- Week 1: Introduction
- Week 2: Colonial Roots and Independence
- Week 3: What is a Nation?
- Week 4: Brazilian Slavery and Abolition
- Week 5: Contentious Liberalisms
- Week 6: Export Economies and 19th-c. Capitalism
- Week 7: US Interventions and the Hemispheric Division of Labor
- Exam
- Week 9: Mexican Revolutions
- Week 10: The Cosmic Indian and the Crisis of Modernity
- Week 11: From Popular Fronts to Cold Wars
- Week 12: Between Revolution and Reform
- Week 13: State Terror and Capitalism
- Week 14: Hope, Struggle, and Catastrophe
- Week 15: As Dave Chappelle says, “Wrap It Up”
Week 1: Introduction
Thursday, January 21, 2021
Readings:
-
The syllabus, and whole course website.
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“Effective Note-taking in Lectures”, Columbia University.
Week 2: Colonial Roots and Independence
Tuesday, January 26, 2021: Colonial Legacies
Readings:
-
Eduardo Galeano, “Introduction: 120 Million People in the Eye of a Hurricane,” Open Veins of Latin America (Monthly Review, 1997 [1973]).
-
Larry Rohter, “Author Changes His Mind on ’70s Manifesto,” New York Times 24 May 2014.
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Greg Grandin, “Preface,” The Last Colonial Massacre.
Thursday, January 28, 2021: In the Name of the King/In the Name of Law
Readings:
- Chasteen, Chapter 4
Due: Weekly Report
Week 3: What is a Nation?
Tuesday, February 2, 2021: We’re All Peruvians Now?
Readings:
- Tristan Platt, “Simon Bolivar, the Sun of Justice and the Amerindian Virgin: Andean Conceptions of the Patria in Nineteenth-Century Potosi,” JLAS Vol. 25, No. 1 (Feb., 1993), pp. 159-185.
Thursday, February 4, 2021: Citizen as Exclusion
- Dore, Elizabeth. “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Gender and the State in the Long-Nineteenth Century.” In Dore and Molyneux, eds., Hidden Histories of Gender and the State in Latin America (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000) 3-32.
Due: Weekly Report
Week 4: Brazilian Slavery and Abolition
Tuesday, February 9, 2021: Property and Citizen
Readings:
- Emilia Viotti da Costa, “Masters and Slaves,” The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985).
Thursday, February 11, 2021: Comparative Abolitions
Readings:
- José Ignacio Barros Cobra, “Slave Property”
- Joachim Nabuco, “Abolitionism”
Due: Weekly Report
Week 5: Contentious Liberalisms
Tuesday, February 16, 2021: The Man on a Horse
- Chasteen and Wood, Problems in Latin American History Chapter 4: Caudillos.
Thursday, February 18, 2021: Honor, Status, and Law
Readings:
- Sanders, James E. “The Vanguard of the Atlantic World: Contesting Modernity in Nineteenth-Century Latin America.” Latin American Research Review 46.2 (2011): 104-127.
Due: Weekly Report
Week 6: Export Economies and 19th-c. Capitalism
Tuesday, February 23, 2021: The International Division of Labor
Readings:
- Edward D. Melillo, “The First Green Revolution: Debt Peonage and the Making of the Nitrogen Fertilizer Trade, 1840–1930,” AHR (Oct 2012): 1028-1060.
Thursday, February 25, 2021: Debt, Conflict, Resources
Readings:
- Reinhardt, “The Consolidation of the Import-Export Economy in 19th-Cent. Colombia”
Due: Weekly Report
Week 7: US Interventions and the Hemispheric Division of Labor
Tuesday, March 2, 2021: US “Protection”
Readings:
- Chasteen, Chapter 7.
Thursday, March 4, 2021: From Marti to Sandino
Readings:
- Ramón Ruíz, “The Roots of Cuban Nationalism”
- José Martí, “Our America”
Due: Weekly Report
Exam
No class this week. Exam due by Friday at 5:00pm.
Week 9: Mexican Revolutions
Tuesday, March 16, 2021
Readings:
- Meyers, Course of Mexican History, Part 1
- James Creelman, “President Díaz, Hero of the Americas”
Thursday, March 18, 2021
Readings:
- Meyers, Course of Mexican History, Part 2
- Francisco Madero, “Plan of San Luis Potosí”
Due: Weekly Report
Week 10: The Cosmic Indian and the Crisis of Modernity
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
Readings:
- José Carlos Mariátegui, “The Problem of the Indian”
- Ciro Alegría, “Wide and Alien is the World”
Thursday, March 25, 2021
Readings:
- Marisol de la Cadena, “Reconstructing Race”
Due: Weekly Report
Week 11: From Popular Fronts to Cold Wars
Tuesday, March 30, 2021
- Daniel James, “Peronism and the Working Class, 1943-1955”
- Eva Perón, “1947 Radio Speech”
Thursday, April 1, 2021
- Watch Saludos Amigos.
Due: Weekly Report
Week 12: Between Revolution and Reform
Tuesday, April 6, 2021
Readings:
- Chasteen, Chapter 9.
- Through Line Podcast, “There Will Be Bananas”
Thursday, April 8, 2021
Readings:
- Fidel Castro, “History Will Absolve Me”
- Pablo Neruda, “The Poetry of Anti-imperialism”
Due: Film Review
Week 13: State Terror and Capitalism
Tuesday, April 13, 2021
Readings:
- Chasteen, Chapter 10
- This American Life, “What Happened at Dos Erres”
Thursday, April 15, 2021
Readings:
- Argentine Junta Fundamental Concepts, 1983.
- Thomas C. Wright, “Chile Under State Terrorism,” in State Terrorism in Latin America. Chile, Argentina, and International Human Rights (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007), pp. 47-94.
Due: Weekly Report
Week 14: Hope, Struggle, and Catastrophe
Tuesday, April 20, 2021
Readings:
- Gil Joseph and Jürgen Buchenau, “The Embers of Revolution, 1968-2000,” Mexico’s Once and Future Revolution (Dukem 2013).
Thursday, April 22, 2021
- Mario Garcés, “October 2019: Social Uprising in Neoliberal Chile,” Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 28:3 (2019): 483-491.
Due: Weekly Report