LAH
3300: Contemporary Latin America (ca.
1870-1980s)
Summer
A 2008
Professor
Jeffrey D. Needell
Office: 311 Grinter Hall
(392-8328/jneedell@history.ufl.edu)
Syllabus
This
course is intended to introduce the history of contemporary Latin America to
students with some background in the region or to students interested in
knowing something about the region's more recent past at a more sophisticated
level. We will explore how many nations
of the region achieved successful political integration under oligarchical rule
and managed economic integration with the world market. We will go on to analyze the nature of
development in the transitional era of industrialization and urban growth that
began by World War I and shifted dramatically with the Great Depression of the
1930s. We will conclude with an
examination of the increased role of populism and repression as characteristic
responses to the socio-economic changes of the post-1930 era. The region is a varied one, with more than a score of nations. Thus, we will concentrate on several
countries suggestive of the many experiences possible. These countries are Brazil, Cuba, and Mexico.
Course Requirements and Grades: All students
are required to pass a map examination
given during the first twenty minutes of the first session of week II. All students making more than five errors are
required to repeat the examination until they pass it with five errors or
fewer. Please consult the additional
course sheet for the map details required to pass. Students
must pass the map examination to pass the course, and they must pass the
examination before the midterm examination to avoid a penalty of a one-grade
reduction in their final grade for the course as a whole.
Student
grades are based on a combination of examinations and a writing
assignment. There will be two
examinations (midterm and final),
each of which is worth a third of the final grade. The
midterm will probably take place the first session of week IV; the final, by
regulation, takes place the last session of week VI. Given the constraints of time during the
summer schedule, these examination will be multiple-choice format, emphasizing
a precise, detailed grasp of the material, rather than essay examinations.
The
remaining third of the final grade is based on a historiographical essay (no more than ten pages, double-spaced,
with footnotes or endnotes) reviewing the three essay texts noted below. It is due
at session beginning on the last day of week IV. For the course definition of a
historiographical essay and the criteria required, please consult instructor’s
website.
Reading Responsibilities: Students will
read the lecture text noted below, keeping pace with the subject of each week's
lecture. In addition, the text’s early
chapters may be read by those lacking any background in the region’s history. All required reading (for the essay and for
the lectures) has been ordered for you
at Goerings’ Book Store, 1717 NW 1st Avenue (377-3703).
Text for the Lectures:
Benjamin
Keen, Keith Haynes, History of Latin
America, vol.2: Independence to the Present, 7th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004).
Texts for the Essays:
Paul
Friedrich, Agrarian Revolt in a Mexican Village (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago, 1977).
Robert M. Levine, Father of the Poor?
(New York: Cambridge Univ., 1998).
Louis
Pérez, Jr., Cuba between Empires
(Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh, 1983).[*]
Lecture Schedule.
I. Brazil:
Monarchy’s End and the Old Republic.
II. Cuba:
Struggle Against Colonialism and Dictatorship.
III. Mexico:
From Dictatorship through Revolution.
IV. Brazil:
Dictatorship, Populism, and “Modernization.”
V. Cuba:
Democracy’s Failure and the Revolution.
VI. Mexico:
The Burden of “Modernization.”
Advice:
Prudent
students will note that the assigned reading, when combined with the additional
reading for the term paper, demands disciplined, constant attention. The essay texts alone comprise either 540 or
470 pages (depending upon which option for reading Perez the student chooses –
see * below). It will be apparent that
students who do not read regularly risk a crisis in meeting their
responsibilities.
Penalties, Catastrophes, and Warnings:
Please
note the map examination penalty noted above.
Note, as well, that there are severe
penalties for missing the deadline of the term paper (it must be turned in
at the beginning of the session indicated; if it is turned in during the
session, it is penalized a half grade; if it is turned in within the
twenty-four hour period following the deadline, it is penalized a full grade;
if it is turned in within the second twenty-four hour period, it is penalized
two full grades; and so on). All
components of the course must be submitted to the instructor and a grade for
each component recorded by the instructor in order to earn a course grade. Thus,
students who do not have a recorded grade for the map examination, for the
midterm and final examinations, and for the term paper will fail the course.
As
life has been arranged so that unexpected
catastrophes occur for which even the prudent and virtuous student cannot
prepare, the instructor will be willing to review student petitions for a
waiver of penalty (or lessening of penalty).
Such waivers will be granted at the discretion of the instructor, and
are most likely to be granted in those cases in which the instructor deems that
the catastrophe is credible and reliably documented.
There is no extra credit option or
possibility in this course.
The
instructor will not tolerate cheating. The instructor will not tolerate plagiarism
(the use of others’ materials without appropriate citation, credit, or
permission). A student guilty of either
will fail the course and the matter will be referred to, and recorded by, the
appropriate University authority.
The
instructor does not keep records of attendance. It is his assumption that, as students are
adults, they are the best judges their best interest in this regard.
Students
requesting classroom accommodation because of a disability must first register with the Dean of Students’
Office. That office will provide
documentation to the student who must then provide that same documentation to
the instructor when requesting the appropriate accommodation.
[*] The
Perez text is roughly 400 pages; students may choose to read either the first
11 chapters or the remaining chapters (i.e., the period of the wars for
independence or the period of the