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Course Info for HISP - 338 - 01, Fall 2025
Class number: 3404 Title: Travel and Exploration Department: Language and Culture Studies
Career: Undergraduate Component: Seminar Session: Regular
Instructor's Permission Required: No Grading Basis: Regular Units: 1.00
Enrollment limited to 15 Current enrollment: 12 Available seats: 3
Start date: Tuesday, September 2, 2025 End date: Wednesday, December 17, 2025 Mode of Instruction: In Person
Schedule: TR: 9:25AM-10:40AM, SH - T121 Instructor(s): Hubert, Rosario
Prerequisite(s): None
Distribution Requirement: Meets Humanities and Global Requirements
Course Description:
Embark on a journey to the most extreme corners of the Earth. This course dives into the history, fictions, and archives of the Polar South. Along legendary expeditions to Antarctica like that of Ernest Shackleton and Roald Amundsen, we will cast light on the overlooked Latin American initiatives to explore and lay sovereign claims on these “faraway” lands, which -paradoxically- lie right next to South America. Through a wealth of historical accounts, digital collections, and geographical society proceedings, we will engage with hands-on research methods in environmental Humanities, paying close attention to literary and visual narratives from the early twentieth century, a time when Antartica was only starting to be mapped. Topics covered include the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, the evolution of polar travel technology, extractivism and the whaling industry, ethnography, and the ethical dilemmas surrounding the desire for human settlement in a unique continent with no Indigenous population.