Macalester/HIST17-FA02

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HISTORY 17: MODERN LATIN AMERICA Fall 2002 T-Th 10:10-11:40 Olin/Rice Center 301

Instructor: Javier Morillo-Alicea Office: Old Main 304 Office Hours: Wednesdays, 1-4:30 Phone:^648B ^64 Home Phone: 651-224-8079 (no calls between 10pm and 9am please) Email: morillo@macalester.edu

What is "Latin" about Latin America? Where is Latin America? Does its history stand apart from that of "North" America? This course will survey topics in the history of the Americas from late eighteenth century to the present, but as the above questions suggest, we will not be taking the existence of the region as a given. While focusing principally on the history of nations and regions known as "Spanish America," we will study these in a hemispheric context. We will study, for example, the historical links between the Haitian Revolution and the Spanish American independence movements that followed it as well as the place of the United States in the hemisphere's history.

Contents

[edit] Books

Books available for purchase at Ruminator Books:

  • Reinaldo Arenas, Before Night Falls, Dolores M. Koch (translator), (New York: Penguin, 1994).^C
  • Ada Ferrer, Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution 1868-1898, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999). ^~ j^C——f-.^L_
  • Janet L. Finn, Tracing the Veins: Of Copper, Culture, and Community from Butte to Chuquicamata, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). brrtrt?^.
  • Donna J. Guy, Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family, and Natiot in Argentina, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991).
  • Benjamin Keen and Keith Haynes, A History of Latin America, vol. 2,(Independence to the Present, sixth edition, (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000).
  • Rigoberta Menchu, et al, /, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, T^^ (NewYork: Verso, 1987). ^ f>>..j ^
  • Jacobo Timerman, Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number, Tony ' ^S") Talbot (translator), (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002).r-_ ^ ^

There will also be readings placed on electronic reserve with Dewitt Library.

[edit] COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Class Participation
Attendance and participation in class is essential. This means you are expected to come to class having carefully thought about the assigned readings. You should make a habit of coming to class with a short comment or question about the reading. I will occasionally require in-class writing assignments that will have two functions. First, they will test your knowledge of the day's materials and, second, they will allow those who feel less comfortable speaking up in class to demonstrate they are nonetheless engaged with the course. Absences will be noted and will affect your overall participation grade.
Midterm Exam - 22 October 
This exam will consist of identifications and an interpretive essay.
4 -5 page monograph paper 
You will be reading three monographs over the course of the term and will be required to write one 4-5 page paper one ONE of them. It is up to each of you to decide whether you would like to write on Donna Guy's Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires., Ada Ferrer's Insurgent Cuba, or Janet Finn's Tracing the Veins. You will be given detailed handouts about the monograph paper assignment in class. Papers are due at 4pm the Monday after our last discussion of the book. Because it is your choice which monograph to use for your paper, deadlines are firm. You are not required to submit a first draft, but I will be happy to read drafts submitted well in advance of the deadline.

DEADLINES FOR 4-5 PAGE PAPERS

  • Monday, 14 October -Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires papers due
  • Monday, 21 October - Insurgent Cuba papers due
  • Monday, 11 November - Tracing the Veins papers due by 4pm
Group presentations 
In the final weeks of class we will be analyzing three twentieth-century case studies; for each the principal reading will be a first-person narrative. The first case study looks at Argentina's "Dirty War," for which we will read Timerman's Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number; the second is about Guatemala and centers on the book /, Rigoberta Menchu; the third deals with the Cuban Revolution, for which we will be reading Reinaldo Arenas's memoir Before Night Falls. The second week of class you will sign up in three groups of eight (plus or minus, if enrollment changes), one for each case study. On the last class day for each case study, your group will be responsible for the whole hour and a half. You will be given detailed instructions on how to prepare your class day later in the term, and each group should consult with me about supplemental readings.

Presentation Dates:

  • Tuesday, 19 November - Argentina and the "Dirty War"
  • Tuesday, 3 December - Guatemala, Rigoberta Menchu ^
  • Thursday, 12 December - The Cuban Revolution *-)
8-10 page paper

You will want to choose your-case study carefully, because your 8-10 page research paper will grow out of the work you do for it. While the group presentation will be a collective grade, this 8-10 page interpretive essay will allow you to explore the topic in a way that most interests you personally. To give an example: the group working on the ) Cuban Revolution may not want to dedicate class time to a debate on the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba while you may have been particularly compelled by Arenas's memoir Before Night Falls. You could choose to write your 8-10 page paper, then, doing extra reading on Arenas or writing about it and the recent film based on the book. In short, this paper assignment asks you to look at the case study from a perspective that interests you and allows you to explore the topics covered individually. You should all see me in my office individually to discuss your paper topics. You are not required to submit a first draft, but I would be happy to read drafts submitted well in advance of the deadline. These papers are due one week after your group presentation:

  • Tuesday, 26 November - Argentina papers, by 5pm
  • luesday, 10 December-Guatemala papers, by 5pm
  • Thursday, 19 December-Cuba papers, by 5pm
GRADE CALCULATION
  • Attendance/Participation: 20%
  • Midterm Exam: 20% ^ (J^ )
  • One 4-5 page monograph paper: 20%\ /—-
  • Group Presentation (collective grade):10%——C.
  • 8-10 page paper 30%

[edit] CLASS SCHEDULE

[edit] WEEK 1 =

Thursday, 5 September 
Course Introduction

[edit] WEEK 2

Tuesday, 10 September 
Colonial Legacies of History and Historiography
Thursday, 12 September
Labor and Capital in the Atlantic World
  • David EItis - "Europeans and the Rise and Fall of Slavery in the Americas," American Historical Review 98(1993): 1399-1423.
  • Dale W. Tomich, "Sugar and Slavery in an Age of Global Transformation, 1791-/) 1848" in Slavery in the Circuit of Sugar: Martinique and the World Economy, 1830-1848 (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990),pp. 15-32.

[edit] WEEK 3

Tuesday, 17 September 
The Haitian Revolution: Historical and Historiographic

Repercussions

  • Franklin W. Knight, "The Haitian Revolution" American Historical Review 105(1) (February 2000): 103-115.
  • Michel-Rolph Trouillot, "An Unthinkable History: The Haitian Revolution as a Non-event" in Silencing the Past, pp. 70-107.
  • Richard B. Sheridan, "From Jamaican Slavery to Haitian Freedom: The Case of the Black Crew of the Pilot Boat, Deep Nine" Journal of Negro History 67 (Winter 1982): 328-339.
  • Thomas Bender, "Founding Fathers Dreamed of Uprisings, Except in Haiti" New

York Times Week in Review (1 July 2001), p. 6.

WEDNESDAY, 18 Sept^mber
EVENING SHOWING OF FILM, "The Last Supper"
Thursday, 19 September
Spanish Empire in the 18^ Century, Bourbon Reforms
  • Manuel Moreno Fraginals, The Sugarmill, selections.
  • John Lynch, "The Origins of Spanish American Independence" in Leslie Bethel!, ed., 777e Independence of Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 1-48.

[edit] WEEK 4

Tuesday, 24 September 
The Independence of Latin America
  • Benjamin Keen and Keith Haynes, "The Independence of Latin America" in A History of Latin America, vol. 1, pp. 162-180 (on electronic reserve).

Thursday, 26 September - Mexico: Independence for whom?

  • Eric Van Young, "Quiet Cities and Violent Countrysides in the Mexican

Independence Era," Past and Present 118 (February 1988): 130-155.

  • Eric Van Young, "Millenium on the Northern Marches: The Mad Messiah of

Durango and Popular Rebellion in Mexico, 1800-1815," Comparative Studies in Society and History 28(3) (July 1986): 385-413.

[edit] WEEK 5

Tuesday, 1 October 
Interpreting Patha and Patriots
  • Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., "Simon Bolivar," in the Dictionary of Global Culture (New York: Vintage, 1996), pp. 82-83.
  • Tristan Platt, "Simon Bolivar, the Sun of Justice and the Amerindian Virgin: Andean Conceptions of the Patha in Nineteenth-Century Potosi" Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 25, no. 1 (February 1993): 159-185.
  • Simon Bolivar, "The Jamaica Letter" in yhe Political thought of Bolivar: Selected Writings,.(Serald E. Fitzgerald, ed. (The/Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971), pp. 26-44.
Thursday, 3 October 
Nineteenth-Century Nation-Building
  • Keen/Haynes, Chapter 9, "Dictators and Revolutions"
  • Domingo F. Sarmiento, Life in the Argentine Republic in the days of the Tyrants - or, Civilization and Barbarism selections

[edit] WEEK 6

Tuesday, 8 October - The Nation as Family: Argentina Benedict Anderson, "Introduction," Imagined Communities; Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 1983), pp. 1—7. Donna Guy, Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires, chaps. 1-3, pp. 1-104. Thursday, 10 October - Culture and Nationality Donna Guy, Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires, chaps. 5-6 and conclusion, pp.141-210.

[edit] WEEK 7

Monday, 14 October -Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires papers due by 4pm in my office. Tuesday, 15 October - Cuba: Colony in the "National Period" Keen/Haynes, pp. 424-431. Ada Ferrer, Insurgent Cuba, chaps. 1-3, pp. 1-89. Thursday, 17 October-Cuba: "Belated Independence"? Ada Ferrer, Insurgent Cuba, chaps. 4, 6-7, pp. 93-111, 141-194.

[edit] WEEK 8

Monday, 21 October - Insurgent Cuba papers due by 4pm in my office.


Tuesday, 22 October - IN-CLASS MIDTERM EXAM; Come to class with the first part of your Interpretive Chronology. Thursday, 24 October- MIDTERM BREAK

[edit] WEEK 9

Tuesday, 29 October - Mexico: From the Porfiriato to Revolution Keen/Haynes, pD^^225r27^86. Sandra Cisnaros, "Eyes ofZapajra," in Woman Hollering Creek, and other stones (New York: R^dom House^8f91). Rick A. Lopez, "The India Bonita Contest of 1921 and the Ethnicization of Mexican National Culture," Hispanic American Historical review 82(2) (2002): 291-328. Thursday, 31 October - Mexico: Nation-Building in the Revolution's Aftermath Keen/Haynes, pp. 287-310. Marjorie Becker, "Torching La Punsima, Dancing at the Altar: The Construction of Revolutionary Hegemony in Michoacan, 1934-1940," in Gilbert M. Joseph and Daniel Nugent, eds., Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico (Durham: Duke University Press, 1994), pp. 247-264.

[edit] WEEK 10

Tuesday, 5 November - Chile in the 20th Century Keen/Haynes, pp. 337-357. Janet L. Finn, Tracing the Veins, pp. 1-71. Thursday, 7 November - "Si el Norte Fuera el Sur," Part 2 - Bridging the History of the Americas Janet L. Finn, Tracing the Veins, Chaps. 3, 5-7, pp. 72-108, 147-229.

[edit] WEEK 11

Monday, 11 November- Tracing the Veins papers due by 4pm in my office.

Tuesday, 12 November-Argentine Populism \cf1 \cf2 Keen/Haynes, pp. 311-327. ^ Marysa Navarro, "Evita's Charistmatic Leadership," in Michael L. Conniff, ed., Z Latin American Populism in Comparative Perspective (Albuquerque: University of x New Mexico Press, 1982), pp. 47-66. Thursday, 14 November - The Aftermath of Peron Keen/Haynes, pp. 328-336. Jerry W. Knudson, "Veil of Silence: The Argentine Press and the Dirty War, 1976-1983," Latin American Perspectives 24(6) (November 1997): 93-112. Begin reading Jacobo Timerman, Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number _

^^(w\ / t^^A/v-v .

[edit] WEEK 12

      • MONDAY, 18^November- EVENING SHOWING OF FILM, "The Official Story" ***

\cf1 ——^ /-, Tuesday, 19 November - Violence and National Reconciliation ^ Finish reading Jacobo Timerman, Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a ^ Number GROUP PRESENTATION Thursday, 21 November - Central America in the 20th Century Keen/Haynes, pp. 456-501. Jim Handy, "The Most Precious Fruit of the Revolution': The Guatemalan Agrarian Reform, 1952-54," Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 68, no. 4. (November 1988): 675-705.


[edit] WEEK 13

Tuesday, 26 November - Guatemala, Political Violence, and the Latin American Testimonio Alice A. Brittin, "Close Encounters of the Third World Kind: Rigoberta Menchu and Elisabeth Burgos's Me llamo Rigoberta Menchu," Latin American Perspectives 22(4) (Autumn 1995): 100-114. Rigoberta Menchu, /, Rigoberta Menchu, first half of the book Thursday 28 November-THANKSGIVING BREAK

[edit] WEEK 14

Tuesday, 3 December - Truth-telling: The Rigoberta Menchu Controversy /, Rigoberta Menchu, second half of book GROUP PRESENTATION

Thursday, 5 December- "Si el Norte Fuera el Sur," Part 3: Cuba Between "North" and "South" Keen/Haynes, pp. 432-455, 541-573. Ernest Che Guevara, selections from El Socialismo y el Hombre en Cuba. WEEK 15 MONDAY, 9 December- EVENING SHOWING OF FILM, "Strawberry and Chocolate"^/ Tuesday, 10 December-Standing Outside the National Family: Homosexuality and the Cuban Revolution Rafael Ocasio, "Gays and the Cuban Revolution: The Case of Reinaldo Arenas," Latin American Perspectives 29(2) (March 2002): 78-98. Reinaldo Arenas, Before Night Falls, from "The Stones" to "My Generation."

Thursday, 12 December-Cuba Reinaldo Arenas, Before Night Falls. GROUP PRESENTATION

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