Ibero-American Studies: Master's Program 'Communication and Society in Ibero-America' Course Catalog April - July 2026
Application period is now open!
FUNDAMENTAL COMPETENCIES
Seminar: Dying as the Other in a Postcolonial World: Death, Memory, and Regulation in Latin America
How do societies decide whose death matters and whose does not? This seminar investigates the social, political, and ethical aspects of death as a site of inequality, especially concerning marginalised or racialised communities. Drawing from sociology, anthropology, and postcolonial theory, students will analyse how the deaths of migrants, Indigenous peoples, and other “others” are governed, represented, and remembered across Latin America and beyond.
Key themes include the governance of death and dying, the politics surrounding burial and cemeteries, the regulation and treatment of human remains, and struggles over memory and remembrance. The course combines sociological theory, ethnographic case studies, current debates on human rights, forensic identification, and the ethics of handling the dead.
A major element of the course is a curatorial intervention at the Völkerkundemuseum in the context of their running exhibition on human remains. Students will record short reflective narratives examining the ethical and political implications of collecting, displaying, and repatriating human remains in a postcolonial context. These recordings will add another layer to the exhibition through the multimedia app of the museum. By engaging with theoretical readings alongside field observations, students will develop analytical and reflexive skills to understand how death, mourning, and the management of the dead reflect larger systems of power and inequality.
This course counts as seminar for module 1.
Lecture: Global Change: Rethinking Migration and Politicized Environments
Migration and environmental change are highly contested topics. Simultaneously, through studying migrant trajectories, migratory corridors, border regimes, as well as climate change, biodiversity loss, extractivism, and energy transitions, we can shed light on societal cleavages, cultural preferences, politeconomic structures and historically grown power relations. The lecture builds on concepts and research in political geography, political ecology, human geography, anthropology, and (forced)migration studies. Furthermore, it engages with theories and empirical studies based in interdisciplinary research debates on sustainability and transformations, energy, infrastructures, socioenvironmental conflicts and inequalities, care, border studies, humanitarian governance, as well as gendered and racialized violence to impart knowledge about migration and politicized environments with a regional focus on the Americas.
This course counts as seminar for module 2.
Seminar: Smartphone and Migration
This course investigates how smartphones are reshaping the landscapes of contemporary migration. We will examine how these devices have become essential tools in shaping migration aspirations, facilitating and limiting mobility, organizing social networks, and transforming place. Through critical engagement with concepts such as mobility, place, kinship, belonging, and digital connectivity, we will explore the dynamic relationships between movers and stayers, migrants and locals, and individuals and the places. The course draws on interdisciplinary literature to provide students with a nuanced understanding of how digital technologies, particularly smartphones, are influencing human mobility at individual, communal, and societal levels.
This counts as seminar for module 2.
Practical: Communication and public spheres in Ibero-America
This practice studies the public sphere, comprised of the media, civil society, and politics, and looks at their relationships from a communication science perspective. The practice, therefore, introduces a selective conceptual vocabulary that is regarded as instrumental to understanding the communicators of political information, such as journalists or today’s ‘users’. Further, the practical focuses on characteristics that typically guide the content of the media and political information and serve to uncover structures of the communication itself.
The practical sets an emphasis on the context in which communication takes place in two dimensions: Firstly, it focuses on the Ibero-American context, and regional case studies inform about public sphere mechanisms around actors, media content, and reception in the macro-region. Secondly, the public spheres are studied under conditions of deeply changed media environments shaped by the production and use of digital media.
The practice mainly builds on quantitative research literature, but previous knowledge of quantitative research is not required. A short introduction to reading quantitative papers is provided.
This course counts as seminar for module 3 (for minors: module 1).
Methodological Skills
Lecture: Lecture Series & HCIAS Colloquium
This course counts as lecture for module 4 (for minors: module 2).
Seminar: Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods: Seeing and Reading Social Worlds
This course provides a general introduction to the key methods, concepts, and analytical strategies in qualitative research. Students will learn the fundamentals of qualitative inquiry, including research design, interviewing, ethnographic techniques, document analysis, and archival research. Through a combination of readings, discussions, and practical workshop sessions, the course equips students with the skills to design qualitative studies, gather data, interpret meanings, and evaluate qualitative evidence.
Course assessment involves two structured methodological exercises that offer students direct experience in producing and analysing qualitative data. By the end of the course, students will be familiar with and understand the main qualitative research traditions, evaluate their strengths and limitations, and be able to carry out basic qualitative analysis independently.
This course counts as seminar for module 4 (for minors: module 2).
Seminar: Quantitative methods
Course description to follow.
This course counts as seminar for module 4 (for minors: module 2).
Advanced Competencies
Seminar: Blackness and Whiteness in Brazilian cinema and scholarship
Course description to follow.
This course counts as seminar for module 5a.
Seminar: Media effects and Ibero-America
Because of individual limitations, most information about the world outside is assumed to be acquired through the media (Luhmann, 1996). Thus, many of our daily decisions and behaviors may be shaped by what we receive from the media. This seminar introduces selected (political) media effects approaches and, thus, into central aspects of communication science. In order to take into account the importance of contexts in research and the changing media system, the seminar selectively deals with media effects in Ibero-America on the one hand and with the impact of digital and social media content on the other. The seminar helps students understand how the individual use of media content affects our attitudes and behaviors, particularly concerning societal and political issues.
The practice mainly builds on quantitative research literature, but previous knowledge of quantitative research is not required. A short introduction to reading quantitative papers is provided.
This course counts as seminar for module 5.
Seminar: Trends in digital communication research
Today’s societies are facing severe changes, some related to communication phenomena or technologies in the digital world. They change the production and reception of news and political information by applying artificial intelligence and selecting content by algorithms and influencers. These changes occur in a digital media environment where users are threatened to lose control over their agency by disinformation (e.g., during the Covid pandemic) or because of being unwillingly targeted by political campaigns. However, users, when facing disinformation, are not helpless and can counter it. Such communication phenomena are on the agenda of current digital communication research, and this practice aims to provide an introductory understanding of what these current topics are and how they shape the production of news and political information as well as our media use in changing digital media environments.
The seminar relies also on quantitative research literature, but previous knowledge of quantitative research is not required. A short introduction to reading quantitative papers is provided.
This course counts as seminar for module 5a or 7.
Seminar: Field trip: Hamburg as point of contact between continents: colonial legacies, trade hub, and political relations
Latin America and Europe are characterised by decades of migration and relationships. Violence, trade, emigration and politically unequal relationships are still part of the discussion today when it comes to relations between the two continents. We approach these relations through the lens of a place where many points of contact take place: Hamburg. We examine colonialism, emigration, trade and political-cultural relations and discuss them both during the excursion and in an accompanying tutorial. The excursion covers four topics: trade, colonialism, emigration, and political relations between government, business, and civil society.
Students must prepare for the excursion and give a presentation on one topic during the excursion and write a final paper on another topic.
This course counts as seminar for module 6.
Key Transversal Skills
Practical: Poverty and Inequality in Ibero-America
Course description to follow.
This course counts as practical for module 7.
Practical: Reading and understanding theory: Neil Smith: "Uneven Development: Nature, Capital and the Production of Space
Why do inequalities between world regions exist? What's the role of nature and space in the reproduction of uneven geographical development? In his book "Uneven Development: Nature, Capital and the Production of Space" (1984) offers a theory of uneven geographical development, entwining theories of space and nature with a critique of capitalism. In the seminar, we will engage with a close reading of Smith's book and discuss its relevance for today's conjuncture of shifting geopolitics, rising authoritarianism, and socioenvironmental crises. The course invites students from geography, regional studies, social sciences alike and offers a space to read an entire book in English together, with mutual support and discussion.
This course counts as practical for module 8.
Practical: Storytelling, media competence, and audiovisual communication
Storytelling and media production in a global society: How audiovisual narratives shape perception, culture, and the Environment.
This three-day masterclass combines storytelling, media-technical expertise, and cross-cultural media analysis to provide students with a deep understanding of how audiovisual content influences the ways societies think, feel, and act.
The workshop focuses on the central question:
How do media shape our perception of human beings, nature, and global interconnections - and how can we communicate responsibly, creatively, and precisely?
Participants will develop their own audiovisual contributions (interviews, short clips, reportage-style scenes), guiding them through the entire process - from the initial story idea to post-production.
This course counts as practical for module 8.
Colloquium: HCIAS Master's Colloquium
This course counts as colloquium for module 9.
Links
Course Catalog in Ibero-American Studies for BA Students of Heidelberg University
In addition to the master's courses, the HCIAS also offers courses in the area of Ibero-American Studies designed specifically for Bachelor's students. To find out more about the courses offered for Bachelor students, follow the link.
