The Luso-Brazilian Studies Minor

The Luso-Brazilian Studies Minor

Note: Students must receive a C (2.0) or above for these courses to count toward the minor. Courses taken for less than 1 unit will not count towards the minor.

5 units, including:

  • LBST314 Luso-Brazilian Studies: A Global Perspective or PORT302 Brazil: Culture and Society.

  • Four interdisciplinary electives, including PORT300 - 397, LBST313 - 397, and courses in other departments with a corresponding C-LAC (Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum) component in Portuguese language or culture.

Additional requirement for minors

  • Intermediate proficiency in Portuguese. The requirement in Portuguese language can be fulfilled in one of the following ways:

    • PORT300 Portuguese for Romance Language Speakers or another comparable intermediate/advanced course in Portuguese language. 

    • PORT221 Intensive Intermediate Portuguese or another comparable intermediate course in Portuguese language. 

    • Exemption through a placement test that measures oral, writing, reading, and comprehension skills. Exempted students must still take a total of 5 units to complete the minor.

  • Completion of Portuguese language coursework at one of our partner institutions abroad (PUC Rio, SIT, CIEE Brazil, or CIEE Portugal).

Students fulfilling their electives on campus will choose from course offerings within the specific field of Luso-Brazilian Studies or related courses in other academic disciplines as listed below.  For courses in other disciplines that are not listed, students are encouraged to consult with the program coordinator. As a general rule, advanced courses in other disciplines may be taken for credit for the Luso-Brazilian Studies minor as long as the student seeks prior approval and fulfills a corresponding C-LAC (Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum) component in Portuguese language or culture (worth 0.25 units). Students may fulfill the C-LAC component in different ways: students with no prior knowledge of Portuguese may choose to take a basic Portuguese language mini-course or submit a short project -in English- focusing on a Lusophone topic that intersects with the scope of the specific course (e.g., a student enrolled in PLSC 349 Politics of Latin America and the Caribbean may choose to complete a project on Brazil’s democratic transition and the challenges it faces in the 21st century).  Students with prior knowledge of Portuguese may choose to hold weekly conversation sessions on the topics covered in the main course.  If a Luso-Brazilian Studies elective is taken abroad with Portuguese as the language of instruction, then the C-LAC requirement will be waived.

The following courses are content-specific and do not require a C-LAC:

  • HIST262 The Making of Modern Brazil

  • LBST313 Building Brasilia: Idea to Reality

  • LBST314 Luso-Brazilian Studies: A Global Perspective

  • LBST329 The African Novel

  • LAIS339 Stories From Elsewhere: Africa, Asia Brazil, Portugal

The following courses are general electives that require a C-LAC:

  • ANTH279 Selected Topics in Anthropology

  • ANTH307 Indigenous Peoples of the Americas

  • ANTH308 Latin America: An Ethnographic Perspective

  • ANTH329 Anthropology of Race

  • ECON210 The Economics of the European Union

  • ECON211 Economic Development in Asia, Africa, and Latin America

  • GEOG220 Ecotourism

  • GEOG325 Latin American Geographies: Transnational and Local Connections

  • GEOG333 Geographies of Amazonia

  • GEOG345 Global Sustainability: Society, Economy, Nature

  • HIST260 Colonial Latin America

  • HIST261 Modern Latin America

  • HIST265 Gender and Sexuality in Latin American History

  • HIST281 Africa, c. 1500 to c. 1900

  • HIST282 Africa in the Twentieth Century

  • HIST390 Food and Power in Africa and Asia

  • PLSC343 Politics of Asia

  • PLSC344 Europe Today

  • PLSC348 Politics of Africa

  • PLSC349 Politics of Latin America and the Caribbean

  • PLSC351 Globalization

  • SOC306 Social Change in a Global Perspective

For credit in courses not listed here, students are encouraged to consult with the Coordinator of Luso-Brazilian Studies, Dr. Dixon Abreu, dabreu@richmond.edu