant Professor of English.

We are continuing to offer our undergraduate minor and are working toward re-launching a major in Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies in 2023. We are also offering our two-semester graduate course sequence, Latin America in a Globalizing World, which is led by program faculty and offers a fall reading course and a spring works-in-progress faculty/graduate seminar.

We’re very excited that this year, we will begin to be able to offer research travel grants again. Check our funding opportunities page for more information soon.

Finally, we’re really excited to work with undergraduate and graduate students to offer the kinds of programming and courses you’d like to see! Don’t hesitate to reach out to Dr. Cotler with ideas for events, speakers, or activities.

Here’s to a great Fall 2022 semester – and a great future for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies here at JHU!