History of Amazonia:

LAH4602/LAH5934: Fall 2008

Professor Jeffrey D. Needell

311 Grinter ( 392-8328) or jneedell@history.ufl.edu

This course is designed to offer a historical analysis of the Amazon region that will be a useful contribution to the established and increasing efforts to understand Amazonia at the University of Florida. It is hoped that it will be taken by undergraduates and graduate students alike, and by students with backgrounds across the disciplines.

The instructor will assume no previous knowledge of Latin American history; indeed, the course is designed precisely to provide that disciplinary advantage to students interested in the historical background to the issues confronting the region today. It also attempts something of a novelty in Amazonian studies, in that it will strive to link the tendencies and forces affecting the region to larger ones affecting the nations dividing the region today. It will not only put Amazonia back into time, but back into Latin America. Thus, students will be learning a good deal of general Latin American history and the specific history of the nations in which the region lies , all as a way of understanding the region's past and its historic role in the efforts and vision of outsiders as well as the lives of those native to it.

Grades for undergraduates will derive from the average of three grades: the grade on the midterm examination, the grade on the final examination, and the grade on the term paper. Grades for graduate students will be based largely on the term paper (70%), but will also depend upon their ability to respond to questions posed during the course lectures, questions based on their reading and their particular expertise (30%).

Midterm and Final Examinations will be based on the assigned reading and the lectures. They will be taken in class, where students will be asked to write essay answers to questions and items selected from a list distributed at least seven days in advance of the examination.

There will also be a map examination, administered in the first twenty minutes of the last session of the second week of the term. Students will be presented with a map of the region and are expected to locate a series of items correctly on that map; the items required will be covered in a separate handout. Students pass the map examination by making five errors or fewer; students who fail must repeat the examination and pass it before the midterm examination. There is a one-grade reduction for the course as a penalty for those who do not pass the map examination before the midterm. The examination must be passed, of course, to pass the course.

Term papers for both the undergraduates and the graduate students will be in the form of a historiographical essay. For the undergraduates, it will be fifteen pages, double-spaced; for the graduate students, it will be twenty-five pages, double-spaced. The topic of the paper must be discussed with, and approved by, the instructor within the first four weeks of the term. Undergraduates must analyze the work of at least six authors, drawing upon approximately 500 pages of reading from scholarly monographs and journals. Graduate students must analyze all of the scholarly work existing upon a subject in English, Portuguese, or Spanish (if the subject is so poorly studied that the works in more than one of these languages must be included in order to make a respectable effort, exceptions may be made). The undergraduate paper is due at the beginning of the last session of the eleventh week; the graduate paper at the beginning of the last session of the fourteenth week. Guidelines for the historiographical essay, including the criteria which must be employed in analysis, are posted on the instructor’s website (accessible via the department’s website faculty list). The instructor expects students to follow a format for this paper which includes either footnotes or endnotes; no bibliography is required and parenthetical notes in the body of the text are not acceptable. The format reference for this course is the Chicago Manual of Style.

There are two required texts:

1. A selection of required articles and chapters in a photocopy packet designed for the course.
2. Hemming, John. Tree of Rivers: The Story of the Amazon (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2008).

Lecture and Reading Schedule (Roman numerals refer to weeks of the term; names refer to authors of the excerpts photocopied in the packet -- see above. Students should read all of Hemming, taking up the chapters in the order noted below, which best coincides with the lectures):

I. Earth and Water. Hemming, ch.11; Cleary, "Environmental.".

II. The Debate Over the Native Peoples. Hemming, ch.9; Roosevelt, pp.373-84.

III. Contact with Castile, 16th and 17th Centuries. Hemming, ch.1.

IV. Portuguese Conquest, 17th and 18th Centuries. Hemming, ch.2; Boxer, chs.10&11.

V. Iberian Catholicism and Native Policy. Alden, "Slavery."

VI. Iberian Conquest and Native Policy. Hemming, ch.3

VII. The Role of Colonial Rivalry, 1650-1770. Hemming, ch.3 (cont.)

VIII. Midterm Examination.

IX. The Enlightenment, Science, and Amazonia, ca. 1750-1870. Hemming, ch.5; Bates, chs.7&10.

X. The Amazon and State Policy, ca.1750-1870. Hemming, ch.4; Alden, "Cacao."

XI. The Commerce in Rubber and State Policy, ca. 1870-1920. Hemming, ch.6; Tambs.

XII. The "Rubber Boom" and Regional Catastrophe, 1870-1945. Hemming, ch.7; Wagley, chs.2&3.

XIII. "Modernization" and Dictatorship. Stone, chs.5&6.

XIV. Development, Human Rights, and Ecology. Hemming, chs.8&10; Stone, chs.7-9.

XV. Conclusion: Trends in Review.

Advice:

Prudent students will note that the assigned reading, when combined with the additional reading for the term paper, demands disciplined, constant attention. It will be apparent that students who do not have a research topic worked out with the instructor by the date of the midterm risk a crisis in meeting their responsibilities. Since very few students are familiar with Latin American history, few come up with a topic quickly on their own. Thus, the instructor does not expect you to develop a term-paper topic on your own and invites you to consult with him at your earliest possible convenience.

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 students, as adults, 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.