Study from anywhere. Earn a certificate from UCLA Extension entirely online. Choose from a featured program below or select See All for more offerings.
Summer Enrollment is Open! Courses begin June 23, 2025.
Great Books from the World at Large: Latin America and Africa
COM LIT XL 4DW
This course studies texts from Latin America (Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia) about the discovery of the New World, European conquest and the efforts to free
Latin America from colonial imposition. The African texts studied (Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya) include stories that protest colonization, call for independence and celebrate African pride.
Address the topics and issues raised by literary works
Establish the relevance of a short story’s themes and issues to the story’s author
Think about the relevance to your lives of the topics and issues a story raises
Master the techniques of coherent and persuasive written literary analysis
About this course:
As David Damrosch reminds us, “Reading a work from a different place and time involves a back-and-forth movement between the familiar and the unfamiliar. A view of the world is always a view from wherever we are, and we inevitably filter what we read through our own experience. But if we don’t impose our expectations onto the new work, its distinctive qualities will enlarge our field of vision.” The Latin American works we read—and write about—include stories by Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina), Carlos Fuentes (Mexico) and Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colombia) about the discovery of the New World, European conquest and the efforts to free Latin America from colonial imposition. The African works we read—and write about—include, in addition to stories by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria), Nadine Gordimer (South Africa) and Nugugiwa Thiong’o (Kenya) that protest colonization, call for independence and celebrate African pride, a play about British presence in West Africa (Death and the King’s Horseman) by Nobel Prize-winner Wole Soyinka.
Class meets on Tuesday and Thursday.
There will be no meeting on November 11, 2025 - Veteran's Day
There will be no meeting on November 27, 2025 - Thanksgiving Day
Refund Deadline
Refunds only available from July 28, 2025 to October 05, 2025
Schedule
Type
Date
Time
Location
Lecture
Tue Sep 23, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
Lecture
Thu Sep 25, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
Lecture
Tue Sep 30, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
Lecture
Thu Oct 2, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
Lecture
Tue Oct 7, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
Lecture
Thu Oct 9, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
Lecture
Tue Oct 14, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
Lecture
Thu Oct 16, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
Lecture
Tue Oct 21, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
Lecture
Thu Oct 23, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
Lecture
Tue Oct 28, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
Lecture
Thu Oct 30, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
Lecture
Tue Nov 4, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
Lecture
Thu Nov 6, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
Lecture
Thu Nov 13, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
Lecture
Tue Nov 18, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
Lecture
Thu Nov 20, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
Lecture
Tue Nov 25, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
Lecture
Tue Dec 2, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
Lecture
Thu Dec 4, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
Lecture
Tue Dec 9, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
Lecture
Thu Dec 11, 2025
3:30PM PT - 5:30PM PT
UCLA Extension Gayley Center in Westwood UCLA Extension Gayley Center 115
We use cookies to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience, including personalizing content and to store your content preferences. By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies.
Read our privacy policy.