Modern Latin America

For your information: I have put a copy of your group assignments.  Please make sure that you meet you with your group to exchange key information to facilitate the communication within the group.  Specific reading assignments are coming.  Stay tune.

The readings for our discussion on ways of writing Latin American history are challenging.  Yet, understanding the positions taken by scholars are windows into how these individuals construct and organized their work, and what motivates them to write about particular topics.  Therefore, for our discussion it is my goal to address several questions (plus yours too).

First, in his article “Making Sense of Social History” , Mark M. Smith explores the meanings of social history and cultural history through his area of research: sounds.  How is social history define in this work? What are the differences between social history and cultural history?

Second, Steve Stern’s essay engages to think about the meaning of writing history and the political.  Stern’s essay explores the changes taken place in the writing of Latin American history from the late 1960s to the present.  In other words, he examines the transition from social history to cultural history/linguistic turn as methodologies influencing how historian write about Latin America.  At the same time he examines how the defeat of the socialist experiments and the end of the Cold War, brought a crisis to activist scholars.  He laments the loss of the political in the writing of history. What are some of the solutions he is proposing to bring back the political into history?

Third, how is social and cultural history define by Stern, Van Young, and Haber?  What are some of the main problems with cultural history, according to Stern and Haber? What were/are the main contributions of social history, according to Stern? What are the contributions of cultural history, according to Van Young? What is Haber’s main disagreement with those writing from a cultural history perspective?

Clearly, there many other issues we can discuss, and I do encourage you to bring those issues to class for our discussion.

Please see the links to the instructions for your Reading summaries and Position Papers.

The writing of history in Latin America:  Unlike scholars who practice the historians craft’s and specialize American or United States history, those who are engage in the writing of Latin American history are more incline and less apologetic about their usage of theoretical frameworks and political positions.  Latin American and Caribbean historians tend, for the most part, to be quite forward about their political positions and their writing of history.  Therefore, for this day you are to read a series of articles that explore the writing of Latin American history and the debates that have emerged due to the linguistic turn and cultural turn in the writing of this history.  Also, you are to read an article about the field of social history to have  grounding on how the regions’ history was written until the late 1980s. Come prepare to have an extensive discussion and bring your readings.

Our second day will feature  a detail discussion  of the course assignments (Reading Summaries, Group Position Papers, Papers, etc). Finally, we will discuss the course website.

Also we are going to create a timeline of Latin American history from the late 1700s to the present.  Your assignment for  this day is to search for key dates, events, and personalities that relate to the history of this region.  Please come prepare to class.

First day of class features introduction to the course and the general expectations.  Also, I will introduce you to the current situation in Latin America.