Modern Latin America

Thematic Outline and Reading Assignments

Week One

Aug 24: Introduction, Current Situation

Aug 26: Papers, Assignments, WAC: Objectives of Assignments

Aug 28: The Writing of Latin American History

Read:

Mark M. Smith, “Making Sense of Social History,” Journal of Social History, Volume 37, Number 1, Fall 2003, pp. 165-186; (ECR)

Steve J. Stern, “Between Tragedy and Promise: The Politics of Writing Latin American History in the Late Twentieth Century,” in Reclaiming the Political in Latin American History.  Ed. Gilbert M. Joseph (Duke University Press), 32-77 (ECR);

Eric Van Young, “The New Cultural History Comes to Old Mexico,” The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 79, No. 2, Special Issue: Mexico’s New Cultural History: Una Lucha Libre (May, 1999), pp. 211-247; (ECR)

Stephen Haber, “Anthing Goes: Mexico’s “New” Cultural History,” The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 79, No. 2, Special Issue: Mexico’s New Cultural History: Una Lucha Libre (May, 1999), pp. 307+309-330. (ECR)

Week Two Colonial Background and Atlantic Revolutions

Aug 31: Colonial Background

Read:

George Reid Andrews, Afro-Latin America, 1800-2000 (Oxford Univ. Press, 2004), ch. 1;

Marixa Lasso, Myths of Harmony. Race and Republicanism during the Age of Revolution, Colombia 1795-1831 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007), ch. 1-2.

Sept 2: Movie: Egalite for All

Sept 4: Discussion

Week 3 Wars of Independence

Sept 9: Wars and the End of Spanish and Portuguese Empire

Read:

Marixa Lasso, “ Revisiting Independence Day: Afro-Columbian Politics and Creole Patriot Narratives, Cartagena, 1809-1815,” in Mark Thunder and Andrés Guerrero Eds. After Spanish Rule. Postcolonial Predicaments of the Americas (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 223-247;

Andrews, Afro-Latin America, 1800-2000, pp. 53-67, 85-92.

Peter Guardino and Charles Walker, “The State, Society, and Politics in Peru and Mexico in the Late Colonial and Early Republican Periods,” Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 19, No. 2, Popular Organizing and the State (Spring, 1992), pp. 10-43.

Emilia Viotti Da Costa, The Brazilian Empire. Myths and Histories (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina [1985] 2000), ch. 1 (ECR)

Sept 11: Discussion

Week 4 Early 19th Century Latin American Nations.

Sept 14: Limits of Independence

Read:

Emilia Viotti Da Costa, The Brazilian Empire. Myths and Histories (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina [1985] 2000), ch. 3 (ECR)

Sept 16: Cuadillismo and Society

Read:

Paul Gootenberg, “North-South: Trade Policy, Regionalism and Caudillismo in Post-Independence Peru,” Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 23, No. 2 (May 1991), 273-308. (ECR);

John C. Chasteen and James A. Wood, Problems in Modern Latin American History (NY: SR Books, 2005), ch. 4.

Sept 18: Discussion

Week Five Civilization vs. Barbarism

Sept 21 Folk Society vs Europeanization

Read:

E. Bradford Burns, The Poverty of Progress, chap. 1, 2, 6

Sept 23 Landowners, Labor and Liberalism

Read:

Guillermo A. Baralt, Buena Vista. Life and Work on a Puerto Rican Hacienda, 1833-1904 (UNC, 1999), ch. 1-3

Emilia Viotti Da Costa, The Brazilian Empire. Myths and Histories (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina [1985] 2000), ch. 5 (ECR)

Sept 25: Discussion

Week Six Slavery and Emancipation

Sept 28, 30: Plantation Slavery in the Age of Liberalism

Read:

Emilia Viotti Da Costa, The Brazilian Empire. Myths and Histories (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina [1985] 2000), ch. 6 (ECR)

Mieko Nishida, “Manumission and Ethnicity in Urban Slavery, Brazil, 1808-1888,” The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 73, No. 3 (Aug., 1993), 361-391.

Manuel Barcia, Seeds of Insurrection. Domination and Resistance on Western Cuba, 1808-1848 (Baton Rouge: LSU Press 2008), ch. 1, 2, 6.

Oct 2: Discussion

Week Seven Triumph of Liberalism

Oct 5: Progress and Modernization (Mexico)

Read:

Brian R. Hamnett.  “Liberalism Divided: Regional Politics and the National Project during the Mexican Restored Republic, 1867-1876,” The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 76, No. 4, (Nov., 1996), pp. 659-689. (ECR)

Oct 7: Progress and Modernization (Central America and Brazil)

Read:

Frederick Stirton Weaver.  “Reform and (Counter) Revolution in Post-Independence Guatemala: Liberalism, Conservatism, and Postmodern Controversies,” Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 26, No. 2, Reassessing Central America’s Revolutions, (Mar., 1999), pp. 129-158. (ECR)

Emilia Viotti Da Costa, The Brazilian Empire. Myths and Histories (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina [1985] 2000), ch.8.

Oct 9: Discussion

Week Eight Neocolonialism

Oct 14

Read:

Michael Gismondi and Jeremy Mouat Merchants.  “Mining and Concessions on Nicaragua’s Mosquito Coast: Reassessing the American Presence, 1895-1912,” Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 34, No. 4, (Nov., 2002), pp. 845-879. (ECR)

Lara Putman, The Company They Kept: Migrants and the Politics of Gender in Caribbean Costa Rica, 1870-1960 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), Introduction, ch. 1

Oct 16: Discussion

Week Nine Dilemma of Race

Oct 19: Positivism

Read:

Lara Putman, The Company They Kept: Migrants and the Politics of Gender in Caribbean Costa Rica, 1870-1960, ch. 2.

Oct 21: Late 19^th and Early 20^th Society

Read:

Jean H. Delaney and Jeane H. Delaney.  “Imagining “El Ser Argentino”: Cultural Nationalism and Romantic Concepts of Nationhood in Early Twentieth-Century Argentina,” Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 34, No. 3, (Aug., 2002), pp. 625-658. (ECR)

Lara Putman, The Company They Kept: Migrants and the Politics of Gender in Caribbean Costa Rica, 1870-1960, ch. 3, 5

Oct 23: Discussion

Week Ten Close Encounters of Empire: US-Latin American Relations

Read for this Week : Mary A. Renda, Taking Haiti. Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915-1940 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001).

Oct 26: Reading Day

Oct 28: Exploring Imperial Transitions

Read:

Alfred W. McCoy, Francisco Scarano, and Courtney Johnson, “On the Tropics of Cancer: Transitions and Transformation of the U.S. Imperial State,” Colonial Crucible. Empire Making of the Modern American State (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press: 2009), 3-33.

Oct 30: Discussion

Week Eleven Nationals Identities and Transformations

Nov 2, 4: Nationalism and Rise of Popular Politics

Read:

Robert H. Dix, “Populism: Authoritarian and Democratic,” Latin American Research Review, Vol. 20, No. 2 (1985), 29-52. (ECR)

Chasteen & Wood, Problems in Modern Latin American History, pp. 214-226, ch. 10

Lara Putman, The Company They Kept: Migrants and the Politics of Gender in Caribbean Costa Rica, 1870-1960, ch. 4, 6

Nov 6: Discussion

Week Twelve Cold War

Nov 9: End of Good Neighbor Policy

Read

Chasteen & Wood, Problems in Modern Latin American History, ch. 11.

Nov 11: No Class Veterans Day

Internal Enemies and Post-War Modernity

Read

Christopher Dunn, Brutality in the Garden. Tropicalia and the Emergence of Brazilian Counterculture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), ch. 1.

Nov 13: Reading Day

Week Thirteen Socialist Revolutions

Nov 16, 18: Internal Enemies and Post-War Modernity and Cuba

Read

Christopher Dunn, Brutality in the Garden. Tropicalia and the Emergence of Brazilian Counterculture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), ch. 1.

Nov 20:  Discussion

Week Fourteenth Alternative Visions

Nov 23: Radical Theologies

Read:

Manzar Foroohar, “Liberation Theology: The Response of Latin America Catholics to Socioeconomic Problems,” Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Sum, 1986), 37-58; (ECR)

Phillip Berryman, Liberation Theology: The Essential Facts About the Revolutionary Movement in Latin America and Beyond (Pantheon Books, 1987), ch. 7-9 (ECR)

Nov 25: Discussion

Week Fifteenth Counter-Revolutions and Reactions

Nov 30: National Security Doctrine and Military Regimes

Read:

Christopher Dunn, Brutality in the Garden. Tropicalia and the Emergence of Brazilian Counterculture, ch. 2-6.

Dec 2: Discussion

Dec 4: Work Day

Final Papers could be turn in any time after 14 Week.  The last day to turn in your paper is Monday Dec. 7 at 1 pm in my office.