Description. The course is an in-depth study of authoritarian forms of government in Latin America from a political and cultural perspective. The student will be exposed to readings and discussions that will raise issues related to the roots of caudillismo, the historical evolution and changing legitimacy of dictatorship, the political alternatives that this form of power can generate (ranging from revolution to re-democratization), and the role of writers and intellectuals as critics and analysts of dictatorial politics. Special attention will be given in the second half of the course to the post-dictatorial period in Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. The readings include political articles as well as novels, cultural journalism, chronicles, testimonies, and cultural essays. Some videos will also be shown.

Grading. The grade will be based on a midterm (35%), a 15 pp. research paper (45%), and an oral presentation dealing with the cultural and political context of one specific dictator or with a post-dictatorial issue (20%). The paper should focus on the materials studied in the second half of the course. The oral presentation should take no more than 20 minutes and is to be followed by questions and discussion involving other students and the instructors. As the format of the course is a seminar, students are expected to contribute to the discussions on a regular basis and to do the readings on time.

Team-teaching. Both faculty members will be present at the class meetings, both will evaluate all materials pertaining to the final grade, but only one will conduct the seminar at any given time.

Readings.

Hugh Hamill, ed. Caudillos: Dictators in Spanish America.
Gabriel García Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch.
Mario Vargas Llosa, The Feast of the Goat.
Tina Rosenberg, Children of Cain.
Ariel Dorfman, Exorcizing Terror.

This upper-level seminar covers the basic attributes of visionary spirituality in the ancient and traditional modern Americas, especially from Mexico southward, and applies these to the artistic record. Individual projects focus on objects in the Carlos Museum collection, the on-going process of professorial research on visions and ancient art, and preliminary ideas for a future exhibition on this subject.

Texts: Stone-Miller, R. Seeing with New Eyes: Highlights of the Michael C. Carlos Museum Collection of Art of the Ancient Americas
Schultes, R. and A. Hofmann, Plants of the Gods;
Harner, M. Hallucinogens and Shamanism; various articles.

Particulars: One reading oral report; Short research summary; Object analysis; Exhibition Project (selection of objects, case design drawings, preliminary wall and case label); Final Comprehensive Take-Home Essay.

CONTENT: This course explores the role that shanty towns and urban periphery (‘villa miserias’, ‘poblaciones’, ‘ ‘favelas’) play within the context of Latin American cultural production. As the narratives of progress and modernity enter their crisis, topics as violence, immigration, gender/sexualities, crime and poverty are reconfigured in new stories. The course will first consider early sociological articulations of marginality and the urban space, and will move on to an examination of the phenomena of the invasion of the center by the margins in literature and films of the 1990s. The course will proceed in two directions. On the one hand, we will look at the crisis of aesthetical categories that examine culture in terms of ‘high/low’, ‘popular’, ‘postmodern’ and ‘hybrid’. On the other hand, we will conceptualize this cultural crisis by examining arguments on the political and economic consequences of the crisis of late capitalism. In Spanish.

TEXTS: César Aira, La villa; Juan Carlos Martini, Puerto Apache; Christian Alarcon, Cuando me muera quiero que me toquen cumbia.

Selections from Jorge Luis Borges, El lenguaje de los argentinos;
Roberto Arlt, Aguafuertes porteñas; Elías Castelnuovo, Vidas proletarias; Bernardo Verbitsky, Villa miseria también América Latina;
Haroldo Conti, Con otra gente; Gino Germani, Política y sociedad en una época de transición; José Luis Romero, Latinoamérica: las ciudades y las ideas.

FILMS: Cidade De Deus, Fernando Meirelles (Brasil), La Virgen de los sicarios, Barbet Schroeder (Colombia), Pizza, birra, faso, Bruno Stagnaro/Adrian Caetano. La vendedora de rosa, Víctor Gaviria (Colombia).

PARTICULARS: The evaluation will be based on class participation, two 5-7 page papers, one 10-page paper, and oral presentation.

LAS 270 -- "Latin American Poets and the Disjunctions of Place" (Same As SPAN 460S)
Good, MWF 10:40-11:30
MAX: 12 Spanish, 3, LACS

DESCRIPTION: This seminar will explore 20th-century Latin American poetry by focusing on "place" as a problem of geography, cultural politics, aesthetic form, rhetoric and fiction. The historical framework of the course will run from late 19th century to around 1940 (Modernismo to Vanguardia). Through the lens of this topic of "place," the course will provide an introduction to major issues in early 20th century Latin American poetry.

TEXTS: We will focus primarily on substantial selections from five different collections of poetry: Darío, Prosas profanas; Lugones, Lunario sentimental; Vallejo, Trilce; Borges, Fervor de Buenos Aires and Villaurrutia, Nostalgia de la muerte.
In addition, we will look at work by José Martí, Pablo Neruda, Delmira Agustini, Oliverio Girondo, Alfonsina Storni, Ramón López Velarde and others. We will also do some comparative work, by examining relations between Latin American poets and poets from other countries during this period, particularly Hart Crane, García Lorca, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Amy Lowell and Wallace Stevens. Finally, there will also be numerous theoretical and critical readings, including texts by Walter Benjamin, Marshall Berman, Larry Venutti, Guillermo Sucre, Kirsten Silva Greusz and Julio Ramos, among others.

PARTICULARS: class presentation; various short papers; mid-term exam and final research essay.

Content: This course will examine inter-American relations from Latin America independence to the end of the twentieth century. We will track the development of the inter-American system in a context of U.S. hegemony and show how this has influenced resolution of key problems in regional relations. Texts will emphasize new regional approaches to policy through multilateral organizations such as the Organization of American States as well as non-governmental organizations. Students will explore the strengths and weaknesses of the inter-American system through its responses to policy problems that have arisen over time, such as the debt crisis, immigration, illicit drug flows, corruption, and the overthrow of elected governments. They will look at specific international crises that tested inter-American relations such as the Panama Canal treaties, and also evaluate proposed remedies such as the Inter-American Democratic Charter and dollarization. The class will feature occasional guest lectures, and will seek to incorporate opportunities for students to engage policy-makers through extra-curricular events.

Particulars:
Grades will be based on in-class presentations, participation in a mock preparatory meeting for the Summit of the Americas, a mid-term and a final paper.

LAS 497S "(Re)Thinking Latin America: Political Theory, Past and Present"
Levitt, T-Th 11:30-12:45
No restrictions or permissions required.
MAX: 15 [note: enrollment not designated by major]

Description: This course will provide students from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds an opportunity to intensively study political philosophy written by Latin Americans, about Latin America. While the focus of the course will be on twentieth-century political thought, we will begin in the colonial period, and also examine ideas about independence and nationhood during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. We then will turn to exemplary theoretical works on populism, socialism, corporatism, indigenous rights, feminism, dependency theory (and its critics), and neoliberalism (and its critics).

Texts: As a background text, we will read The Soul of Latin America, by Howard Wiarda. However, most course readings will consist of samples and excerpts of original primary sources, such as the works of: Bartolomé de las Casas; Francisco de Vitoria; Garcilaso de la Vega; Juan Pablo Viscardo; Simón Bolívar; Domingo Sarmiento; José Martí; José Enrique Rodó; José Carlos Mariátegui; V.R. Haya de la Torre; Eva Perón; Fidel Castro; the Latin American & Caribbean "Feminist Encounters"; the Zapatista movement; and scholars of dependency theory, feminism, neoliberalism, and other contemporary approaches to social science. [NOTE: all course readings are in English.]

Particulars: There are no prerequisites for this class. This course satisfies the College’s General Education Requirement (GER) for an advanced seminar.

Grading:
Preparation and class participation: 20 %
Brief (1-2 pg.) response papers and
oral presentations on weekly readings: 25 %
Paper proposal and
preliminary bibliography: 10 %
Final paper (15-20 pages): 45 %

OTHER COURSES WITH LATIN AMERICAN/CARIBBEAN CONTENT, BUT NOT CROSS-LISTED:

WS 100S Introductory Seminar in Women's Studies Seminar: A Latin American and Caribbean Perspective (for 1st year students only)
Shayne, T-Th 1:00-2:15
MAX: 15
Content: This course is designed to introduce you to some of the general themes of women's studies through predominantly Latin American and Caribbean examples. We will address a variety of issues including: What is women's studies?; the intersection of race, class, and sexuality with gender; the responsibility and roles of women as mothers and paid laborers; the implications of violence against women; women and politics, revolution, and feminism.
Texts: Julia Alvarez. In the Time of the Butterflies. Nikki Craske. Women & Politics in Latin America. Andrew R. Morrison and Maria Loreto Biehl (Eds.).
Too Close To Home: Domestic Violence in the Americas. Selected articles.
Particulars: Participation/media-watch exercises; section response papers; take home midterm and final.

Content: This course explores the Argentine Tango, including its origins as a popular form, popularization during the Golden Age, dissemination to Europe and North America, evolution into a musical form of its own for listening and concerts, and adoption by international art music composers to date. It will focus on three aspects of tango: the dance itself, the dance orchestra, and the tango for listening.

Particulars: The seminar format will include listening and reading assignments on each of the nine topics to prepare for class discussions. Assessment for this course will be based on attendance and participation, including a journal to record reactions to topics (20%); four listening and response quizzes (20%); two partner mini-presentations on subtopics of students’ choice with accompanying short individual essays (approximately 20 minute presentation and 500-word essay) (30%); and a final project consisting of a solo presentation and final paper (30%). In addition to studying tango music, students will learn basic steps and figures of the tango dance. We will take a “field trip” to at least one milonga (tango dance gathering) in Atlanta.

Content: After Latin Americans cast off Spanish and Portuguese colonial rule in the nineteenth century, it became clear that the freedom and prosperity that they had hoped for was elusive. Instead, most Latin Americans turned away from colonialism only to face a volatile “modern” and “independent” history. That history would be steeped in violence and strong-man rule, deeply etched by the divisions between the many poor and the few with wealth, and marred by racial and gender inequalities. What is more, modern Latin American history would not unfold only out of internal events. Its course would be reset, again and again, by the intervention and influence of new foreign powers. But modern Latin American history is more than a tale of despair. It is also a story of how regions came to be defined as “nations,” how elites attempted to institute order, progress, and “development,” and how ordinary people responded to the challenges of the 19th and 20th centuries by revolting, adapting and creating a dynamic culture that sets the region apart from anywhere else in the world.

Texts: The primary reading text for the course will be John Chasteen’s Born in Blood and Fire. We will also read a variety of primary and secondary sources that reveal what Latin Americans were hoping their nations would become and what, in fact, they were. Readings will be supplemented with non-print media, like films, music and photos.

Particulars: Students can expect to write short papers every week based on readings and films, to take a midterm and a final comprised of comprehensive take-home essays and an in-class portion, and to be graded for active participate in class discussions.