Seminar: State,
Nation, and Class in Central America and the Hispanic Caribbean
Prof. Aldo Lauria-Santiago
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This seminar will examine recent research on some of the most important themes in the study of Central American and Caribbean history during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will focus especially on the historical connections between colonialism/imperialism, the formation of the working sectors, and the modern nation-state. Within this framework we will examine aspects of the social history and economic development of these regions, including the organization of production, race and ethnicity, community and class formation, and national politics.
This course is a discussion and reading-intensive seminar and your consistent participation will be important to its success. Absences are NOT acceptable unless approved by your dean or myself ahead of time.
Students will be responsible for reading all assigned readings.
The requirement for this course are a research paper that combines the assigned readings with additional sources and a mid-semester reflection piece. The final research paper needs to be 12-15 pages and make use of at least ten additional scholarly sources. Additional instructions and deadlines will follow.
Students
will also lead at least one of the discussion sessions.
The research paper grade will be based on:
October: statement of research question: 10%
November: bibliography & thesis statement: 10%
December : draft: 10%
Oral presentation: 10%
Final Draft: 60%
This course will require between 8 and 10 hours of work outside of class time. You are expected to keep up with the readings every week, so please allow yourself enough time to complete them and come to class prepared to discuss them.
The following books have been ordered by the bookstore. Other readings will be available in a reading packet which will be made available to you for individual copying.
COURSE ORGANIZATION AND SCHEDULE:
- Richard Turits. Foundations Of Despotism: Peasants, The Trujillo Regime, And Modernity In Dominican History. Stanford Univ Pr. 2004.
- Aldo Lauria Santiago and Leigh Binford. Eds. Landscapes of Struggle: Politics, Society And Community in El Salvador. University of Pittsburgh Press.
- Aldo Lauria Santiago. An Agrarian Republic: Commercial Agriculture and the Politics of Peasant Communities in El Salvador, 1824-1914. University of Pittsburgh Press.
- Lynn Horton. Peasants in Arms : War and Peace in the Mountains of Nicaragua,1979-1994. Ohio Univ Pr.
- Elisabeth Jean Wood. Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador. Cambridge University Press.
- Laura Briggs. Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico. University of California Press.
- Mary A. Renda. Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915-1940. University of North Carolina Press.
- Robert Whitney. State and Revolution in Cuba: Mass Mobilization and Political Change, 1920-1940. University of North Carolina Press.
Week 1: [Sept 6] Introduction: Early Formation of Colonial Societies in the Caribbean and Central America
Week 2: [Sept 13] State, Peasants, and National Formation in El Salvador, 1824-1930
Week 3: [Sept 20] State and National Formation in Guatemala, 1824-1900
Week 4: [Sept 27] The Plantation Economy in the Caribbean, 1830-1900
Week 6: [Oct 18] Dictatorships and the Peasantry in the Caribbean and Central America
Week 7: [Oct 25] Puerto Rico under Colonial Rule
Week 9: [Nov 8] Workers and Peasants in Guatemala's Failed Democratic Revolution
Week 10 : [Nov 15] The Sandinista Revolution and the Peasantry
Week 12 : [Nov 29] Dilemmas of Post-Revolution in El Salvador
Week 13 : [Dec 6] Wrap-up discussion of course