Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Perspectives
on Latin America
HIST
199 --
Fall 2003
Dr.
A. Lauria-Santiago
Contact
Info and Office hours
First
Research Project
Due date: Oct 7
Project goals and
requirements:
- Students will
pick one country and combine critically selected web-based sources with 2-3
scholarly articles and 1-2 journalistic articles.
- Each project
will involve student's discussing one particular "micro-problem"
within the parameters given by the theme for each project.
- This project:
select one country that has had either a "truth commission" report
in a post-war context (Salvador, Peru, Guatemala, Chile, Argentina) or a country
with a significant Human Rights investigation into a particular regional conflict
or problem (Mexico, most others).
- Use the web
based materials to flesh out the problem or a particular segment of it and
formulate a more specific question you want to examine.
- Use the journalistic
and academic sources to further refine the question and begin to sketch out
an answer.
- Example: Pick
Guatemala, read it's Truth Commission report. Decide you want to understand
better the massacres of Indigenous communities under Rioss Mont's presidency--do
a search for articles that focus more specifically on this question. Write
a report (min. 5 pages) that discusses the problem and presents the evidenc
you have found.
- It is critically
important that you start these projects 2 weeks before they are due. Without
doing this you will not be able to provide appropriate time to think, research,
and discuss your work in office hours. Anything that resembles a thoughtless
rush job OR uncritical and/or plagiarized borrowings from web pages or online
articles will be lead to serious consequences. When in doubt or if faced with
intellectual paralysis get in touch with me asap.
- These papers
will not only be handed in but also discussed during class time.
How
to find Journalistic Articles (via Library online databases):
- Lexis Nexis
- New York Times Historical
- Newsbank
- Online News Source
How
to find Academic Articles
- Hispanic American Periodicals
Index (HAPI)
- Firstsearch (select various
of its databases or search a few of them simultaneously)
- Handbook of Latin American
Studies
- Historical Abstracts
For Web-based materials:
Some suggested
starting points:
Peru
Peru
El
Salvador
Guatemala
Mexico
Additional
documents