SPRING 2007

CORE COURSES

HIST 361 - Latin America Since Independence
Bianca Premo
TUTH 10:00am - 11:15am
MAX: 35

Fulfills LACS Major/Minor Requirement

DESCRIPTION: We begin as Latin Americans cast off Spanish and Portuguese colonial rule in the nineteenth century, when it became clear that the freedom and prosperity that they hoped for was elusive.  Instead, they turned to face a volatile “modern” history 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 and their daily practices shaped their own history, sometimes with guns in hand, and created 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, some of which are to be viewed outside of class time.

PARTICULARS: Students can expect to write short papers based on class readings, to take a midterm and a final, and to be graded for active participate in course discussions.

SPAN 300WR - Reading in Spanish: Texts and Contexts
Faculty
MWF Multiple Sessions
MAX: 10 per session

Fulfills LACS Major/Minor Requirement

DESCRIPTION: The primary objective of this course is to provide students with the historical, geographic and aesthetic background relevant to the study of Hispanic culture, including that of Spain, Latin America and the United States. Students acquire this broad knowledge as well as strengthen their language and critical thinking skills through extensive reading, frequent short papers, oral
presentations, and a final research project.

TEXTS :
Fuentes, Carlos. El espejo enterrado.
Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.
Dictionary: El pequeño Larousse ilustrado.

PREREQUISITES: SPANISH 212 or 215, OFFICIAL SPANISH PLACEMENT from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, or permission of the Director of the Language Program.

LAS COURSES

LAS 270 - The Making of Modern Latin America: Rebels, Smugglers, & Bandits in Latin America
(Same as HIST 211)
Fabricio Prado
MWF 10:40am - 11:30am
MAX: LAS 10; HIST 20

DESCRIPTION: Corruption scandals, urban violence and agrarian conflicts are in the daily news in Latin America today. However, since the colonial period, bandits, smugglers and rebels are important characters in Latin American history. Maroon Communities, untamed Indians, Indian rebellions, landless, vagrants, messianic movements, merchants and authorities leading gangs for illegal activities – all of them are colonial examples of “disorder” according to metropolitan and national elites. This course intends to use the analysis of these conflicts as a window to understand the dynamics of interaction between social groups, rather than emphasizing each group in separate. Moreover, because of the type of sources generated, rebellions, criminal and judicial cases as well as revolutions are exceptional moments to analyze resistance, negotiation, gender and ethnicity. Understanding such movements and episodes will contribute to better comprehension of colonial heritage of Latin America and the challenges the regions faces today.

TEXTS:
Burckholder, Mark, & Johnson, Lyman. Colonial Latin America, Oxford University Press,. 5th edition (2003)

PARTICULARS: Students can expect to write short papers based on class readings, to take a midterm and a final, and to be graded for active participate in course discussions.

LAS 385R - Politics & Culture of Dictatorship in Latin America
(Same as POLS 385)
Juan del Aguila, Ricardo Gutiérrez-Mouat
TU 2:00pm - 5:00pm
MAX: LAS 10; POLS 15

DESCRIPTION: The course examines how various forms of leadership are represented in literature, how caudillos, dictators and authoritarian rulers exercise power, and why cultural values and myths legitimate the political process. Several novels as well as works from Political Science will be read and discussed, with a few videos shown. Class participation is expected and each student will make at least one oral presentation to the class.

LAS 385R - Race and Ethnicity in Latin America: The Politics of Culture, Body,
and Nation
(Same as ANT 385)
Christopher Krupa
TUTH 1:00pm - 2:15pm
MAX: LAS 10; ANT 8

DESCRIPTION: Latin American notions of “race” have always drawn as much upon culture, gender, class, and space (to name a few) as on biology. Many Latin Americans have changed their “race” many times over the course of their lifetime. How can a study of Latin America’s very particular racial formations challenge our own assumptions about what “race” is and how it works? How can such rigid forms of exclusion and violence be premised on such a slippery conceptual basis? In this course we will work through these questions by exploring “race” in Latin America from a number of different angles, at once unpacking its social construction (as an “idea” imposed upon bodies) and uncovering how it has become a very powerful material and political force (as a “social fact”) in real world Latin American contexts. Key sites of attention will include: early colonial debates about the ‘species’ character of Indians; changing discourses of “blood” and sexuality in the colonies; the centrality of ‘race-mixing’ to nation-building and nationalist projects; the shifting meaning of ‘blackness’ in the Caribbean; the importance of race-thinking in cold war agendas; and the critical refashioning of racial identities within anti-establishment political struggles of today.

READINGS: A diversity of historical and contemporary sources will be used to explore the construction and implementation of racial ideologies in Latin America and to understand the experiences of people living in societies structured by them.

PARTICULARS: No outside research required. Students will be required to submit short writing assignments related to the readings and to take two examinations.

LAS 385R - Textiles of the Americas
(Same as ARTHIST 393, ARTHIST 592)
Rebecca Stone
TUTH 1:00pm - 2:15pm
MAX: LAS 5; ARTHIST - 8 undergraduates, 5 graduates

DESCRIPTION: This seminar concerns the technique, design, and iconography of fiber arts in the Americas, with special emphasis on the ancient Andean textile traditions. Works of art from the Carlos Museum will be featured. Projects may focus on ancient, Colonial, or modern topics from any region of the continent

TEXTS:
Stone-Miller, Rebecca. To Weave for the Sun (1994).
Articles on reserve

GRADES: Research project, consisting of a 20 minute presentation and 15 page final paper (undergraduates), 30 minute presentation and 20 page final paper (graduate students); one hands-on project (weaving, embroidery, fiber sculpture).

LAS 490S - Cinema and North-South Nation-Building
(Same as SPAN460S)
Dierdra Reber
TUTH 1:00pm - 2:15pm
MAX: LAS 3; SPAN 12

DESCRIPTION: DESCRIPTION: From its inception, film has been recognized, feared, and exploited for its power of political representation. This course will trace the trajectories of twentieth-century nation-building in Hollywood and in Mexico, the “ Hollywood” of the South. Moving through the decades from silent film to recent twenty-first century productions, we will perform a comparative North-South analysis of the major issues of the day as reflected on the screen, focusing on social revolution, class stratification, racism and race relations, poverty, global politics, and contemporary urban culture.

TEXTS:
Will include brief critical readings to be posted on Woodruff e-reserves.

FILMS:
The Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith, 1915)
City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931)
¡Que viva México! (Sergei Eisenstein, 1932)
Vámonos con Pancho Villa (Fernando de Fuentes, 1936)
María Candelaria (Emilio Fernández, 1944)
It's a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)
Los olvidados (Luis Buñuel, 1950)
Macario (Roberto Gavaldón, 1960)
Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
Rocky (John G. Avildsen, 1976)
The Last Temptation of Christ (Martin Scorsese, 1988)
Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
La ley de Herodes (Luis Estrada, 1999)
Amores perros (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2000)

PARTICULARS: Each student will be expected to direct one or two class discussions (depending upon enrollment), to give several in-class presentations using film clips (we will have an iMovie workshop at ECIT), and to produce a final multi media research paper/project. Please note that there will be two afternoon/evening screenings per week outside of class time, to be arranged in consultation with students (all films will also be available through Media and Music Library reserves).

LAS 490S - Popular Culture and Race Relations in Brazil
(Same as PORT 412S)
Katia Santos
TUTH 1:00pm - 2:15pm
MAX: LAS 3; PORT 12

DESCRIPTION: This course will examine the intersections of the popular culture scenario and the dynamic of race relations in Brazil. The intention of this course is to put on stage the cultural manifestations where ordinary Brazilian citizens effectively participate in their everyday lives -- popular music, religion, carnival, theater, capoeira, Brazilian Hip-hop culture, or what else is happening in the country as we speak. The very fact that the word “popular” in Brazil can be discussed in the plural – as “levels” of popular culture -- is a very important element of this discussion. Every effort will be made to bring to our discussion the voices of those who are essential to the various cultural manifestations that will be examined in this course --– the performers –, since today we can count on several kind of media to access them and their works (DVDs, documentaries, interviews, etc. In addition, we will be able to perceive how race relations – a constant of Brazilian history and national discourse since colonial times – shape these cultural manifestations and how important these same cultural events are for a better understanding of the private lives of African descendents in Brazil.

TEXTS:
Browning, Barbara. Samba, resistance in motion (1995).
McCann, Bryan. Hello, Hello Brazil: Popular music in the making of Modern
Brazil (2004).
Selected articles on Blackboard

PARTICULARS: Attendance and class participation, brief reaction papers, one class presentation; a midterm paper and a final research paper.

LAS 490S - You Say You Want a Revolution: “Rocanrol” and Politics in Latin America
(Same as SPAN 460S)
Hernán Feldman
MWF 11:45am - 12:35pm
MAX: LAS 3; SPAN 12

DESCRIPTION: Although Elvis Presley certainly did his part in appropriating African-American music for the benefit of mainstream American popular culture, the date in which Rock-and-Roll-as-we-know-it entered the households of middle-class white America was February 9, 1964. As Ed Sullivan announced “Ladies and Gentleman, The Beatles!,” the song would remain the same for many decades. The same song, however, did not amount to boredom, because rivalries and controversies were not something lacking in the rock scene. As Tom Wolfe would say in 1965, “The Beatles want to hold your hand, but The Stones want to burn your town.” Something less known is that the “British Invasion of (North) America” led by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones had an unparalleled impact on South American countries like Argentina and Uruguay. Indeed, in these two countries rock and roll completely took over the musical preferences of white middle-class youngsters, which in turn caused an immediate proliferation of local bands singing “rocanrol” in Spanish. First, this course intends to explore how these bands intersected with a time in which brutal dictatorships were ruling the Southern Cone. Second, we will consider how pop music spread throughout Latin America more recently, with bands like Molotov and Control Machete in Mexico, Os Paralamas do Sucesso in Brazil, Shakira and Juanes in Colombia, and La Ley in Chile, among others. Finally, we will examine to what extent were bands in the seventies complicit with brutal regimes, and to what extent current pop music could be viewed as yet another device of global economy. The question is, in the end, to consider whether rocanrol was a politically revolutionary form of expression, or just the ideal tool to “soothe the savage beast.”

TEXTS:
Fernández, Héctor. L’Hoeste, Rockin’ Las Americas: The Global Politics of Rock in Latin/o America.
Polimen, Carlos. Bailando en los escombros: historia crítica del rock latinoamericano.
Pujol, Sergio. Rock y dictadura.

FILMS:
Historias de Argentina en Vivo (Adrian Caetano et al)
Quilmes Rock en Vivo (Fernando Alhadeff)
Tango Feroz (Marcelo Piñeyro)

VIDEOS: Shakira, Molotov, Riff, Fito Páez, Los Abuelos de la Nada, Bersuit Vergarabat, La Ley, Viejas Locas, Catupecu Machu.

GRADES: The final grade will be the result of active participation in class (20%), a midterm exam (20%), an oral presentation (10%), a five-page response paper (15%), and a ten-page research paper (35%).

LAS 495A– Honors Thesis I
LACS Faculty
No set meeting time

Fulfills Emory College Honors Program requirement

DESCRIPTION: First semester of Honors Program thesis writing for those students participating in the College Honors Program

PREREQUISITES: Enrollment limited to program majors who qualify to participate in the Honors Program.

LAS 495BWR – Honors Thesis II
LACS Faculty
No set meeting time

Fulfills Emory College Honors Program requirement

DESCRIPTION: Second semester of Honors Program thesis writing for those students participating in the College Honors Program.

PREREQUISISTES: Must have completed LAS 495A.

LAS 497R – Independent Research in Latin American and Caribbean Studies
LACS Faculty
No set meeting time

LAS COURSES OF INTEREST

SPAN 460S - Chile: From Revolution to Postmodernism
Ricardo Gutiérrez-Mouat
TUTH 11:30am - 12:45pm
MAX: 15

DESCRIPTION: The course charts the momentous political and cultural transformations that took place in Chile between 1970 and the present time, a period that includes the revolutionary three years of Allende's Popular Unity government, the military regime that overthrew Allende's socialist government and that lasted until 1989, and the postdictatorship period when Chilean society had to settle the accounts of the past while enjoying the benefits of a successful economy. The class discussions will focus on some of the main literary works that have come out of this 35-year period, including investigative journalism,critical essays, autobiographies, poems, plays, stories, and novels, and we will frame these readings in a political and broadly cultural context.

TEXTS:
Readings will be selected from the following list (depending on availability):
Marco Antonio de la Parra. La mala memoria
Diamela Eltit. Puño y letra: juicio oral; Mano de obra
Alberto Fuguet. Mala onda
Elizabeth Subercaseaux. La rebelión de las nanas; Michelle
Tina Rosenberg. Children of Cain
Roberto Bolaño. Estrella distante; Nocturno de Chile
José Donoso. La desesperanza
Nicanor Parra. Chistes parra desorientar a la policía
Pedro Lemebel. La esquina es mi corazón
Ariel Dorfman. Exorcising Terror; Pastel de choclo

SPAN 460S - The Cuban Revolution: Society, Culture, Politics
José Quiroga
TUTH 10:00am - 11:15am
MAX: 15

DESCRIPTION: The social and cultural histories of the Cuban Revolution are comprehensively examined in this course--from Fidel Castro’s first appeals to history within the Cuban Republic in the 1950s to the more recent struggles of the Special Period in Times of Peace ushered as the result of the loss of Soviet subsidies. The course is intended to follow the development of the Revolution chronologically and visually via readings from literary texts, music and film. We will also try to understand the impetus behind collective socialist processes vis a vis individual capitalist subject formations.

TEXTS:
Include authors Miguel Barnet, Reina Maria Rodriguez, Antonio Jose Ponte, Alejo Carpentier, Calvert Casey, Nancy Morejon.

FILMS:
Include directors Sara Gómez and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea.

MUSIC:
Include artists Silvio Rodriguez, Pablo Milanés, Noel Nicola and the punk rock band Porno para Ricardo.

PARTICULARS: Midterm and Short Papers. Note: The course is also an experiment in collective thinking. Students will divide themselves into groups and make decisions that may carry the force of policy. They may constitute themselves into different units that will explore different fields (music, art, literature, etc.) and fill in weekly reports.