Centre for Latin American Studies
The purpose of the Centre for Latin American Studies is to create an environment for research, teaching, and debate on Latin America at the University of Copenhagen across a wide range of disciplines, including history, sociology, politics, anthropology, language, literary studies and arts.
Teaching, workshops, seminars and guest lectures
The centre organises workshops, seminars and guest lectures about a variety of themes. Besides following and discussing the current political situation of Latin American countries, the members and fellows of the centre present their collaborative and individual research projects and their results on an ongoing basis. Additionally, invited individual guest lecturers and lecture series regularly cover a broad variety of relevant topics by bringing in new specialised knowledge about Latin America, and new approaches in Latin American Studies.
These activities are mainly aimed at supplementing the teaching and research on Latin America at the Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies, but are also open to the general public. Moreover, the centre aims at maintaining a close dialogue with civil society, especially through joint activities with the association Netværk for Latinamerikastudier (NETLA) and with AIIA Academia Intercultural - Det Interkulturelle Akademi.
One of the aims of the Centre for Latin American Studies is to provide a stimulating, cross-disciplinary environment for debates and discussions about Latin America, and to create an inspiring milieu where researchers can share their research findings, and receive critical feedback on their works in progress. The overall research theme of the centre is the question of power and identity in Latin America, both in the past and present.
The following gives an overview of the research activities related to the centre. For more information about an affiliate and concluded or ongoing research projects, please click on the researcher's name, and you will be directed to the individual staff homepages.
Georg Wink (Associate professor)
My research interests lie in the cultural and social history of Brazil in texts and contexts (especially narratives of national identity); the crisis of democracy in Brazil (e.g., corruption, “impeachment”, politicisation of justice/lawfare, political systems, political and macroeconomic reforms); inequality and race relations (social policies, especially Affirmative Action policies); Brazil’s new role as a Global Player (e.g., Brazil’s relations to Africa); postcolonial and decolonial cultural theory (e.g., South-South epistemologies, cultural anthropophagy, transculturality and migration), intercultural communication theory and practice; Brazilian mass media (oligopoly structures, discourses and political role); contemporary Brazilian literatures.
Current project: "New Approaches and Synergies in Nordic Latin-American Studies: Applying Area Studies in a Multipolar World" (2022-2024). In this new network, funded by the Nordic research councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NOS-HS) and led by Georg Wink, researchers from five Nordic universities (Copenhagen, Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm Helsinki) collaborate with the common goal to enhance Nordic research on Latin America. It brings together the rich and still not well known Latin American production in social and humanistic thought and Nordic expertise on challenges of global importance: 1) sustainable and fair energy transition, 2) the political alliance between the Nordics and Latin America in a new multipolar world order and under the challenge of climate change, 3) social cohesion building in times of pandemic and increasing incertitudes. The network explores these topics in three workshops. Together with Nordic scholars in social sciences and the humanities as well as representatives of government, business, and civil society, they elaborate new approaches to make possible the better understanding of these challenges.
Concluded projects: Research on the ideological roots of the so called "New Right" in Brazil between 2016 and 2021. The findings were published in the monograph Brazil, Land of the Past. In this book I explain in detail how the diverse political actors of the “New Right” – which include tendencies from the authoritarian Bolsonaro wing to economic liberals to the military to both Catholic and evangelical religious conservatives – refer to a common tradition of ideas. This system of thought, with remarkable continuity and resilience, has its core in the defense of a God-given hierarchical order against any social contract and modernizing relativization. Though not always explicitly, the ideology provides the underlying premises of the “New Right’s” political action and drives the self-declared “liberal-conservative” – but rather anti-modernist – reaction. This analysis allows to understand the main claim of liberating an imaginary authentic “Brazil” from an aberrant “State” – and why so doing intends to preserve inherited privilege in an extremely unequal society.
Previous projects: "Sur/South – América Latina – India” on intellectual relations and the transferral of ideas between Latin America and South Asia; "Pioneers of a South-South Dialogue: The Cultural Periodical Sul (1948–57) in Florianópolis, Brazil" on cultural relations between Brazil and Africa; "When Inclusion Masks Exclusion: Disempowerment and Depoliticisation of Minority Issues through ‘Harmonising’ Discourses" as a joint research project in collaboration with the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (special issue in Brasiliana – Journal for Brazilian Studies).
Jan Gustafsson (Associate professor)
My research interests focus on Latin American political culture, with special attention to left wing populism, egalitarianism and utopianism.
My current project within this framework is an edited volume on “The use of fiction and popular culture within political utopianism” (working title), done in collaboration with Elena Ansótegui and Erick Palomares (post doc at AAU). Furthermore, I work on music and subjectivity, a project which aims at studying a number of Latin American popular music genres and their relation to subjectivities and identities: Tango, national and (male) gender identity; Bolero and passionate love as the subject’s self-identification; La Nueva Canción Chilena (New Chilean Song) and the creation of a revolutionary identity; La Nueva Trova (New Cuban ‘Trova’) and the “New Man” (the ”official” revolutionary subject); Cuban Rap and the protest against a failed revolution. Last, I also do research on photographic image and literary fiction. This subject is not exclusively within Latin American studies, as it includes general literary and image theory (particularly on the photographic image), as well as empirical studies of both Latin American and Spanish literature.
Julio Jensen (Associate professor)
In Latin American societies, religion plays an important role in culture, politics, the media, and the everyday life of people from all social segments. I am interested in the role of religion in literature and film as a manifestation of a different modernisation, than the one we know from other Western societies. The fact that religious and all manner of supernatural events appear on the same level of normality as occurrences within the “natural” order of things is, evidently, one feature of literatura fantástica and of magical realism, but this attitude towards the supernatural can be found in many expressions of Latin American culture. This points to a feature of modernity in Latin America, that is represented in literature and film, and which may be uncovered in this way.
Nieves Hernández-Flores (Associate professor)
My research areas are Sociocultural Pragmatics, Face studies, Intercultural communication, (Critical) Discourse Analysis, Political Discourse, and Media Discourse in the Spanish language. I am a member of the EDICE Program board, and I am also in charge of its publications office. EDICE is a research network in sociocultural pragmatics and discourse studies in the Spanish speaking world. The program was founded at the University of Stockholm by Professor Diana Bravo in 2002, and it includes scholars from Latin American and European universities working with language and discourse in Latin America and Spain. Among other activities, EDICE arranges biannual conferences at Latin American or European universities, and has two open access journals: Revista de Pragmática Sociocultural (SOPRAG) and Revista Textos En Proceso (TEP). One of EDICE‘s purposes is to reinforce collaborations between Scandinavian and Latin American universities and research groups.
Katrine Helene Andersen (Assistant professor)
My main research areas are Spanish and Latin American philosophy, and the relationship between philosophy and literature. I have particularly published on the works of Baltasar Gracián, Miguel de Unamuno, and recently Juan Larrea. I am currently studying Spanish philosophy in exile. I am especially interested in Spanish philosophy in its Latin American exile after the civil war, and the Spanish – Latin American interchange of ideas in the 20th century.
Ana Vera (Research assistant)
My research focuses on the relationships between cinema, culture and society. Using an interdisciplinary framework, I examine how cinema is inscribed in cultural spaces, as well as how it can be related to and understood in the context of social, political and economic transformations. During my doctoral research, I analysed Portuguese cinema and its representations of the evolution of society, from the 1960s until 2015. This research elucidated how cultural and social changes, that occurred in Portugal during this period (e.g. Dictatorship, Revolution, Europeanisation and Postcolonial contexts), are connected with film narratives.
In my past research, I examined the impact of the financial and social crisis on productions and film narratives in Portugal and Spain. More precisely, I studied how the same event – the European financial crisis – affected and was perceived by both Portuguese and Spanish cinemas between 2008 and 2016. Through a comparative approach, I aimed at contributing to the perception of a certain Iberian affinity in dealing with this major event. Most of my published research to date has been on these topics and, mainly, related to Portuguese cinema.
In my current research project, I am expanding my focus and incorporating in my activities Brazilian contemporary cinema. Through the analysis of its representations, narratives and discursive constructions related to contemporary Brazilian political, economic and social realities, I intend to develop a wider understanding of the role and interactions between cinema with cultures and societies.
Mads Bjelke Damgaard (PhD fellow)
My research project “Media Leaks and Corruption in Brazil” has resulted in the publication of a homonymous book, with the sub-title ”The Infostorm of Impeachment and the Lava-Jato scandal”, as well as the thesis “Car Wash, Crisis, and Political Cataclysm: Corruption Narratives in the Brazilian Mediascape” (assessment pending). The book is published by Routledge in the series Routledge Studies in Latin American Politics.
The book answers two central questions concerning the unprecedented and surprising situation in Brazil: First, how could political actors in a seemingly well-functioning democracy quickly override checks-and-balances, ousting the president Rousseff and putting a corrupt vice-president in her stead? Secondly, how could the nation’s very active media, while ostensibly performing the role of the watchdog, still fail to deliver media accountability to the public? The coverage and aggregate configuration of leaks, denunciations, and trials in the media are the focus of this book, along with the consequent effects upon coalition formation and judicialisation of politics.
Elena Ansótegui Martinez (External lecturer, visiting researcher)
My investigations mainly concern how discourses can build social realities. Research on discourses and their relationship with social realities is often limited to either a linguistic or social reading. I use the discourse of Subcomandante Marcos, the spokesman of "Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional" (EZLN), to investigate how his discourse has configured a political utopia opposing the "unique thinking" spoken by the neoliberal economy. The main purpose of the project is to analyse how a discourse from a marginalised figure in southern Mexico is able to attract so many people, and to build a collective identity across national borders.
Marie Ørum Wikman (PhD fellow)
My PhD project “Negotiating meanings of death. An ethnographic study among relatives of victims of police violence in the urban area of Buenos Aires” is based on an ethnographic study carried out among relatives of young men killed by the police in the urban area of Buenos Aires. Throughout the project I search for an understanding of the experiences and perceptions of the relatives with regard to these acts of violence, as well as the ways in which the judicial institutions respond to them. A basic consideration for my approach is a notion of the litigation as a negotiation or dispute between the relatives and state agents, as to the meaning of the death – and value of the life – of the victim. In these kinds of cases, the victims generally come from the poorer neighbourhoods of the city, and with this project I intend to contribute to debates about the relationship between state and margins in an urban setting.
Milton Almonacid (PhD fellow)
My thesis “Articulando diálogos inter-territoriales” aims at introducing a Mapuche perspective on the Western production of scientific knowledge. The objective is to construct a global perspective/dialogue with a point of departure in the inter-epistemological problems articulated in what has been denominated as the Western global structure. The intentionality is bi-directional: in one sense, I want to visualise the reasons, arguments and logics that articulate the profound inequalities, which characterise the marginal and excluded spaces and, in another, to visualise the logics, arguments and reasons articulated from these conditions. In other words, visualise the theoretical contributions produced from the marginal and excluded spaces, with respect to the debate and construction of a global dialogue.
Raul Marroquin Rosales (PhD fellow)
Concluded.
The Centre for Latin American Studies collaborates with individual researchers specialised in Latin America from various universities and research institutions in Denmark and the Nordic Countries, especially within the Nordic Latin American Research Network (NOLAN).
Furthermore, CLAS has institutional collaboration agreements; In January 2014, the University of Copenhagen and Freie Universität Berlin concluded an Erasmus agreement on the exchange of short time lecturers in the area of Latin American Studies. Through this, the Centre for Latin American Studies and the Institute for Latin American Studies in Berlin are strengthening the dialogue in the institutions’ common fields of teaching and research, as well as extending the existing networks to new partners. In 2013, the Faculty of Humanities, the Centre for Latin American Studies and the Colegio de Sonora in Mexico made an agreement on research collaboration and a teachers' exchange program.
Visiting researchers
The centre offers an open environment for critical thinking and academic debate, and welcomes researchers, postdoctoral fellows and PhD students from all fields of interests, to work on their own project at the centre. For more information, please contact the Director of CLAS, associate professor Georg Wink (georg.wink@hum.ku.dk).
Laura Erber (research period: February 2021 to January 2022)
Laura Erber is a Guest Researcher at the Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies (ENGEROM), at the University of Copenhagen, where she was also Visiting Professor of Brazilian Studies from 2020 to 2021. Her work is mainly in the fields of visual studies, image theory, contemporary art and literature. From 2012 to 2019 she was a Lecturer in Theory and History of Art at the Department of Aesthetics and Theatre Studies at the Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO), where she also coordinated the undergraduate course in Aesthetics and Theatre Theory.
She graduated in Portuguese Language Literatures from the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (2002) and holds an MA and PhD in Literature and Visual Studies from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro. In 2010 she received a Research Fellowship (PDEE grant, Capes, Brazil) and was a Guest Researcher at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies (IKK), at the University of Copenhagen.
She is co-founder and general director of Zazie Edições, an independent, non-profit venture, engaged in disseminating critical theory essays in Portuguese, in open access. She has published Ghérasim Luca (EdUERJ, 2012) and O Artista Improdutivo (Editora Âyiné, Brazil, 2021). She is also the author of a number of books of poetry and the novel Esquilos de Pavlov (Alfaguara, Brazil, 2013), which has been translated into Spanish and published in Argentina as Ardillas de Pavlov (Adriana Hidalgo, 2016). She writes for Brazilian newspapers and cultural magazines, including Folha de São Paulo, O Globo, Revista Zum and Suplemento Pernambuco.
Ariston Moraes (research period: August 2020 to July 2022)
Ariston Moraes holds a Ph.D. in Lusophone Studies by University Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3, France, and in Literary Studies by São Paulo State University – UNESP, Brazil. His research is focused on the cultural and political aspects of the literary production of the 19th century in Brazil. Specifically, his work examines how the formation of the Brazilian culture in the post-independence period is associated with the European romantic aesthetics. His doctoral dissertation, entitled “Revisited romanticism: Machado de Assis, first novels” investigated this relationship in the context of the first novels of Machado de Assis (1839-1908). Before joining the University of Copenhagen as a post-doctoral fellow, he was an instructor of Brazilian studies and Portuguese language at the University of South Carolina - UofSC, USA, for four years.
Erick Gonzalo Palomares Rodríguez (research period: January 2021 to December 2022)
Assistant professor in Spanish and International Studies at Aalborg University, Denmark. Holds a PhD in Government and Public Administration (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain) and a Master degree in Development, Innovation and Change (University of Bologna, Italy). The research I’m currently developing deals, on the one hand, with contemporary populism, using the discursive approach of Ernest Laclau. On the other hand, I work on the cultural (im) possibility to imagine utopias, based on the frequently quoted statement of Frederic Jameson: “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism”. I work with both ideas (populism and utopia) in a research project, in collaboration with the Transnational Institute, through the Transformative Cities Award and the Atlas of Utopia. I’m also interested in how recent political experiments in Latin America, like the (neo) zapatismo and the populist governments, have influenced political thinking in Europe, particularly in terms of the intellectual tradition regarding the discussion between reform and revolution, as a political strategy.
Ana Raquel Coelho Rocha (research period: August 2019 to August 2020)
I hold a PhD in Business Administration by PUC-Rio (Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro) and currently I am a post-doctoral researcher associated to the program in Business Administration at COPPEAD Institute (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro). My areas of research are Consumer Culture Theory and Marketing and I have been developing a solid experience with interpretive research, exploring themes such as beauty consumption, leisure consumption, base of the pyramid consumption, and race and ethnicity in a Brazilian context.
My current project which I develop at CLAS addresses an underestimated and underserved group of consumers that experience imbalance in market offers: Brazilian black women. Those consumers are treated like “invisible” by the market and had to adopt strategies to handle the lack of products and services targeted to them. Specifically, I investigate the context of hair-related consumption. I propose a theorization in a context in which the group investigated is not actually granted a consumer status to explore the role of recognition in consumption. This project presents a case of lack in market offers in a context marked by social injustice. By that, I call attention to limitations in consumers’ identity construction as part of a process of social non-recognition.
Beatriz Diogo Tavares Provasi (research period: June 2019 to May 2020)
I am a Brazilian performer, poet and actress who holds a PhD degree in Literature, Culture and Contemporaneity (PUC-Rio) and a Master degree in Visual Arts (UFRJ). My research focuses on the relations between art and politics, with a special interest in performances in public spaces. From the worldwide demonstrations and occupations in the early 2010s to the current migratory processes, I investigated aesthetic elements in political actions as well as performances that deal with it. Even though some people try to link the growth of the rightwing in Brazil to the 2013 demonstrations, from its aesthetic aspects and a non-linear concept of History, I assert this interpretation to be wrong.
Self-exiled since May 2019, I am now continuing my research at the Centre for Latin American Studies at the University of Copenhagen. I have also been linked to the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at this University as a visiting scholar when a PhD candidate. That was when my interest in migratory processes and migrant performances – my current project – started, from my own experience as an immigrant, being faced with a series of questions, ranging from questions about identity, gender, language, postcolonial and decolonial perspectives, diasporic, feminist, queer, etc. I am also a Portuguese teacher and proofreader.
Email: biatavares@yahoo.com.br
Phone number: (+45) 9181 4342
Ana Amélia Rodrigues dos Santos (research period: January 2019 to December 2019)
Recent studies in the field of contemporary visual and digital poetry have mainly focused on the influence of new technology in the constitution and visual arrangement of poems and on the reader’s engagement and reading challenges. Considerably less attention has been paid to the meanings created through the approach towards this kind of poems and – to a lesser extend – to its criticism towards society. This research aims to create insight into the influence of changing social realities in the expression, reception and response of/to visual and digital poetry. The selection and analyses of poems published within the last half century by poets from Italy, Brazil, Australia, EUA and Canada will eventually show a variety of forms and techniques that (re)introduce in the present time the creation of hybrid texts, which break with the rigid separation between poetry and other forms of art, as well as adds to their structure elements from current media. In this context, this study intends to show how the visual poetic forms developed today, the effects on the reading process (and the relationship with the reader’s function), and the engagement of this poetry with different social realities contribute to the construction of narratives that point out to a criticism towards society. This research thus discusses the effects that contemporary visual and digital poetry causes in the reader, and questions if poetry compensates for alienation and chaos, as a lyrical personal medium, or if it has another social function (if any at all).
In addition to this research, a project about utopia is being developed with CLAS (Centre of Latin America Studies). In this project, I intend to build an understanding of how Arnaldo Antunes’ poetry promotes an evaluation of current utopian narratives.
Ana Rocío Jouli (research period: November 2018 to April 2019)
Bachelor in Social Communication and M.F.A. in Creative Writing, Ana Rocío Jouli (1991, Argentina) is currently completing a Ph.D. in Literature at Universidad Nacional de La Plata. For her Ph.D. thesis she is working on a project called “Experience, Thought and Subjectivity in the Critical Writings of Poets”, which explores the links between poetic making and thinking, in the writings of contemporary Argentinian poets who have also developed a strong activity as critics during the past two decades. In 2017 she was awarded the Emerging Leaders in The Americas Program (ELAP) scholarship, to take part in a six-month research stay in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, at McGill University, in Canada. Previously, she was chosen for an international fellowship to collaborate on the research project “Poéticas negativas” (Negative Poetics) at IDEA Institute for Advanced Studies, in Chile. As a poet, she has published the collections Los Pacientes (La Bola, 2017), that was later adapted as a play, Constelaciones (Erizo, 2016), Tarde (La Bola, 2015) and De baúles o jardines (Morosophos, 2010).
Allane Pedrotti (research period: August 2018 to February 2019)
PhD student at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) and University of Copenhagen. My research field is a federal institution in Brasil (CEFET/RJ), that has an admissions policy of affirmative action quotas for students. I aim to understand the dialogical constructions of the quota system students through the orientation of interpretive discourse's analysis categories (LAVOB, 1972) and the tools, that the evaluation system offers (MARTIN, WHITE, 2005), with the support of studies on stigma (GOFFMAN, 1988). For this, I analyse the discursive constructions of the students and the teachers who receive them, and I try to understand how the quota student stigma is created, negotiated or challenged by the members of the institution. I look for the evaluation marks present in the discursive constructions, trying to identify the grammatical and paralinguistic lexical items of evaluation, that describe the quota students.
Guilherme Inocêncio Matos (research period: August 2018 to February 2019)
Associate professor at the Federal Centre for Technological Education Celso Suckow da Fonseca (CEFET/RJ), Rio de Janeiro. He currently teaches disciplines related to Biological Sciences, mainly for high school level professional training courses. He coordinates research projects on themes related to "Health and Environment" and "Environmental Challenges in Brazil". He also engages in university extension projects related to the dissemination and popularisation of science, and the development of novel didactic strategies for Science/Biology teaching. Through these research areas, he seeks to foster the scientific education of school students, as might be highlighted in his current project: "The use of simulations and computational models for teaching and popularisation of bioinformatics tools: The biodegradation of aromatic hydrocarbons from gasoline analysed in silico". This present project has been developed in a collaborative work with the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research GmbH (UFZ) in Leipzig, Germany, with a focus on the collective construction (high school students, teachers and researchers) of content for the promotion, awareness and didacticism of fields of knowledge related to bioinformatics, fuel-related environmental impacts and treatment/remediation processes.
“The promotion of science divulgation by the "lenses" of CEFET/RJ high school students”. This project seeks to produce scientific content on health and the environment by high school students, and disseminate them using language and means of dissemination suitable for young people.
Júlia Machado (research period: May 2018 to December 2018)
vlp744@hum.ku.dk 
Júlia is a PhD candidate in Aesthetics and Communication at Aarhus University, Faculty of Arts, with the project Art Films and the Poetics of Transgression: a Practice-based Investigation. Currently, she is a Research Fellow in the Program of Brazilian and Portuguese Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Júlia Machado holds a Bachelor degree in Journalism and a Master degree in Social Communication (both from PUC-Rio). She has taught and organised academic activities and events in the Program of Brazilian Studies at Aarhus University since 2012, besides lecturing and doing talks on film, media, and culture since 2008. In 2009, she co-developed and organised the open university course and film workshop Cinema: criação e pensamento for favela residents in Rio de Janeiro. Júlia Machado is also a filmmaker, and has been working as a journalist, producer, scriptwriter and film editor in many media and film productions. She directed and produced short films prized in film festivals since 2006. For more information, see the website juliamachado.com.
Julie Wetterslev (research period: May to July 2022)
Julie Wetterslev is a PhD Researcher at the European University Institute (EUI). Her research examines the titling of lands as indigenous territories on Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast, following the landmark sentence from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the case Mayangna Sumo Awas Tingni v. Nicaragua. The project combines historical and ethnographic methods to investigate the creation and contestation of indigenous communal property through the titling of land. Julie’s dissertation explores issues related to indigenous jurisprudence, human rights, property rights and restorative and transitional justice. She has a strong knowledge of the Latin American and Caribbean region from previous studies, research, work, and activism (special geographical knowledge of Nicaragua, Cuba, Bolivia and Colombia). She takes a particular interest in decolonial theory, in political and social conflicts related to land and resources, and in the role that eurocentrism plays in international law. She is also interested in the study of transnational networks in law, and in more philosophical and historical questions regarding the relationship between law and state formation.
Since the autumn semester 2018, the Centre for Latin American Studies offers the possibility to earn an additional Certificate in Latin American Studies to all undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Copenhagen, issued by CLAS and the Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies (Engerom).
Requirements
Undergraduate Certificate in Latin American Studies (BA):
- Proven language proficiency in Spanish and/or Portuguese (minimum level B2* in at least one language)
- Passed undergraduate courses (minimum 45 ECTS), which include (to a relevant degree) topics related to Latin America**
- Successfully concluded (graded) Bachelor thesis (15 ECTS), which takes a relevant focus on a topic related to Latin America
Graduate Certificate in Latin American Studies (KA):
- Proven language proficiency in Spanish and/or Portuguese (minimum level C1* in at least one language)
- Passed graduate courses (minimum 30 ECTS), which include (to a relevant degree) topics related to Latin America**
- Successfully concluded (graded) Master thesis (30 ECTS), which takes a relevant focus on a topic related to Latin America
* For more information about these levels see the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.
** Students in Portuguese and Brazilian Studies have to take at least 30 ECTS (BA) or 15 ECTS (MA) in courses related to Hispanic America.
How to apply for the Certificate in Latin American Studies
In order to be granted the Certificate in Latin American Studies, please submit the following documents:
- An informal application (cover letter) containing full name, student ID and contact e-mail, as well as a short personal statement on the fulfillment of the requirements (language proficiency, list of electable courses, topic of Bachelor/Master thesis). In addition, any other supporting information on the fulfillment of the requirements may be presented (such as accomplished course work on Latin America, if not evident from the course title and description, excursions, field work or student exchange to Latin America).
- Language certificate or equivalent proof of language skills for the achievement of the required level of proficiency (if necessary, give additional information in the cover letter)
- Transcript of records of the respective undergraduate/graduate studies, including the passed courses related to Latin American topics (as listed in the cover letter)
- Abstract of successfully concluded and graded Bachelor/Master thesis
Applications are received and evaluated on an ongoing basis (no deadlines).
Please submit your application to the Director of CLAS, associate professor Georg Wink (georg.wink@hum.ku.dk)
The Centre for Latin American Studies provides MA and PhD students, who work with Latin America at universities and research institutions in and around Copenhagen, a creative and positive meeting place. The goal is to discuss research projects, problems and challenges, we all meet when writing an academic text or doing field work. At the centre you will meet senior researchers, who have extensive experience with working in and about the region, and who will be willing to share their experiences with you. If you are interested in participating in the meetings, please contact the Director of CLAS, associate professor Georg Wink (georg.wink@hum.ku.dk).
The Centre for Latin American Studies includes specialists, who conduct in-depth research on many Latin American regions, and possess broad interdisciplinary knowledge on the continent. We are all entirely available to share our knowledge with the broader public, especially professionals working in politics, media and business. Furthermore, we are in close contact through our professional networks with other research institutions in Europe, the US and, of course, Latin America, which allows us to find a competent contact person even for special requests.
If you have any questions, or are curious about Latin America, please contact the Director of CLAS, associate professor Georg Wink (georg.wink@hum.ku.dk), who will help you to get quality information from a competent researcher.
The Center for Latin American Studies, attached to the Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies, was founded in 2010 by Dr. Anne Marie Ejdesgaard Jeppesen. Although clearly with a focus on humanistic studies its purpose was also to promote cross disciplinary research on Latin America.
One of the first important activities was the organization of the NOLAN 2010 conference, the Nordic conference on Latin America, supported with a grant by the Danish Research Council of the Humanities (now the Independent Research Fund Denmark - FKK), the Kirsten Schottlænder Foundation and the Norwegian Latin America Research Network (NorLarnet).
The center has hosted numerous seminars, meetings end events over the years, and since 2014 these have often been in collaboration with the students’ organization, Academia Intercultural (AiiA). The first joint event was the celebration of Mother Earth’s Day in 2015, with additional support from the Bolivian Embassy in Copenhagen and the Faculty of the Humanities. The Faculty provided the tree which was planted on the campus behind Building 24. The tree has since been the center of annual celebrations. We have been very fortunate to have the voluntary participation of two South American shamans (chamanes) who have led the ceremonies and the blessings of the tree and of Mother Earth, la Madre tierra.
Researchers
| Name | Title | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ansotegui Martinez, Maria Elena | Part-time Lecturer | +4535326616 | |
| Gustafsson, Jan | Associate Professor | +4535328449 | |
| Hernández-Flores, Nieves | Associate Professor | +4535328441 | |
| Jensen, Julio | Associate Professor | +4535328455 | |
| Wink, Georg Walter | Associate Professor | +4535329115 |
Contact
Centre for Latin American Studies
Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen
Emil Holms Kanal 6, Building 24.2
DK-2300 Copenhagen S
Georg Walter Wink
Associate professor
Building 24.3.32
Phone: +45 35 32 91 15
Email: georg.wink@hum.ku.dk