Introduction to Topics in History (292-0-20)
Topic
Watching Narcos
Instructors
Lina M Britto
Harris Hall 302
Professor Lina Britto is a Colombian historian and journalist. She received her Ph.D. in Latin American and Caribbean History from New York University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, Harvard University. While still residing in Latin America, she studied at a M.A. program in Anthropology at the Universidad de la Cordillera (La Paz, Bolivia), and at a B.A. program in Journalism at the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (Medellín, Colombia). Her teaching philosophy is to help students to develop critical reasoning skills, analytical abilities, and organizational capacities. In her courses on 19th- and 20th-century Latin America and the Caribbean, Prof. Britto resorts on all kinds of historical materials, from academic works to pop culture products. She also uses approaches and methods from different disciplines, from history to anthropology and journalism.
Meeting Info
Kresge Centennial Hall 2-420: Tues, Thurs 3:30PM - 4:50PM
Overview of class
Crimes, deeds, and spoils of drug traffickers have saturated pop culture for the last decades becoming valuable raw materials for the entertainment industry. This course is designed for students to identify, trace, and analyze audiovisual productions on the so-called narcos in the Americas in order to understand: (a) the plot devices and aesthetic mechanisms with which cultural producers have commodified history as entertainment; and (b) the effects of these types of narratives and imageries in the creation of historical understandings regarding one of the most challenging problems of our times. We accomplish these objectives by watching films, telenovelas and TV shows; reading selected works of history, sociology, anthropology, and journalism (film criticism in particular); and using the tools and technologies of digital humanities in a series of individual and collaborative projects. The ultimate goal is to produce together an open-access digital repository on drug history as entertainment in the Americas.
Learning Objectives
Understand: (a) the plot devices and aesthetic mechanisms with which cultural producers have commodified history as entertainment; and (b) the effects of these types of narratives and imageries in the creation of historical understandings regarding one of the most challenging problems of our times. The ultimate goal is to produce together an open-access digital repository on drug history as entertainment in the Americas.
Evaluation Method
Oral presentations, response papers, Canvas discussion forum, final research project.
Class Materials (Required)
All the assigned readings will be uploaded on Canvas
Class Notes
Concentration: Americas
Class Attributes
Historical Studies Distro Area