Lacas 105/History 182a
Introduction to Latin American Studies
FALL 2006
Lectures: M-W
09:40AM-10:40AM
Lecture Hall 9
Teaching Staff
Professor Nancy Appelbaum
Office Hours: Mon. 11-12:30, Thurs, 3-4:30
Teaching Assistant Melissa Madera (sections 1 & 3)
mmadera2@binghamton.edu
Library Tower 806
Office Hours: Mon 12-1:30, Thurs 12-1:30
Teaching Assistant Joseph Golowka (sections 2 & 4)
jgolowk1@binghamton.edu
Library South Ground 609
Office Hours: Wed 1:30-3, Thurs. 12-1:30
Overview
One class cannot cover everything about Latin America over five centuries of history. Rather, the course is divided into major thematic units in Latin American studies, each of which focuses selectively on certain issues, with examples drawn from a limited number of places. The course is not entirely chronological; time periods for each unit overlap. The first unit examines indigenous peoples, conquest, and the creation of the Americas. The second is about slavery, its legacies, and race. The third is about gender, family, sexuality, and honor. The fourth is about imperialism and nationalism. The fifth is about repression, resistance, and revolution. And the final, concluding section is about globalization and present-day Latin America.
The course is interdisciplinary, with a special emphasis on history and historical interpretation. We will compare and interpret the various kinds of sources that historians and other scholars use. We will consider the differences between first and second-hand accounts, and between factual and fictional sources.
Regarding the second goal of improving skills, you will work on understanding and interpreting the materials in discussion sections. Paper assignments and in-class essay exams will provide opportunities to develop your interpretations systematically and polish your writing skills. The skills that you will develop as you formulate and revise your arguments will serve you well in other coursework and in whatever professional field you ultimately pursue. This course counts for a Gen. Ed. “N” and a Harpur College “W.”
Required Books
These books are all available in the University Bookstore and through other stores and on-line vendors. One copy of each is on two-hour reserve in the library. Make sure to use the same edition listed below, especially in the case of Chasteen. The page numbers in the course schedule correspond to the editions specified here. If you read Spanish, however, you are encouraged to look at the original versions of several of the books listed below. Las Casas, Castillo Bueno, Díaz, and García Márquez were all originally published in Spanish and can be obtained at the library or through special order at the bookstore or on line.
Alvarez, Julia. In the Time of the Butterflies, reprint ed. Plume, 1995.
Chasteen, John Charles. Born in Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America, second edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001. (
Casas, Bartolomé de las. The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief Account. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1992 (also available in Spanish editions in the library or by special order).
Castillo Bueno, María de los Reyes. Reyita: The Life of a Black Cuban Woman in the Twentieth Century. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000. (Also available in the library in the original Cuban Spanish-language version, Reyita, sencillamente: testimonio de una negra cubana).
Díaz, Bernal. The Conquest of New Spain. New York: Penguin, 1963.
García Márquez, Gabriel. Chronicle of a Death Foretold. New York: Vintage Books, 1988 (also available in the original Spanish as Crónica de una muerte anunciada in the library or by special order).
Required Short Readings
Additional shorter required readings are listed in the course schedule below. Most are reserve readings available on electronic reserves through the class Blackboard page. In some cases, you will have to consult the readings in the reserves collection at the Main Library circulation desk.
Current News Media
All students are required to read about Latin America in the news media, especially print media. In particular, students are encouraged to read The New York Times (especially the front section and also occasionally the business section), which regularly carries articles on Latin America. You can read it in print or on-line at http://www.nytimes.com (scroll down to click on World and then Americas). Questions related to current events covered in The New York Times may appear on the mid-term and final examinations. In order to gain more diverse perspectives and in-depth coverage you should also sample and compare media that provide a left analysis (such as The Nation) and neo-liberal perspectives (The Economist and The Wall Street Journal are some of the best-quality examples). Students who can read Spanish or Portuguese are encouraged to read Latin American newspapers on line or in the library, and compare the coverage in the United States and Latin America. For a list of links to Latin American newspaper sites, see http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/region/news/. Assume that questions about current events, related to articles in the Times and other media, may appear on the exams. In class we will talk about how to use and evaluate information from the internet.
Writing Assignments
The course requires two papers. For the first, which will be about 4-5 pages and based mainly on class readings, you will submit two drafts; the first draft is due on September 29 in discussion section; the second draft will be due on Oct. 27 in section. The second paper is due on December 1 and will be about 5 pages. Topics and other specific Instructions for both papers, along with a guide for citing sources, will be provided in class.
All papers must be turned in both in electronic AND hard copy. The electronic copies must be submitted via the class Blackboard page, using the Turnitin.com interface linked to the Blackboard page.
Papers will be graded on how well you use evidence to make a clear and original argument.
Exams
The mid-term exam is in class Wed., October 11. The final exam will be scheduled during Exam Week. You will be asked to write out essays and short answers to questions in a blue exam booklet. The mid-term may also include a map quiz. You will be given a one-sheet study guide a week before the exam with themes to study and space for notes. You may bring the study guide to the exam with you, including any notes you write on it, and consult it during the exam. Otherwise, the exam is “closed book:” no additional notes, no books, no notebooks, no cell phones or other electronic devices permitted.
Academic Honesty
Professor Appelbaum has zero tolerance for academic dishonesty. Plagiarism or cheating constitutes grounds for failure and disciplinary action. All written work, both papers and exams, must be original, in each student’s own words, reflecting his or her own ideas. Students may discuss paper assignments and study for exams together, but the actual written work must be each student’s own. All ideas, facts, wording, and quotations gleaned from any sources whatsoever must be cited in proper form in footnotes or endnotes, per a handout posted on the course Blackboard page. By taking this course, students agree that all required papers may be subject to submission for textual similarity review to the plagiarism-detecting service Turnitin.com.
If you object to this or any other policy laid out in this syllabus, then drop the class before the drop deadline!!!
Pop Quizzes and Writing Exercises
The class may include some brief pop-quizzes and in-class writing exercises on readings and lecture material, in discussion section or in lecture. These will not be graded, however we will mark them either zero check-minus, check, or check-plus. If you get more then two or three zeros or check-minuses, it will start to lower your class-participation grade.
Grading
The grading for this course breaks down roughly as follows:
Due dates are firm. Late papers will be graded down and accepted only for a limited period. No papers will be accepted after the Final Exam. In borderline cases, we may give a little extra weight to the Final Exam.
Anyone who adds the class late is still responsible for all of the readings, attendance, and lecture materials from the first day on. Attendance will be counted starting the first discussion section of the semester.
Students should go to the office hours of the professor and/or teaching assistant for help, especially for the papers and exams. Students are also encouraged to visit the Writing Center located in LN 1209.
Classroom Dynamics
Class participation involves: attendance (which will be recorded for discussion sections), showing up on time and prepared, asking questions during lectures, doing in-class exercises, participating thoughtfully and actively in discussion, paying attention to and showing respect for fellow students, for the T.A., and for the professor, and consulting with the professor or T.A. during office hours. The lecture period will sometimes include some discussion. If you find it difficult to speak up in class, you can make up for it in part by consulting with the professor or T.A. during office hours, paying close attention and being prepared and engaged. But you still need to participate sometimes in discussion. Ask for repetition or explanation of anything you do not understand. Chances are, if you did not understand something, other students did not get it either.
The following are examples of disruptive and disrespectful activities that negatively affect your class-participation grade and can result in ejection from class: arriving late, leaving early, talking while other students or the professor or the T.A. has the word, playing games, and receiving cell phone calls. The professor or the teaching assistant may eject disruptive students from class at any time. This includes students who are talking and whispering to the point of causing a distraction. According to university policies “any instructor may exclude from attendance any student, who in the instructor’s judgment, has seriously impaired the class’s ability to achieve the objectives in the course.”
Excused absences and make-up exams are only granted in cases of documented health emergencies. Other family emergencies and varsity athletic scheduling conflicts will be decided on a case-by-case basis; please notify the professor and provide documentation as early in the semester as possible. If your schedule does not permit you to arrive on time to this class, or if you don’t like to sit in class attentively and participate in class discussion, then do not take the class. If you have trouble following the lectures or other problems in class, see the professor or T.A. immediately for help.
Any special needs such as disability accommodations, or any serious problems affecting coursework, should be brought to the professor’s attention as early as possible.
Check the Blackboard page frequently for announcements, scheduling changes, new documents, links, and other useful material!
Course Schedule
Week 1 Introductions to Latin America and to the Class
M 8/28 Introduction to Class.
W 8/30 Read Chasteen, Born in Blood and Fire, pages 15-24 and
Washington Post articles: “Mummy Dearest,” “500-Year Old Mummy Arrives in Washington To Wrapped Attention”
Also read: “Two Woodcuts Accompanying a 1509 Translation of Amerigo Vesupucci’s Letter to Pietro Soderini”
F 9/1 Discussion Section: no new readings
Unit I
Sorting through Conflicting Evidence
on Conquest, Colonization, and Resistance
(Examples from Mesoamerica)
Week 2 First Encounters and Military Conquest
M 9/4 Labor Day
W 9/6 Chasteen, Born in Blood and Fire, 25-57 and Díaz, The Conquest of New Spain, 7-13, 85-87
F 9/8 Díaz The Conquest of New Spain, 189-244, and skim or read other sections that interest you; be ready to discuss both Díaz and the readings from the previous week!
Week 3 Alternative Viewpoints
M 9/11 Las Casas, The Devastation of the Indies, including introduction by Bill Donovan, 1-57
W 9/13 Las Casas, The Devastation of the Indies, read 57-68 carefully, skim the rest
F 9/15 Miguel Leon-Portilla, Miguel, ed., “The Spaniards March on Tlaxcala and Cholula”, chap. in The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest, Expanded and Updated Edition (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992). Be ready to discuss all the readings from this week!
Unit II
Afro-Latin American Experiences:
From Slavery to “Racial Democracy?”
(Brazil and the Spanish and French Caribbean)
Week 4 Slavery and Resistance
M 9/18 George Reid Andrews, “1800,” chapter in Afro-Latin America: 1800-2000 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004) and Chasteen, re-read 39-44, read also 60-65
W 9/20 David Geggus, “The Haitian Revolution,” in Franklin W. Knight and Colin Palmer, eds, The Modern Caribbean (Univ of North Carolina Press, 1989), 21-50
F 9/22 Be ready to discuss Geggus, Andrews and this week’s lectures
Optional additional reading for Weeks 4 and 5: Emilia Viotti da Costa, “Masters and Slaves: From Slave Labor to Free Labor,” chapter in The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press: 2000)
Week 5 Racial Dynamics in Post-Slavery Societies
W 9/27 Castillo Bueno, Reyita, 59-116; possible additional reading TBA
F 9/29 Finish Reyita and be ready to discuss.
First draft of first paper due Friday 9/29 in Discussion Section
Unit iii
Honor, Sexuality, and Gender Dynamics
(Examples in Colonial and Modern Literature and Societies)
Week 6 Gender, Honor, and Sexuality in Colonial Society
M 10/2 Yom Kippur
W 10/04 Chasteen, 58, 65-89 and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s poem
F 10/06 Start García Márquez, be ready to discuss first half
Mid-Term Study Guide handed out in class on Wednesday, Oct 4
Week 7 Gender, Honor, and Sexuality, Modern Period
M 10/09 Finish García Márquez, be ready to discuss in class
Wednesday October 11
In-Class Mid-Term Examination
F 10/13 No Discussion Section. Start on readings for next week.
Unit IV
Nationalism, Imperialism, and Interventionism
(South and Central America and the Spanish Caribbean)
Week 8 From One Empire to Another (?): Independence and US Intervention
M 10/16 Chasteen, 90-148
W 10/18 Platt Amendment (hand-out) and Chasteen, 149-214 (focus especially on 193-214)
F 10/20 José Martí, “Our America” in The Cuba Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Ed. Aviva Chomsky et al (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 122-128. Be ready to discuss.
Week 9 From Big Stick to Good Neighbor to Cold War
10/23 Chasteen, 216-264
10/25 Cindy Forster, “Reforging National Revolution: Campesino Labor Struggles in Guatemala, 1944-1954,” in Identity and Struggle at the Margints of the Nation-State: The Laboring Peoples of Central America and the Hispanic Caribbean, ed. Aviva Chomsky and Aldo Lauria-Santiago (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1998), 196-228
10/27 No new readings. Be ready to discuss this week’s readings.
Second Draft of First Paper due October 27 in Discussion Section
Unit V
Revolution And Repression in the Cold War Era
Guerrillas, Dictators, and Dirty Wars
(South and Central America and the Spanish Caribbean)
Week 10 Guerrilla Warfare and Repression
10/30 Chasteen, 264-305
11/01 Ernesto “Che” Guevara, “The Foco Theory” document no. 90 in Latin America and the United States: A Documentary History, ed. Robert H. Holden and Eric Zolov (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000)
11/03 Beatriz Manz, “The War finds Paradise,” chap in Paradise in Ashes: A Guatemalan Journey of Courage, Terror, and Hope (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2004), 91-123
Optional reading: the rest of the book from which the above chapter is taken: Manz, Paradise in Ashes: A Guatemalan Journey of Courage, Terror, and Hope (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2004)
Week 11 Dictatorship and Resistance
11/06 Start Alvarez, In the Time of the Butterflies, pages TBA
11/08 Finish Alvarez
11/10 Turits, “Memories of Dictatorship: Rural Culture and Everyday Forms of State Formation under Trujillo,” chap. in Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, The Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History, by Richard Lee Turits (Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press, 2003), 206-231
Week 12 Dictatorship and Democratization
11/13 Peter Winn, “In Women’s Hands,” Chapter 9 of Americas: The Changing Face of Latin America and the Caribbean (New York: Pantheon, 1992), 307-345
11/15 Steve J. Stern “Heroic Memory: Ruin into Salvation,” chap. 1 of Remembering Pinochet’s Chile: On the Eve of London, 1998, 7-38.
11/17 No new readings. Be ready to discuss Winn, Stern,and the video we are seeing in lecture class this week.
Unit VI
Latin America in the Globalized Economy
of the Twenty-First Century
Week 13 From the Cold War to the Wars on Drugs and Terror: Colombia
11/20 Catherine LeGrand, “The Colombian Crisis in Historical Perspective,” Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 28, no. 55-56 (2003) 165-210 and Chasteen, 306-309
11/22 Juan Forrero, “Colombia’s Coca Survives U.S. Plan to Uproot It,” The New York Times, August 19, 2006
11/24 Thanksgiving
Week 14 Globalization
11/27 Chasteen, 311-329 and additional readings TBA
11/29 TBA
12/01 TBA
Second Paper Due in Discussion Section, Friday December 1
Week 15 Contemporary Latin America Viewed from Contrasting Perspectives
12/04 Stephen Johnson, “U.S.-Latin America Ties Need Commitment and Strategy,” Heritage Foundation, March 13, 2006 at http://www.heritage.org/Research/LatinAmerica/bg1920.cfm
and Coletta Youngers, “The US and Latin America after
9-11 and Iraq” Foreign Policy in Focus at http://www.fpif.org/papers/latam2003.html
(possibly subject to change)
12/06 TBA
12/08 TBA
Final Exam, Place and Date TBA