HIST 608I | General Seminar: 19th-Century Latin America

HIST 608I
General Seminar: 19th-Century Latin America

http://www.history.edu/Faculty/DWlliams/Fall10/HIST608I /syllabus.html

Fall 2010

Thursdays 3:30-6:00pm

Taliaferro 2108

Prof. Daryle Williams
Department of History
2125 Taliaferro Hall
(301) 405-0061
daryle@umd.edu
http://www.history.edu/Faculty/DWilliams

Office Hours: Tuesdays 1:00 to 3:00pm and by appointment

Course Description and Objectives

History 608I covers important historical literature—mainly published in the English language, but transnational in scope—about nineteenth-century Spanish and Portuguese America.

The reading assignments, which cover a variety of topics in nineteenth-century Latin American history, from the independence period through the belle époque, have been selected for their narrative, empirical, methodological, and historiographic value. Each assigned reading should be treated as an individual work of research that illuminates specific issues in "post-colonial" Latin American history, as well as a component of a larger set of interrelated questions, problems, and approaches.

The ongoing efforts to rethink the nineteenth century will be an important focus of this course. Most of the readings will be recent works that self-consciously contribute to a revisionist approach to Latin America and offer new insights into familiar topics, such as the Age of Revolutions, liberalism, caudillismo, state-building, elite politics, historia pátria, the destruction of slavery, civilization and barbarism, and underdevelopment as well as more contemporary concerns of popular liberalism, race and nation, gender and nation, the problems of freedom, writing the nation, the conditions of postcoloniality, hybridity, and memory.

The weekly readings and writing assignments have been selected in order to: 1) introduce major concepts, arguments, and figures in the field of post-independence Latin American history; 2) appreciate the evolution of the field of Latin American history over the past three decades; 3) sharpen analytical writing; and, 4) prepare field concentrators for comprehensive examinations.

Course Organization and Requirements

In-class discussion will focus on the weekly reading assignments, which have been organized loosely around a chronological overview of the nineteenth century.

On a rotating basis, each student will take responsibility for leading the discussion for the required readings. Each student will be responsible for a total of three sessions.

The student will be expected to write a concise (1000 words maximum) critical review of the monograph assigned for each of the three weeks that he/she has chosen to lead discussion. The review should summarize, analyze, and contextualize the main argument of the selected monograph and shorter reading. The regular book reviews published in the Hispanic American Historical Review, the American Historical Review, and H-LATAM should be used as guides.

The reviews are due the week following the discussion of the assigned reading.

At the end of the course, each student will be responsible for writing a fifteen-to-twenty page historiographic review essay on 6-8 monographs and articles about a chosen subject related to the nineteenth century. Up to two monographs from the common readings may be used for the review essay. The other readings should be drawn from outside the common readings. Field concentrators are expected to incorporate at least one relevant work published in Latin America.

The final paper is due no later than Commencement.

This review essay should assess the connections and disjunctures between the chosen monographs, looking for the ways in which subject matter, theoretical models, use of sources, and methodology are presented by individual authors, as well as the collective. Review essays appearing in the Latin American Research Review and the Hispanic American Historical Review should be used as guides.

Grading

Final grades will be determined usually the following formula:

Discussion 15%
Critical Reviews of Monographs 45% (15% each)
Final Paper 40%

Active participation and lively discussions enrich everyone's learning experience.

Statement of Academic Integrity

The Code of Academic Integrity guides this and all other courses taught at the University of Maryland. Violations may result in a failing grade and/or referral to a University disciplinary committee.

Excused Absences and Religious Observances

University policy excuses the absences of students for illness (self or dependent), religious observances, participation in University activities at the request of university authorities and compelling circumstances beyond the students control. Students may be required to provide appropriate documentation.

All course expectations and requirements will comply with the University System of Maryland Policy on Religious Observances.

Accommodations for Disabilities

Students with a documented disability should speak with the professor to make arrangements for the appropriate academic accommodations.

Reading Availability

All required readings will be available through the University Libraries and/or the course website on ELMS.

Physical copies of assigned books may be purchased through the book vendor of your choice. In some cases, assigned materials are also available in electronic format, through the publisher, Google Scholar, and/or e-book vendors. There is no expectation that a student purchase the assigned books. Rather, each is encouraged to buy the books that are most related to his/her interests and chosen writing assignments.

The Reserves Desk will only hold one copy of assigned monographs (24-hour reserve) and edited collections (two-hour reserves). It is important that class participants coordinate their reading schedules so that everyone has an opportunity to read the assigned book before class.

Full-text journal articles and other electronic-format materials can be freely accessed, read online, downloaded, and printed through the University Libraries' ResearchPort. When possible, stable links to these databases are included in the syllabus.

Course Schedule

Week I	Introduction: Framings
September 2	Berger, Mark T., "Specters of Colonialism: Building Postcolonial States and Making Modern Nations in the Americas," Latin American Research Review 35:1 (2000): 151-171. Klor de Alva, J. Jorge, "The Postcolonization of the (Latin) American Experience," in Gyan Prakash, ed., After Colonialism: Imperial Histories and Postcolonial Displacements. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995, pp. 241-75. Moya, José C, "Modernization, Modernity, and the Trans/formation of the Atlantic World in the Nineteenth Century," in The Atlantic in Global History, 1500-2000, Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra and Erik Seeman, eds. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2007, pp. 179-197. Thurner, Mark, "After Spanish Rule: Writing Another After," in After Spanish Rule: Postcolonial Predicaments of the Americas. Mark Thurner and Andrés Guerrero, eds. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003, pp. 12-57.


Week II	Atlantic Empires and American Independence
September 9	Schultz, Kirsten. Tropical Versailles: Empire, Monarchy, and the Portuguese Royal Court in Rio de Janeiro, 1808-1821. New York: Routledge, 2001. Maxwell, Kenneth, "Hegemonies Old and New" and "Why Was Brazil Different?: The Contexts of Independence" in Naked Tropics: Essays on Empire and Other Rogues. New York: Routledge, 2003, pp. 61-89 and 145-170.


Week III	Creole Patriotism
September 16	Lynch, John. Simon Bolivar: A Life. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. Brading, David, "Creole Patriots" The First America: Spanish monarchy, Creole Patriots, and the Liberal State, 1492-1867. Cambridge [England] ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 292-313. Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities, Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Rev. ed. London and New York: Verso, 1991, pp. 47-65


Week IV	No Class
September 23	To be rescheduled as a field trip to a memory site in the Washington, DC area


Week V	Popular Politics in the Era of Independence
September 30	Guardino, Peter. The Time of Liberty: Popular Political Culture in Oaxaca, 1750-1850. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005. Lasso, Marixa. “Race War and Nation in Caribbean Gran Colombia, Cartagena, 1810-1832,” American Historical Review 111:2 (April 2006): 336-361.


Week VI	Gendering New Nations
October 7	Chambers, Sarah. From Subjects to Citizens: Honor, Gender, and Politics in Arequipa, Peru, 1780-1854. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999. Dore, Elizabeth, “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Gender and the State in the Long Nineteenth Century,” in Hidden Histories of Gender and the State in Latin America, ed. Elizabeth Dore and Maxine Molyneux. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000, 3-32.


Week VII	Caudillos and Caudillismo
October 14	de la Fuente, Ariel. Children of Facundo: Caudillo and Gaucho Insurgency during the Argentine State-Formation Process (La Rioja, 1853-1870). Durham: Duke University Press, 2000. Chasteen, John C. “The Discourse of Insurgency in Latin American History,” Latin American Research Review 28:3 (1993): 83-111.


Week VIII	The Hegemonies of the Liberal State
October 21	Mallon, Florencia. Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Sabato, Hilda, “On Political Citizenship in Nineteenth-Century Latin America,” American Historical Review 106:4 (October 2001): 1290-1315


Week IX	Latin America's Black Atlantic
October 28	Reis, João José. Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. Matory, J. Lorand, “The English Professors of Brazil: On the Diasporic Roots of the Yorùbá Nation,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 41:1 (January 1999): 72-103.


Week X	Race and Nation
November 4	Ferrer, Ada. Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868-1898. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999. Appelbaum, Nancy P., Anne S. Macpherson, and Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt, eds. Race and Nation in Modern Latin America. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2006, pp. 1-31



Week XI	The Practices of Liberal Politics
November 11	Paula Alonso, "Politics and Elections in Buenos Aires, 1890-1898: The Performance of the Radical Party," Journal of Latin American Studies 25:3 (1993): 465-487. Joseph, Gilbert M. and Allen Wells, "Summer of Discontent: Economic Rivalry among Elite Factions during the Late Porfiriato in Yucatán" Journal of Latin American Studies 18:2 (1986): 255-282. Graham, Patronage and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Brazil. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990. Intro and pp. 101-208. Sabato, Hilda, "Citizenship, Political Participation and the Formation of the Public Sphere in Buenos Aires 1850s-1880s," Past and Present 136 (August 1992): 139-163. Viotti da Costa, Emília, "Liberalism: Theory and Practice" in her The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press [1985] 2000, pp. 53-77.


Week XII	Slave Emancipation and "The Problems of Freedom"
November 18	Scott, Rebecca J. Slave Emancipation in Cuba: The Transition to Free Labor, 1860-1899. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, [1985] 2000. Drescher, Seymour, "Brazilian Abolition in Comparative Perspective," Hispanic American Historical Review, 68:3 (August 1988): 429-460.


Week XIII	Thanksgiving
November 25	NO CLASS


Week XIV	19th-Century Economies
December 2	Haber, Stephen, ed., How Latin America Fell Behind: Essays on the Economic Histories of Brazil and Mexico, 1800-1914. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. Coatsworth, John. "Obstacles to Economic Growth in Nineteenth-Century Mexico," American Historical Review 83:1 (February 1978): 80-100. Stein, Stanley J. Review of Stephen Haber, ed., How Latin America Fell Behind in Hispanic American Historical Review 78:3 (August 1998): 535-537.


Week XV	Writing the Nation
December 9	Sommer, Doris. Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Bhabha, Homi, “DissemiNation: Time, Narrative, and the Margins of the Modern Nation,” in The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994, pp. 139-170.

Sabato, Hilda, "Citizenship, Political Participation and the Formation of the Public Sphere in Buenos Aires 1850s-1880s," Past and Present 136 (August 1992): 139-163.