History of Modern Latin America (260-2-20)

Instructors

Paul Gillingham
847/467-4829
Harris Hall - Room 323
Paul Gillingham (DPhil, Oxon, 2006) specializes in politics, culture and violence in modern Mexico, and has published numerous articles and book chapters on these subjects. His most recent book is Unrevolutionary Mexico: The Birth of a Strange Dictatorship (2021). His first book, Cuauhtémoc’s Bones: Forging National Identity in Modern Mexico (2011), was awarded the Conference on Latin American History’s Mexican history prize. Gillingham is the co-editor of Dictablanda: Politics, Work, and Culture in Mexico, 1938-1968 (2014), Journalism, Satire, and Censorship in Mexico (2018), and the Violence in Latin American History series at the University of California Press. He has translated Oscar Altamirano’s monograph on Edgar Allen Poe, Poe: The Trauma of an Era (2017) and is currently writing a history of Mexico since 1511. He directs the Mexican Intelligence Digital Archives project (MIDAS), an open access collection of documents from Mexico’s security agencies at https://www.crl.edu/midas.

Meeting Info

Kresge Cent. Hall 2-380 Kaplan: Tues, Thurs 2:00PM - 3:20PM

Overview of class

Latin America's history reaches from some of the earliest democracies to some of the most unequal societies on Earth. This course traces the big processes that shaped that history, from Patagonia to El Paso: the arrival of capitalism, the emergence of social movements, revolutions, dictatorships, dramatic environmental change, the persistence of indigenous cultures, and the politics of race.

Learning Objectives

Students will: 1. Deploy concepts from economics, political science, sociology, archaeology and anthropology to analyze the choices Latin American peoples made as individuals and groups. 2. Assess the multiple variables in the reciprocal relationships between structures (landscapes, ocean currents, prevailing winds, factor endowment) and the contingent (political and economic models, cultural trends, the beliefs that produce and are produced by them). 3. Deploy a matrix of ethnic, ideological, regional, class and personalist factors to understand a set of complex and dynamic societies. 4. Use quantitative and in especial qualitative methods, ranging from GDP per capita and GINI coefficients to memoirs, indigenous-authored documents and oral histories. 5. Gain an understanding of the different methodologies used by historians and other social scientists according to interest, possibility, region and time period. Particular focus will be paid to the difference between the materials available and approaches to scholars of pre-hispanic, colonial, modern and contemporary periods. 6. Navigate the enormous quantities of information available in the dataflood of our online world and consider competing truth claims in that information, both secondary and primary.

Evaluation Method

participation, 10%; research paper, 30%; examinations, 40%; in-class quiz, 10%

Class Notes

History Major Concentration(s): Americas
History Minor Concentration(s): Latin America

Class Attributes

Historical Studies Foundational Discipline
Social and Behavioral Science Foundational Discipl
Historical Studies Distro Area
Global Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity
Social & Behavioral Sciences Distro Area

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Registration is restricted to History Majors and Minors only until the end of pre-registration, after which time enrollment will be open to everyone who has taken the prerequisites (if any)
Add Consent: Instructor Consent Required

Associated Classes

DIS - Annenberg Hall G28: Fri 9:00AM - 9:50AM

DIS - Harris Hall L05: Fri 10:00AM - 10:50AM

DIS - Harris Hall L28: Fri 1:00PM - 1:50PM