History 251
Latin American History II
Second Writing Assignment

http://www.history.umd.edu/Faculty/DWilliams/courses/Spring11/HIST251/paper2.html

In the paper delivered at the conference The Aesthetic of Revolt: Latin America in the 1960s, Dr. Parick Barr-Melej asserts that:

Counterculture was about the liberation of the self, and many young Chileans who sought to realize varying conditions of freedom and sovereignty did so through any combination of means, including free(r) love, rock music, smoking marijuana, wearing certain styles of clothes, or, if male, growing long hair. A peculiar and amorphous form of cultural heterodoxy, counterculture was an avenue and an expression of that emancipatory impulse.

Barr-Melej raises some similiar concerns about Chilean counterculture in his article "Siloísmo and the Self in Allende's Chile." Valeria Manzano's article "The Blue Jean Generation" makes an interrogatation of youth counterculture in Argentina in the late 1950s and 1960s.

In a clearly written essay that draws directly upon the assigned Barr-Melej and Manzano readings, develop an argument about the forms, the meanings, and the audiences for youth counterculture in Latin America during the 1950s-1970s. Your argument should draw upon the defining elements of youth culture considered by Barr-Melej and Manzano [e.g., youth fashion, sexual liberation, gender and class distinction, distinct musical tastes, consumerism, anti-authoritarianism, anti-establishment, rebellion, spitituality]. Your analysis should include at least one visual example [e.g., a photo, an album cover, a film clip, an advertisement, a cartoon, a political poster] of youth counterculture in the Southern Cone that you find on your own.


Barr-Melej's "Siloísmo and the Self in Allende's Chile" and Manzano's "The Blue Jean Generation" are available via the Course Reserves link on the HIST 251 ELMS site.

The full version of Barr-Melej's conference paper, "Red Hair: Melenudos, Masculinity, and Revolutionary Ideology on the Chilean Road to Socialism," is available in the Documents section of the HIST 251 ELMS site.

The Powerpoint on counterculture prepared by Daniel Richter [see Week 13 ELMS Assignment] contains a number of images and links that you might select from. Google and YouTube are, without doubt, two great places to look for additional, readily-available visual materials.


The paper should be a total of six pages. Follow conventional formatting guidelines (i.e. typed; double-spaced; reasonable margins and fonts) as well as proper citations, including for online material.

A style guide for Chicago/Turabian is available online at: http://www.lib.umd.edu/guides/citing_chicad.html

The second writing assignment is due at the beginning of lecture on Tuesday, May 3, 2011.

Feel free to seek out Prof. Williams or Daniel for guidance in writing a well-organized and engaging paper. Outlines and/or rough drafts are always welcome.  Or, consider making a visit to the Writing Center, 0125 Taliaferro Hall.:



HIST 251 Homepage
Email: Professor Williams  Email: Daniel Richter