Latin American and Latino Studies - Spring 1998

Today over four million people, most in southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras--but some also also in south Florida, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz--are characterized by certain affinities of culture, history, and language as being Mayans.

Though the living themselves are responsible for some monumental achievements (survival for 500 years in the face of genocide, a vibrant oral literature tradition, art, for one woman the Nobel Peace Prize), worldwide "the Maya" are most widely known for the stunning art and architecture their ancestors accomplished before the Invasion (or "Conquest").

The modern record on the Maya has become so extensive that one leading archeologist (Linda Schele) now makes the provocative claim that ancient Mayan culture should no longer be thought of as having been destroyed, but only as being dispersed--i.e., that the entire world of the Preinvasion still exists, although in an atomized or distributed form.

Many travelers through Mayan areas remain relatively unaware of the fact that in both the Preinvasion and the long period since, Mayan history is characterized by conflict. LALS 80M deals with major instances of uprising and rebellion of Mayan people against oppressor groups from colonial times to resistance in Guatemala in the 1970s and 80s and on to the work of the EZLN (the "Zapatistas") in Chiapas now.

The course concentrates on the last 500 years, and on individual lives, but it also attempts to describe the Mayan achievement as a whole thing. It is a beginning course in literature, history, and ethnography. Some aspects of Preinvasion art will be touched on, though not at the high level Professor Dean deals with them in her Art History course on the Maya.

There is a good deal of visual presentation: photography and film/video.

A central problem raised in the course is the issue of the nature of the interpretive record of the last five hundred years. Where do these interpretations come from? What are their politics? Friar Diego de Landa, the first ethnographer of Yucatan Maya (1566), was also the person responsible for the destruction of 5,000 "pagan" idols. John L. Stephens, the 19th century gringo explorer, supposed the Indians he employed to clear jungle temples might be the descendants of the builders, but he had no proof. Even today, TV documentaries on Mayan sites heavily feature white, English-speaking archeologists as their heroes and heroines and tacitly maintain the "unknowability" of the Mayan workers who also appear in the film.

Two lecture-discussion meetings a week

General Education Requirement met: "E"

• Regular attendance and participation in discussions
• Four short papers

• A required reader will be available for purchase the first day of class.

The other required items are available at the Bay Tree Bookstore. All items, including the reader, will also available in McHenry on 24 hour reserve. The texts represent a fairly large dollar investment, but for those with ongoing interest in the subject, they will form part of a permanent personal library.

• Michael Coe, Breaking the Mayan Code (Thames and Hudson)
• George Collier, Basta! Land and the Zapatista Rebellion in Chiapas (Food First)
• Robert Laughlin and Carol Karasik, The People of the Bat (Smithsonian Institution)
• Rigoberta Menchu, I, Rigoberta Menchu (Verso)
• Ricardo Pozas, Juan the Chamula (University of California)
• Nelson Reed, The Caste War of Yucatan (Stanford)
• Dennis Tedlock, ed., Popol Vuh (Touchstone)

Week One:

Introduction; Images of the Maya, "living" and dead; "Indians" and "entertainment"

Film clip, Eisenstein, "Que Viva Mexico"

Reading: Ermilo Abreu Gomez, Canek (reader); D. H. Lawrence, "Indians and Entertainment" (reader)

______________________________________________

Week Two

Colonial life in Yucatan; self preservation and resistance; Sources of discontent; the Jacinto Canek rebellion and the Caste War (part one); the photographs of Shattuck

Film, "The Maya, Last Lords of the Jungle"

Reading: Reed, The Caste War of Yucatan (1st half)

______________________________________________

Week Three

The Caste War, part two; Lowland Maya life in the present day; Collapse of henequen; women and men, sex and social life; Cancun

The photographs of Macduff Everton

Reading: Reed, The Caste War (2nd half);

FIRST PAPER DUE

________________________________________________

Week Four

The highlands; life history, life events; The Revolution of 1910; The legal system, ceremonial life, fiestas, cargos; Dreams and tales, photos of Cancian, Blom, Foxe

Reading: Pozas, Juan the Chamula; Laughlin and Karasik, The People of the Bat (selections)

_______________________________________________

Week Five

The War of Santa Rosa (1869-72); Present-day struggles in Guatemala; photographs of Jean-Marie Simon

Reading: Rigoberta Menchu, I, Rigoberta Menchu

Film: Anderson, "Sacred Games"

SECOND PAPER DUE MONDAY

_______________________________________________

Week Six

The passing of the "corporate" community in Chiapas; the "new body" of the Zapatistas

Reading: Collier, Basta! (selection)

Eber, from "Women & Alcohol in a Higland Maya Town" (reader)

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Week Seven

Weaving and its "meaning system" (ethnographic work of Walter F. Morris); The testimonio; Xibalba; Destruction, resistance, and outcome

Tedlock, Popol Vuh, (introduction)

Film: Vigesa and McKay, "Daughters of Ixchel"

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Week Eight

The Popol Vuh; Creation; Human beings and gods

Reading: Tedlock, Popol Vuh (selection)

Film: Amlin: "Popol Vuh: The Creation Myth of the Maya"

THIRD PAPER DUE MONDAY

_______________________________________________

Trying to figure out the ancients; Catherwood and Charnay

Reading: Charles Olson, from

The Mayan Letters (reader); John L. Stephens, from

Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan and Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (reader); Coe, Breaking the Mayan Code

________________________________________________

The fact and fiction of Landa (reconstructing life in the Yucatan in the years following 1511); Blom's Lacandon photos

Reading: Landa, Yucatan before and after the Conquest (reader)

FINAL PAPER DUE

_________________________________________________

Course Description:

Will the US government ever normalize relations with Cuba instead of trying to overthrow Fidel Castro? Will Washington officials ever understand the issues of social justice that have motivated Latin American protest and upheaval during the last 50 years?

In this course, we shall attempt to understand what have been the principal issues of US policy toward Latin America, primarily from World War II to the present, and what are the issues today and for the twenty-first century.


Particular features of the course include the following:

Although the focus is on US policy toward Latin America, this will be viewed within the broader context of US global Cold War policies after 1945. We shall also examine the relationship of North-South to East-West issues.

While including issues since 1945, the course will place major emphasis upon recent and contemporary crises and issues \(em for example, US policy toward Cuba and Central America, US responses to the Chiapas uprising.

We shall examine the major debates concerning US policy toward Latin America, and study both standard/official interpretations favoring US policy and interpretations by leading critics. Course sessions will be structured so as to encourage in-class debate.

We shall make a particular effort to present Latin American and other international (non-US) perspectives.

We shall also address relevant cross-border issues such as NAFTA and Latin American immigration to the US.

Required readings are in the Course Reader (available in class). In addition, there will be supplementary readings on particular cases to be presented, as well as films, videos, and guest speakers.

(1) a take-home midterm examination; (2) a take-home final examination; (3) news assignments and other short written assignments; (4) active class participation on an ongoing basis.

NOTE:

1) Class attendance is mandatory; all absences should be excused ahead of time. 2) If for some reason you should need to take an "Incomplete" in this class, you must negotiate it ahead of time with the Instructor including the deadline for turning in the work and the forms.

Precise dates to be adjusted for Spring 1998.

NOTE: For readings included in each section of Reader, see Reader Table of Contents.

Overview and Historical Background: From the Monroe Doctrine through the "Good Neighbor Policy"

• April 2 - Course Intro.
• April 4 - Historical Background
• April 9 - History, Basic Concepts, and Interpretations
• Reading: Sec. I, Gardner and Paterson

II. US Cold War Policy after World War II

• April 16: The Cold War: "containment" and "rollback" policies, US intervention in Greece, and the Truman Doctrine; official/establishment and revisionist interpretations
• Reading: Sec. II, Paterson, Barnet
• April 18: 1954 intervention in Guatemala as a "test case" of the Truman Doctrine for Latin America and a model for "covert operations" interventions in the hemisphere
• Reading: Immerman, Jonas

III. Spread of Revolutionary Movements in Latin America and US Responses from the late 1950s through the mid-1970s

• April 23: Cuban Revolution and the US response: Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the question of a "strategic threat" to the US
• Reading: Sec. III, Smith
• April 25 and 30: The rise of guerrilla movements throughout Latin America and US responses: the Alliance for Progress and counterinsurgency policies of the 1960s and 1970s
• Reading: Charter, Guevara, Lowenthal, Klare & Arnson; also Rostow, Galeano, Dos Santos
• April 30: US Marines intervention in the Dominican Republic, 1965
• Reading: Barnet

GET MIDTERM - APRIL 30

• May 2: US economic pressures against military nationalism (Peru); US economic blockade and CIA destabilization coup vs. Allende in Chile, 1973
• Reading: Paterson, Sigmund, NACLA

MIDTERM DUE MAY 7 (at beginning of class)

IV. The Post-Vietnam Era: The New Cold War in Central America and the Crisis in US Hegemony in Latin America

• May 7: Vietnam and the Post-Vietnam Era: Trilateralism, Detente, Carter "Human Rights Policy," and the Panama Canal Treaties
• May 7 and 9: The New Cold War: the Reagan Era and the Revolutionary Challenge from Central America
• Reading: Sec. IV, Jonas, Blachman, Fontaine, Kirkpatrick, White paper, Ledeen
• May 14: Crisis in US Hegemony and Restructuring of the "Inter-American System"
• Reading: Farer, Daly Hayes, Lowenthal
• May 14: "Redemocratization" and Transition to "Civilian Rule" in the Southern Cone (with particular focus on Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile)
• Reading: Barnes et al., Doggett, Petras, Galeano

V. Issues for the 1990s

• May 16: Economic Crisis and the Unpayable Debt
• Reading: Sec. V, New York Times (1990 and 1994), Inter-American Dialogue, Pastor
• May 21: Hemispheric Free Trade Initiatives, NAFTA, Chiapas and the Implications for U.S.-Latin American relations
• Reading: Morici, Pastor, Shaiken, Aguilar Zinser, Cardenas, Santamaria; also Castaneda and Pastor in Sec. VI
• May 23: Latin American Immigration as a U.S. Policy Issue
• Reading: Munoz, Frelick, Mitchell
• MAY 28 EXCHANGE DAY
• May 30: Drug Wars and Panama Invasion: Film "The Panama Deception"
• Reading: Andreas and Sharpe, New York Times, Berman, Klare, Goshko
• June 4: "Post Cold War" Interventions and Issues: Gulf War, Cuba, Haiti
• Reading: Kagan, Klare, Muravchik, Gunn, Smith, Mead, Brenner & Kornbluh, Aristede, Jean-Baptiste; also see Blasier, et al., in Sec. VI
• June 6: Future of US/Latin American Relations in the Clinton Era: The Summit and the Republican Congress, Implications of Chiapas, U.S. and Cuba once again
• Reading: Church, Fuentes, Jonas, Inter-American Dialogue, Burbach, Falk, Rotberg, Sweeney, Schlesinger

GET FINAL: JUNE 6

FINAL DUE: JUNE 13

NOTE: In addition to the scheduled readings, Sec. VI of the Reader, "Interpretations and Theoretical Issues," contains readings to be done throughout the course. Topics include: What are "US Security" concerns in Latin America?; Economic vs. Geopolitical ("national security") interpretations of US policy; North/South vs. East/West emphasis; anti-Third World vs. anti-Soviet tendencies in US policy.

Revised 7/13/04.