Calendar¶

Week 1: Preliminaries (Jan 25)¶

Hegel, Benjamin, Tosaka

Readings:

1. Hegel, G.W.F. Introduction to The Philosophy of History. Translated by Leo Rauch. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1988. Pp. 92-98.
2. Benjamin, Walter. "Theses on the Philosophy of History." Pp. 253-265 in Illuminations. Editor, Hannah Arendt. New York: Schoken Books.
3. Tosaka Jun. "The Principle of Everydayness and Historical Time." Translated by Robert Stolz. Pp. 3-16 in Tosaka Jun: A Critical Reader. Editors, Ken C. Kawashima, et.al. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Recommended for more on Benjamin:

• Löwy, Michael. Fire Alarm: Reading Walter Benjamin's 'On the Concept of History'. New York: Verso, 2016.
• Jameson, Federic. The Benjamin Files. New York: Verso, 2020.

Week 2: Marx's Capital (Feb 1)¶

Readings:

1. Marx, Karl. Capital Volume I. Translated by Ben Fowkes. New York: Penguin Books, 1990. Chapters 1-2, 4-6, 10, 15, 25.

Recommended for help with Capital:

• Harvey, David. A Companion to Marx's Capital. New York: Verso, 2010.

Week 3: The 18th Brumaire (Feb 8)¶

Readings:

• Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

Week 4: Marx after Marx (Feb 15)¶

Readings:

1. Harootunian, Harry. Marx after Marx: History and Time in the Expansion of Capitalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015.

Week 5: New World Origins (Feb 22)¶

Readings:

1. Tutino, John. Making a New World: Founding Capitalism in the Bajío and Spanish North America. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011.

Week 6: Jesuit Gains (Mar 1)¶

Readings:

1. Owensby, Brian P. New World of Gain: Europeans, Guaraní, and the Global Origins of Modern Economy. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2022.

Week 7: Biopolitics of Accumulation (Mar 8)¶

Readings:

1. Nemser, Daniel. Infrastructures of Race: Concentration and Biopolitics in Colonial Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017.

Week 8: Spring Break!! (Mar 15)¶

Week 9: Slavery, Sugar, Capital (Mar 22)¶

Readings:

1. Tomich, Dale W. Slavery in the Circuit of Sugar: Martinique and the World-Economy 1830-1848. Second edition. New York: SUNY Press and Braudel Center, 2016.

Week 10: Mexican Revolution (Mar 29)¶

Readings:

1. Gilly, Adolfo. The Mexican Revolution: A New Press People's History. Trans. by Patrick Camiller. New York: The New Press, 2005. Originally, La revolución interumpida (1971).

Week 11: Mariátegui (Apr 5)¶

Readings:

1. Vanden, Harry E. and Marc Becker, eds. and trans. José Carlos Mariátegui: An Anthology. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2011.

Recommended:

• Mariátegui, José Carlos. Seven Interpretive Essays On Peruvian Reality. Trans. by Marjory Urquidi. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971.

Week 12: Indigenous Communisms? (Apr 12)¶

Readings:

1. Becker, Marc. Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador's Modern Indigenous Movements. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008.

Week 13: Whither Modernization? (Apr 19)¶

Readings:

1. Gunder Frank, Andre. Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America: Historical Studies of Chile and Brazil. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969.
2. Laclau, Ernesto. "Feudalism and Capitalism in Latin America" New Left Review 67 (1971).

Week 14: Guevarism (Apr 26)¶

Readings:

1. "The Role of the Doctor in Latin America." (1954-1956)
2. "Cuba: Historical Exception or Vanguard in the Anticolonial Struggle?" (1961)
3. "Tactics and Strategy for the Latin American Revolution" (1962)
4. "Guerilla Warfare: A Method" (1963)
5. "Socialism and man in Cuba" (1965)
6. Chase, Michelle. "The Trials: Violence and Justice in the Aftermath of the Cuban Revolution," pp. 163-198 in Gil Joseph and Greg Grandin, ed. A Century of Revolution: Insurgent and Counterinsurgent Violence during Latin America's Long Cold War. Durham: Duke University Press, 2010.

Week 15: State Terrors (May 1)¶

Readings:

1. Joseph and Grandin, eds. A Century of Revolution. Part Three: The Weight of the Night.
2. Weld, Kirsten. Paper Cadavers: The Archives of Dictatorship in Guatemala. Durham: Duke University Press, 2014.

Week 16: Marx and Freud (May 10)¶

Readings:

1. Bosteels, Burno. Marx and Freud in Latin America: Politics, Psychoanalysis, and Religion in Times of Terror. New York: Verso Press, 2012.