Mexico City is occupied. Here is a related comment by John Ackerman:
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Meanwhile it seems that in June, 2013 I will occupy México, D.F., for free and with a salary corresponding to a month’s pay here, because I will teach. One class will consist of reading the papers in the morning, with my help and the help of reference works that will appear on our laptops. In the other, we will visit something interesting every afternoon. We will not only visit the famous Anthropology Museum, we will visit the Tianguis Cuauhtémoc, the new Museo de la Mujer, and much else. We will ride the bus.
In the evenings, the students will probably drink and eat pizza in the Zona Rosa if I know them, but I will go to the Cafebrería El Péndulo, the Librería Rosario Castellanos, the Cine Lumière Reforma, the Escuela de Yoga Loto Rojo – Insurgentes, and the Institut Goethe, among other places.
Catch me, suffering bitchez — catch me if you can. I will go to nighttime concerts in the palaces of the historical center, and cause the students to sit on the rooftop terrace at the Centro Cultural Español. We might even have a nighttime excursion where we visit every rooftop café in the district. I am a real chilang@ and that is just it. Irremediablemente.
Core readings for both courses, recommended for the newspaper reading one and required for the location visiting one, are tentatively:
Gallo, The Mexico City Reader, 2004
Hernandez, Down and Delirious in Mexico City, 2011
Kandell, La Capital: A Biography of Mexico City, 1990
Lida, First Stop in the New World: Mexico City, Capital of the 21st Century, 2009
Pacheco, Battles in the Desert and Other Stories (translated 1987)
Poniatowska, Massacre in Mexico (translated 2001) or Amanecer en el Zócalo (2007)
What would your suggestions for core films be? I want to say Amores perros, Callejón de los milagros, Canoa, Frida, Rojo amanecer, Santa sangre, and Y tu mamá también but I don’t want to scare students to death. I could use some help since I am not a great expert on Mexican film. I would like people to see scenes of the city and of central Mexico more broadly, and I am interested in those films for that reason.
When the students leave I will visit Tlacotalpan, where Mexico is perfect.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Awesome. I don’t know anything about film, but I’d love to take those classes.
Here’s a pretty great tourism site for the DF: http://lagiraffe.com/mexico/df
“Vivir mata”, de Nicolas Echevarria, script by Juan Villoro, and “Solo con tu pareja”, by Alfonso Cuaron. I’ll answer the Hattie post tomorrow.
Ah yes, Solo con tu pareja is a great choice – and I didn’t know Vivir mata. 🙂
You know what they say about living well! Congratulations!
Hola – it’s just a little underpaid study abroad teaching gig and I am sure it will be onerous in reality. But I’m oddly happy about the opportunity to spread the D.F. joy!
Here’s a video on Occupy Mexico city:
Sounds like a great trip!
That’s a fascinating video, N G – thank you!
And – some of Yuri’s work perhaps, since I’m now into him, and perhaps Murder City – http://www.amazon.com/hombre-perros-Coleccion-Andanzas-Spanish/dp/8483831368
Ah – error – that link goes to Padura’s book, which I also want, but not for this class.
I mean Murder City by Charles Bowden, on Juarez as the killing fields of the new global economy: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/14/charles_bowden_murder_city_ciudad_jurez