LASC 234
Issues in Latin American Studies
First Midterm Study Guide

The first midterm examination will take place on Tuesday, September 27, 2011.

The 75-minute examination represents 15% of the total grade for the course.

The following essay question will appear verbatim on the examination.

Write a critical response to the problem of defining "Latin America" and its study. Your essay should make explicit use of the instructional materials [i.e., assigned readings, video and audio clips, in-class discussion, maps] presented during the first four weeks of the course.

 

"As Mexican intellectual Edmundo O'Gorman has stressed, America was invented, not discovered. Its invention began with the first European chroniclers, who often projected onto their 'New World' the Old World's fantasies of the exotic, and continues to the present day."
—Peter Winn, Americas: The Changing Face of Latin America and the Caribbean. Third edition (2006).

 

"[Latin America] is not the result of some [natural*] process by which what is commonly called today Latin America came to be, for which we can identify a starting point and visualize a neat and discrete evolutionary trajectory."
—Thomas Holloway, "Latin America: What's in a Name?" Introductory essay in A Companion to Latin American History (2008).

*NOTE: Holloway uses the word "teleological," an adjective, used in the disciplines of philosophy and history, to describe the progress of natural or historical phenomena that appear to have a predetermined endpoint.  The word substitution is made for purposes of clarity.

Bonus Identifications

You will be provided with a list of four important terms, titles, and/or personalities that we have encountered during the first four weeks of the course. Briefly define each ID term (2.5% extra credit each).


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