Virginia Garrard-Burnett

This course will seek to identify the different ways in which religion has helped to define the political, social and philosophical structures of Latin America from colonial times to the present.  Readings and discussion will focus on the historical influence of the institutional Roman Catholic church on Latin American society.  The course will also explore the role that folk religion--from cofradias to millennialist movements--has played in the Latin American experience. Finally, the course will examine important changes in traditional Latin American religiosity in the twentieth century, including the impact of Liberation Theology and the growing influence of non-Catholic religious sectors.

Texts:

Virginia Garrard-Burnett, On Earth As It Is in Heaven: Religion and Society in

Latin America (Rowen and Littlefield, 2000)

Supplemental reader

Grading:

Grades for this course will be based on students’ participation in class discussions based on readings and on the satisfactory completion of the following written assignments:

3 essays based on readings and discussion, 3-5 pages each in length

1 research paper of between 15-20 pages.  Students will submit outlines, drafts, and rewrites of the term paper.

Final grade:

25%: essays

75%: research paper

This course will explore the modern Guatemalan history through the lens of the Historical Archives of the National Police (AHPN). The main focus of the course will be on Guatemalan history between 1954-1996, between the CIA-sponsored overthrow of President Jacobo Arbenz and the end of that nation’s 36-year long armed conflict. Students may, however, use the AHPN to explore earlier topics, such as the medical experiments that took place in the 1940s or police relations with the public going back as far as the Archive’s beginnings, in the late 19th century. Students will produce a significant research paper based on materials that they locate in the AHPN.  In addition, students in the course will help to “crowd source” the AHPN by tracking their research through this newly-acquired resource.

Course stucture: During the first half of the semester, students will meet and discuss the major historiographical works of recent Guatemalan history in order to a proper understanding for the context for their research. During the second, they will work closely with AHPN documents and develop their research projects.

Texts: Students will be provided with an extensive bibliography of Guatemalan historiography from which to choose their readings for this course.

Grading criteria:

In-class participation (including presentations on historical readings): 25%

Development of crowd sourcing materials for AHPN: 10%

Successful research and completion of a paper based on primary documents: 65%

Grades will utilize the plus (+) and minus (-) system.

This course will offer a broad exploration of the main literature and theories that pertain to religion in Latin America. The course will take a historical, chronological approach, examining topics such as indigenous religions before Contact, the “Spiritual conquest” of the Americas, the hybridization of religious experience in the Americas, and the religious dimensions of the African diaspora. It will also explore and theorize the historical and modern religious transnationalism, from pilgrimage to shrines to missionaries and international televangelism.  Finally, it will interrogate the interaction between religion and (post) modernity in Latin America and the Caribbean. 

Text: Students will receive an extensive bibliography from which they will select the books to be discussed in this course.

Grading criteria: Grades will be based on 1) in-class formal presentations based on readings 2) informal but highly integrated participation in class discussions, 4) peer reviews and discussion groups and 4) the successful completion of a publication-quality research or historiographical paper.  

Grading policy

Class participation (including in-class presentations on readings): 25%

Group projects and peer reviews: 20%

Research paper: 60%

Class grades will employ the plus (+) minus (-) system.

350L

DESCRIPTION:

 This course will seek to identify the different ways in which religion has helped to define the political, social and philosophical structures of Latin America from colonial times to the present.  Readings and discussion will focus on the historical influence of the institutional Roman Catholic church on Latin American society.  The course will also explore the role that folk religion--from cofradias to millennialist movements--has played in the Latin American experience. Finally, the course will examine important changes in traditional Latin American religiosity in the twentieth century, including the impact of Liberation Theology and the growing influence of non-Catholic religious sectors.

GRADING:

Grades for this course will be based on students’ participation in class discussions based on readings and on the satisfactory completion of the following written assignments:

3 essays based on readings and discussion, 3-5 pages each in length

1 research paper of between 15-20 pages.  Students will submit outlines, drafts, and rewrites of the term paper.

Final grade:

25%: essays

75: research paper

LAS 301 #40080History 306N #39015                                                                        Dr. Virginia Garrard BurnettKey Ideas and Issues in Latin America                                                TAs: Samantha Serrano                                                                                                         Samuel Frazier           Fall 2010, T-Th 9:30-11

                                                Syllabus

Course Description:

What is Latin America?  The large area we refer to as “Latin America” is not unified by a single language, history, religion, or type of government.  Nor is it unified by a shared geography or by the prevalence of a common ethnic group.  Yet Latin America does, obviously, exist.  It is a region forged from the merging of diverse cultures and historical experiences.  In this course, we will explore the ways that various competing groups have “created” Latin America by introducing the ideas, issues, and values that define the region.

Learning Objectives:

Part I:

The first third of this course will explore the cultural context of the “discovery” and conquest of Spanish and Portuguese America.  We will examine in detail the ways in which European, African, and native America ways of life blended and clashed to form Latin American society.

Part II:

The second portion of the course will deal with some of the themes of Latin America’s quest for identity and nationhood during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  It will focus on such issues as civil war, social banditry, ethnic relations, and Latin America’s relationship with the industrial powers.

Part III:

The final third of the course will examine some specific trends and prevalent ideas in Latin America during the twentieth century, including revolution, military rule, population growth, and the relationship between development and the environment. We will also examine the “erasure” of national boundaries, as Latin and North America converge through immigration and globalization.

Course Requirements:

This course consists of reading, lectures, discussion, and multimedia presentations.  Please have the assigned reading done before you come to class. Our class meetings will consist of discussions on the lectures, the readings, and the visual material. Please be aware that discussion and multimedia presentations are not optional or “filler”; they make up an integral part of the course.  Because of this, it is imperative that you attend each class. 

Final grades will be calculated as follows:            Midterm:                                                    40%            Final exam:                                                 40%            Movie critiques:                                           10%            Attendance, study sessions,/journal:             10%

Final grades for this course will employ the new plus/minus system.  For more on this new policy, go to: www.utexas.edu/provost/planning/plus-minus

Discussion sessions:A discussion group for this course will meet for one hour each week at a time and location to be determined by the TA.  Participation in the discussion group is not mandatory, but it is highly recommended. Students who attend at least 3 study sessions are exempt from doing the journal project.

Language Component:This course is offered as an optional language component course.  This means that the some of the assigned texts  and supplemental readings are available in either Spanish or English or, in at least one case, Portuguese.  In addition, the discussion group for this class will be conducted in English and Spanish on alternate weeks.  The ability to read or speak Spanish is not required for this course, so participation in the language component is entirely optional.  Tests will be given and must be answered in English.  However, movie critiques and extra credit projects can be submitted in Spanish or Portuguese if you prefer.

Class Policies:Please be on time and attend every class. If there us an urgent reason that you must be absent, please let one of the TA know by email and be sure to get the notes you missed from another student. I do not post my notes on Blackboard.

This class is a technology blackout zone!  Please turn off all electronics, especially cell phones and I-Pods, before coming to class.  PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR WI-FI and use your computer only for taking notes during our class!  No Facebook, no email, no Web browsing, no reruns of last night’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, nothing! Seriously. TAs will be monitoring and will ask you to shut down your computer if necessary.

Academic Honesty:Anyone who turns in work that is not his or her own—the person who is claiming authorship—(l.e., downloaded off the Internet, plagiarized, borrowed from a friend, written by you but for a different class) will receive an F for this course, punto. Intellectual honesty is a minimum requirement for this course!

Email: garrard@mail.utexas.edu (best method, but please be advised, I’m not available 24/7. I also try to stay away from my email over weekends)TA emails: samljgs@hotmail.com, sfrazier@mail.utexas.eduTA office hours: TBA

Reading AssignmentsCourse packet available at I. T Copy.García Marquez, Gabriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude (1979)English, TJ. Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and then Lost it to the Revolution (2008).

This course contains a Global Culture flag.