Course Descriptions

Course Description 

This course offers an interdisciplinary introduction to the study of Latin America.  With 20 nations and a total population of over 500 million, Latin America is an area of fascinating cultural diversity as well as troubling socioeconomic inequality.  The course aims to acquaint students with the richness, complexity and diversity of historical experiences and cultural practices in Latin America through an array of source materials that include historical monographs, ethnography, testimonial literature, fiction, music, film, and documentaries.   Through a sample of case studies culled from throughout the region, the course will shed light on the processes, structures, and forces that have shaped Latin America.  Topics include:  pre-Columbian civilizations, Iberian expansionism and the Conquest of Latin America; Church in colonial Latin America;  sugar plantations in Brazil and the trans-Atlantic slave trade; Independence movements; agro-export economies; U.S. imperialism in the Caribbean Basin; populism, urbanization , and import-substitution industrialization; popular culture, art, literature and music; revolutionary alternatives; the Cold War in Latin America and state-sponsored violence; transnational flows of capital and labor.

The goal of this course is to provide a framework for understanding contemporary Latin America. In particular, we will analyze Latin American history, politics, economics and forms of cultural and social change. We address anthropological understanding of the role of colonialism, urbanization, gender, race, social movements, transitions to democracy and market economies, migration, transnational communities, and the impacts of globalization in the Latin Americancontext. This is not a standard survey course, covering the region as a whole however. Instead, following an introductory unit which provides socio-historical context, students will engage in critical reading of four ethnographies on specific countries on different sub-regions within Latin America in order to explore particular topics and questions in more depth. This year’s country focus is on Nicaragua, Peru, Ecuador, and Cuba. In each of the units of the course,we will supplement ethnographies with textbook readings and news articles that provide further historical and contemporary context.

This course analyzes the relationships between representation, race and national identity. Issues of gender power are also important to how this course deals with national identity and race. This course focuses on contemporary mass media, but also covers historical issues such as late-1800s advertising and early-1900s anti-immigration cartoons. The United States will be central, but not the only nation-state discussed in this course.

Description: 

This course provides a broad introduction to present-day Latin American politics and society. During the semester, we will focus on drug-trafficking and urban destitution in Brazil and Mexico, party politics, collective action, and environmental suffering in Argentina, the current political situation in Chavez’s Venezuela, and migration from Central American and the Caribbean to the United States. In each case, we will study what is specific to the national histories of each country and what can be analyzed as common to the history and present reality of the sub-continent.   

 Texts:

Robert Gay. Lucia. Testimonies of a Brazilian Drug Dealer’s Woman

Javier Auyero. Routine Politics and Collective Violence

Javier Auyero and Debora Swistun. Flammable. Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown.  

 Course Requirements:

Since the class is organized around lectures, discussions of the required readings, group presentations, and films ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY.There will be FIVE quizzes (10 questions each) on the assigned readings. Dropping your lowest score, the sum of the remaining FOUR stands for 50% of your final grade. There will also be a final exam (10 page paper). Note on grades: If your final grade (addition of FOUR best quizzes and final) is: 100-93, then your grade is an A; 92-90, then your grade is an A --; 89-85 then you grade is a B +; 84-80 then your grade is a B; 79-76 then your grade is a C; 75-65 then your grade is a D; 64 or below is an F.50% of your grade: Best four of five quizzes50% of your grade: Final examYou can earn extra-credit by doing oral presentations on assigned readings  

Prerequisites

GOV 310L and GOV 312L

Course Description

An introduction to the politics of Latin America that includes a brief historical overview, discussion of social and economic conditions and principle political actors, along with several case studies. It also includes materials on US-Latin American relations.

Grading Policy

Three exams (short answer and essay); optional paper

Texts

Blake, Politics in Latin America

Wiarda and Kline, Concise Introduction to Latin American Politics and Development

Weeks, US and Latin American Relations

This course will allow students to deepen their knowledge of the history of US-Latin American relations from the nineteenth century into the twenty-first.  Readings and lectures will allow students to consider and debate the political, economic, cultural, racial, and scientific dimensions of these relationships.  These discussions will allow students to begin to think of themselves as cultural citizens of the Americas more broadly. Ultimately, this course encourages students to use what they learn as background for a potential experience in the region through study abroad, community engagement, or internship.

This course explores the history of Latin America from the eve of the wars of independence of the early nineteenth century to the present. Major issues to be covered include the breakdown of Spanish and Portuguese Empires, the struggle to form independent nation-states, the re-integration of the region into the world economy, the emergence of national politics and mass culture, Cold War cycles of revolution and counterrevolution, the promise of democracy in the region, and implications of immigration from the region to the United States. In addition to highlighting the political history of the past two centuries, the course readings and lectures will examine the importance of ethnicity, class, nationality, and gender in understanding the changing characteristics of Latin American societies. A combination of primary sources and scholarly works will shed light on the historical development of Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina, among other countries. 

Over the semester, students will consider the following broad questions: How have different ideas of progress and modernization been applied over time in Latin America and what impacts have they had in practice? What factors explain the contradiction between Latin America’s incredibly rich resources and its extreme levels of social inequality, among the highest in the world? Why have hierarchical social orders proved so durable in Latin America? What have been the motors of reform, revolution, and counter-revolution in the region? What are the factors that have created “Latin America” as a particular kind of place in the world, and in our imaginations, and what alternate criteria might be used to think about the meaning of “Latin America”? 

Through weekly discussions, essays, group work, presentations, and examinations, students will hone their talents for historical interpretation, including their critical thinking and writing skills. In addition, the course provides tools for understanding present-day problems in the Americas from a broader historical perspective.

THE CUBAN REVOLUTION AND THE UNITED STATES

            Students in this course will investigate why the Cuban Revolution of 1959 had an impact beyond its shores, essentially transforming both Inter-American and East-West relations.  At the outset, students then will survey the history of Cuban-U.S. relations from the so-called Spanish American War to the Great Depression.  We will then analyze the populist period in Cuba that ended up in the dictatorship of General Fulgencio Batista and how an essentially middle-class rebellion forced him from power on January 1, 1959.  Then we will take a long look at the process by which Fidel Castro consolidated political power, mobilized the popular classes for revolutionary reforms, and turned to an alliance with the Soviet Union.  World War III nearly began over the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.  We pay special attention to the revolution's influence on social organization, gender relations, and education.  The students must also understand the relationship between popular demands, political consolidation, and Cuba's external relations.  Finally, the class will assess how the Cuban Revolution affected U.S.-Latin American relations and why Castro choose to support other revolutions in Latin America and Africa. 

            Student requirements and preparations for the course include reading three paperback books and a packet of three articles, viewing video documentaries, participating in class discussions, and attending lectures.  In addition, each student will turn in a map assignment and a 6-page book essay based on a book selected from the bibliography of our readings.

            One's final grade will consist of the following graded exercises:

                        -A map assignment worth 5 % of the final grade or 50 points.

                        -A mid-term exam worth 20 % of the final grade or 200 points.

                        -A written book essay worth 35 % of the final grade or 350 points.

                        -A final exam worth 40 % of the final grade or 400 points.

The accumulation of points at the end of the semester will determine the student's final grade: i.e., 900 points or more for an A, 800 or more for a B, and so forth. 

REQUIRED TEXTS (all paperback)

            Sebastian Balfour, Castro

            Samuel Farber, The Origins of the Cuban Revolution

            Lois M. Smith, Sex and Revolution

            Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War

Course Description

This course provides uses documentaries, film, lectures and readings to provide an overview of caribbean history from 1492 to the present.  The prominent theme will be to explore how the dynamic among differing conquerors, natives, and slaves forged the distinctive caribbean nations of the present with their spanish, british, french, dutch, danish and united states cultural heritages.  The focus throughout will be to measure the extent to which these distinctive cultural and colonial heritages shaped historical development.  Topical themes include: contact between european and native cultures, piracy, the impact of sugar and slavery, colonialism, de-colonization, the impact of the U.S. as a caribbean power (puerto rico, virgin islands), caribbean revolutions (cuba, grenada), the caribbean in the twenty-first century.

Grading Policy

Essays          9/15

Discussion  3/15

Mini-assignments  1/15

Individual project 2/15

Texts.

Each week 50-100 pp of primary and secondary source readings will be posted on blackboard.

Supervised individual study of selected problems in Latin American studies.

Prerequisite: Upper-division standing and consent of instructor and the undergraduate adviser in Latin American studies.

For honors candidates in Latin American studies. Individual reading of selected works for one semester, followed in the second semester by the writing of an honors thesis.

Prerequisite: For Latin American Studies 679HA, Latin American Studies 359H, admission to the Latin American Studies Honors Program, and written consent of the Latin American Studies Honors Program adviser; for 679HB, Latin American Studies 679HA.

For honors candidates in Latin American studies. Individual reading of selected works for one semester, followed in the second semester by the writing of an honors thesis.

Prerequisite: For Latin American Studies 679HA, Latin American Studies 359H, admission to the Latin American Studies Honors Program, and written consent of the Latin American Studies Honors Program adviser; for 679HB, Latin American Studies 679HA.