Spring 2005

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This survey of Latin American cultures aims at giving the students a solid but broad knowledge of Latin America that will serve as a starting point to further and more specific courses about the continent. In class we will start to explore the definitions, transformations, and negotiations of racial, gender, political and economical identities in Latin America by following a chronological outline from prehispanic to the XXI century.

REQUIRED BOOKS:

-Azuela, Mariano. The Underdogs

-López-Arias, Julio.  Latin America: An Interdisciplinary Approach

-Weschler, Lawrence.  A Miracle, a universe: settling accounts with torturers

Films and documentaries:

-Americas

-Aguirre: The Wrath of God

-The Buried Mirror 

-Strawberry and chocolate

-Threads of Hope

-A Place called Chiapas

*All of the films and documentaries are mandatory and have to be well prepared before coming to class. IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO HAVE SEEN THE FILMS BEFORE CLASS; SO MAKE SURE YOU GIVE YOURSELF ENOUGH TIME TO HAVE ACCESS TO THE COPY AND PREPARE THE ASSIGNMENT BEFORE CLASS.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Class daily preparation and participation	25%
Map quiz	5%
Journal	10%
Presentations	10%
Midterm exam	25%
Final Exam	25%

Class daily preparation, participation, and blackboard discussion

Please note that your daily preparation, oral and blackboard participation are worth a fourth of your final grade.  It is therefore very important to be present in all classes, to arrive on time, to be well prepared before class, and to participate in the discussions.

* You will receive a daily grade for oral participation from 0 to 5.  In order to get a 4 or a 5 you need to come to class with written analytical notes about the readings assigned, and to contribute orally to the class discussion with your findings. During the semester, you will need to make at least 5 contributions to the Blackboard discussion.

* Please do not arrive to class late as it is disruptive and will have a strong negative impact on your grade.

*For every unexcused absence (excused absences constitute sicknesses with written proof or extraordinary circumstances) you will receive a 0 in participation for the day. After 3 absences of any kinds, your final grade will be lowered every time you miss another class.

Map quiz

All the students will have to take a map quiz to locate the current countries of Latin America. 

Journal

All the students will have to keep a journal during the semester.  Each student will be expected to make an entry about the reading for each class period.  This entry should be an analytical reflection of the student based on the reading for that day.  I will be collecting your journal twice during the semester.

Presentations

During the semester, each student will be expected to do some research on a topic discussed in a class period.  Each student will be posting this information and its source on blackboard before the class period starts and will orally present this information to the class in order to make the discussion more alive. The information can come from newspapers, interviews of professors or students on campus, books, or trustworthy web sites and should take 1 minute to orally introduce.

Organization of the course:

Jan. 24: introduction to the course

pre-Columbian cultures

Jan. 26: discussion on cultural processes

"sugar and tobacco"

The Buried Mirror II in class

MAP QUIZ

Jan. 28: Pre-Columbian cultures

Jan. 31: Pre-Columbian cultures

Conquests and colonial times

Conquests

Feb. 2: Buried Mirror in class and Bernal Diaz del Castillo (photocopy given in class)

Feb. 4: "Conquest letters" (photocopies given in class)

A standard conqueror's report / The women as conqueror / The successful conqueror

Feb 7: discussion Aguirre (film)

Cultural encounters and creations

Feb. 9: "Mexican colonial art and architecture" (Latin America) the syncretism of religion and church

Feb 11: Our Lady of Guadalupe (web)

The Rise and rebellion of subaltern cultures: Creole and Indian

Feb. 14: "Living in an empire" (web)

Feb 16: The Indians’ mobility and rebellion

Spalding “Changing Patterns of Mobility among the Indians of Colonial Peru (web)

Feb 18: "Blacks” (web)

The Formation of a national culture

Feb 21: the start of Creole consciousness

Brading “Why were Creoles unable to compete with Spanish Immigrants” (web)

Tibesar “Tensions between Spanish and Spanish American Born Friars in seventeenth-Century Peru (web)

Feb. 23: Imagined Communities (web)    

Feb 25: midterm exam

Topics in the XX century

Revolutions

Feb 28: “Letter from Jamaica”  Bolivar (web)

March 2: The underdogs

March 4: The underdogs

March 7: Mexican Muralism : Rivera (web)

March 7: "Socialism and Man in Cuba"

March 9: discussion Guantanamera (film)

March 11: open

Authoritarianism

March 14 "Repression in State Fear" (web)

March 16  A Miracle, a Universe

March 18 A Miracle, a Universe

Spring break

Race and identity in Latin America

April 4: discussion Americas 4: Race and identity

April 6: "Either Black or White" (Latin America)

April 8:"Racial Formation in Brazil" (web)

April 11: Indians in Mesoamerica" (Latin America)

April 13: "Language and Identity (Latin America)

April 15 discussion of film  A Place called Chiapas

Women and gender issues in Latin America

April 18:"More than Wives and Mothers" (Latin America)

April 20: discussion Threads of Hope (film)

April 22: discussion Americas 5: In Women's Hands (documentary)

Development and Dependency

April 25: "Development and Dependency in Latin America" (Latin America)

April 27: "Mixed Blessings of Foreign Capital Flow" (Latin America)

April 29: discussion of Americas 2: Capital Sins

May 2: last class and review for final exam

May 4: Final exam