Museo Sin Techo

Partial view of the "Museo Sin Techo" or Museum without a Roof in San Juan, Puerto Rico (demolished) where, faced with the process of "Disneyfication" of the old walled city, local artist claimed a contestatorial space of anti-colonial affirmation.

For the past five hundred years the Caribbean archipelago has been one of the most active contact zones in the world. Over this time, that broad and open space of exchange that straddles two oceans and both hemispheres has been a major platform of of modern experience.

The University at Buffalo’s Humanities Interdisciplinary M.A. - Caribbean Cultural Studies Program provides students unique opportunities to gain first-hand knowledge of the history, cultures, and intellectual traditions of the Caribbean and of the broader Insular Atlantic world, including its émigré populations in North America and Europe. This transdisciplinary program is positioned at the intersection of several major traditions and knowledge areas, primarily among these, Latin American and Iberian, African American and African Diaspora, Native American and Indigenous, Gender, Coloniality and Postcolonial, and Critical-Race studies.

This one-of-a-kind program is supported by a dynamic set of international partnerships with the Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales (CCHS) in Madrid, Spain, the Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos (EEHA) in Seville, Spain, the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán  (UADY) in Mérida, Mexico and, in Cuba, the Universidad de La Habana (UH) and the Fundación Antonio Nuñez Jiménez de la Naturaleza y el Hombre (FANJ). Thus, our curriculum is designed to expose students to the best that graduate education has to offer in four distinctly unique yet complimentary academic settings in Cuba, Mexico, Spain and the United States. Please note that, due to changing circumnstances on the ground in Havana, the program may not be able to take students to Cuba every year. In such cases, arrangements would be made to take students to an alternative destination in the Insular or Greater Caribbean world.

Our graduates are well positioned to enter doctoral programs and to conduct advanced research in a variety of disciplines in the Social and Human Sciences and the Liberal Arts. Many of our alumni have also found work in government, NGOs and corporations.

Discover a boundless geography of possibility

 

Mexico Yucatan Cuba Spain Madrid Andalusia

Participants in this unique two-year program have the rare opportunity to spend two semesters in four major cities outside of the United States, and on both sides of the Atlantic. They study and conduct field work in Mérida and Havana (or an alternative destination in the Caribbean) during a second semester that is designed to foster full cultural and linguistic immersion. The third semester is dedicated to advanced archival research in Madrid and Seville. The Archivo General de Indias in Seville holds the record of four centuries of European enterprise in the Western Hemisphere and South East Asia. The Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid has among its collections most of the documents produced by the Spanish Empire during the 19th Century, relating primarily to Cuba, Guam, the Philippine Islands and Puerto Rico.

 

10 major reasons that set our program apart (by quite a lot)

 

 

 

 

 

View of the inner channel in Bread and Butter Caye, Hopkins, Belize, with traditional Garinagu canoe.

  1. You get to spend substantial time in five cities, four countries, two continents and one Caribbean island:
    1. Following an initial semester in Buffalo, participants travel to Mérida de Yucatán, México. That semester includes a 12-day study tour of Havana, Cuba, or an alternative destination in the Caribbean!
    2. A third semester in Madrid and Seville, Spain, is devoted to doctoral-level study and intensive archival research, transcription and translation of primary sources and documents in the Historical Archive in Madrid (AHN) and at the world-renowned Archive of the Indies (AGI) in Seville, Spain.
  2. You get specialized training in three major areas of the Social and Human Sciences:
    1. philosophy and critical studies
    2. anthropology and field work
    3. history and archival methods and sources
  3. You receive direct and dedicated one-to-one attention from professors, public intellectuals and top researchers and scholars. We guarantee this by being very selective and keeping our classes small.
  4. You exit the program with a specific set of skills in archival research, transcription, translation and paleography acquired in the archives of Madrid and Seville. This skill set can be put to use in a variety of academic fields and professional settings and is seldom available to doctoral students and young scholars, least of all to Masters students.
  5. You experience total linguistic immersion in four different cultural and political contexts in the Spanish-speaking world:
    1. the Yucatecan-Mayan world
    2. Cuba or an alternative destination in the Caribbean
    3. The Community of Madrid
    4. Andalusia
  6. You will make important personal and professional contacts in four stategic places abroad. The friendships you make abroad will last a lifetime and the cities where you will reside will become integral parts of your world and of your future.
  7. You will have the total flexibility to develop your own research specializations as you prepare your final thesis/project. These may include papers on history, politics, philosophy, cultural studies and policy, as well as archaeological and anthropological fieldwork, documentary filmmaking, performances, artwork, installations, and works of creative writing.
  8. You will be an ideal candidate for doctoral programs in a wide range of disciplines including American Studies, Anthropology, Archaeology, English, French, History, Political Science, Sociology, Spanish, as well as for careers in a variety of professional fields such as archival research, government, media, and public policy.
  9. Your application for further studies or employment will stand out among all others in a time of much uncertainty. Who can speak of having done so much in such a short period of time?
  10. Best of all, this is an extreemely affordable Masteres program. You will pay UB TUITION and a comparatively modest PROGRAM FEE. All in all, the semesters in Mexico and Spain will cost you about the same as if you were going to graduate shcool and paying for housing in Buffalo. No other Masters program can offer you so much at such low cost!


For more information about the program, fill out our online questionnaire or contact:

Program in Caribbean Studies
712 Clemens Hall
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY 14260-4600
(716) 645-3664
caribbean-studies@buffalo.edu

 

TO FILL OUT AN APPLICATION, click here.