Welcome

Welcome to History 561: Readings in Colonial Andean History.

This readings seminar will expose students to the historiography of the colonial Andean region, with works both old and new. We will focus on major issues, theoretical debates, and themes that have shaped the field. The course will particularly focus on relationships of culture, power, and authority in the post-conquest Andes, with an eye to how race, gender, and ethnicity manifested these relationships. Thus, we will consider conquest, religion, slavery, family, communication and revolt in the Andean world from 1530-1800.

During this course, we will consider the Andean region to encompass largely the territory occupied by the Inka Empire on the eve of the conquest, stretching from the south of modern-day Colombia to the north of modern-day Chile. But, we won’t be restricting ourselves to the mountains. Andean society, with its archipelago of microclimates and production zones, spanned the region from the eastern foothills in Amazonia to the Pacific coast. And so shall we.

The course website is divided into three different sections:

A fourth section, Latin American in the News, provides convenient access to a collection of news feeds on Latin America. Each semester that I teach Latin America, students are surprised at the extent to which issues we cover in class connect to current day news stories in the region. Through we have no requirement to do so, I would encourage all of you to peruse the feeds as we go along this semester.

The syllabus section includes information on all course policies and requirements. The assignments section includes information describing the two forms of assignments we have for this semester, review essays and leading discussion.And, of course, the calendar section contains the schedule of class meetings and readings.

Please take some time to read through the syllabus before the first day of class. Note we have some suggested reading for that first class meeting.