Professor Judith Adler Hellman | Department of Social Science and Political Science | Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies

SOSC 4450 3.0 / HUMA 4300 3.0
Aspects of Modern Latin American and Caribbean Studies: Culture and Politics

Winter 2018

Week 1: January 9th	Introduction to the Course Gillo Pontecorvo, “Quemada” (this film will be screened in class)
Week 2: January 16th	The Encounter Franklin Knight, "The Political Geography of the Pre-Hispanic Caribbean," in The Caribbean: The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism, 1st edit., (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978); pp. 3-22; Eric R. Wolf, "Iberians in the Americas," Europe and the People Without History, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), pp. 131-157; 26 pp Alfred W. Crosby, Jr., "The Biological Consequences of 1492," NACLA, "The Conquest of Nature, 1492-1992;" Report on the Americas, Vol. 25, N. 2, Sept. 1991. 6 pp. Recommended: Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico, 1517-1521; (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1956), Preface, p.xxiii plus pp 42-4, 60-78, 89-99. Miguel Leon-Portillo, The Broken Spear: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1962), pp. 13-126 [highly recommended: “Introduction,” pp. xxv - xlviii]
Week 3: January 23th	The Mexican Revolution Judith Adler Hellman, Mexico in Crisis, (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1978, 1983), Chapter 1, “The Revolution,” While this full chapter runs from p. 3 to 33, the required reading from this chapter would be pp. 3-14, which is the section that will provide the historical background that will help you understand the story of Juan the Chamula, and that of Pedro Martinez whose life story will be the subject of the reading in week 5. Ricardo Pozas, Juan the Chamula, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971).
Week 4: January 30st	The Mexican Revolution in Morelos: Patterns of Land Tenure: Debt peonage and agricultural wage labour on hacienda and plantation Oscar Lewis, Pedro Martínez, (New York: Vintage Press, 1964), Introduction, pp. xxviii-lvii, and p. 3-94.
Week 5: February 6th	Patterns of Land Tenure: Debt peonage and agricultural wage labour on hacienda and plantation Sidney Mintz, Worker in the Cane, (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1974) “Preface,” and Chapters 1-4. (Recommended: Chapts. 5-8) [Highly recommended reading: Sidney Mintz and Eric R. Wolf , “Haciendas and Plantations in Middle America and the Antilles,” Social and Economic Studies, Volume VI, September 1957, pp. 380-412.]
Week 6: February 13th	6th Patterns of Land Tenure: Debt peonage and agricultural wage labour on hacienda and plantation (continued) Mintz, op cit. Chapters 5-8 Film: “Sugar Cane Alley”
Reading Week: February 17th -23th
Week 7: February 27th	Independence, Neo-Colonialism, Revolution and Resistance: The Oral History Project “Introduction” plus Chapter One: Nadine Ramharack, “Resilience: Life in Rural Trinidad;” Chapter Two: Alyssa Sewlal, “An East Indian in the West Indies;” Chapter Three: Richard Lanns, “From Plantation to Tourist ‘Paradise’ in St. Lucia;” Chapter Four: Kevin Edmonds, “Green Gold and Dark Days: The Life of a St. Lucian Banana Farmer ” in Judith Adler Hellman, ed. Changing Times and Changing Lives in the Caribbean and Latin America: Ten Oral Histories, (Toronto: CERLAC, 2013) [The book is available for $12.50 in print form or free on line as a pdf. if you follow the link http://www.yorku.ca/cerlac/jhellman/ChangingTimes and you request the pdf, rather than the e-pub] . MIDTERM EXAM written in-class this week
Week 8: March 6th	“Ordinary People engulfed by Violence: The Oral History Project (continued) Chapter Five: Ashleigh Phillips, “Race, Class, Revolution and the U.S. Invasion of Grenada,” Chapter Six: Judith Adler Hellman, “Invasion and Resistance in the Dominican Republic;” Chapter Seven: Michael McLean Ayearst, A Life on the Meskito Coast During the Nicaraguan Revolution;” [Recommended, of course, are the final three chapters of Changing Times and Changing Lives in the Caribbean and Latin America, Chapters 8,9,and 10. ]
Week 9: March 13th	J. A. Hellman, The World of Mexican Migrants: The Rock and the Hard Place, ( New York: The New Press, 2008), Preface, Introduction, Chapters 1 through 5; plus “A Note on Methodology,” pp 233-241.
Week 10: March 20th	J. A. Hellman, The World of Mexican Migrants: The Rock and the Hard Place, Chapters 6-.11 and chapter 14 with chapters 12 and 13 recommended only. Hellman, The World of Mexican Migrants, Chapters 15 through 19 with the Conclusions as recommended only.
Week 11: March 27th	Between Diaspora and “Home” A very brief memoir by the Haitian novelist, Edwidge Danticat, “Marie Micheline: A Life in Haiti,” The New Yorker, June11 & 18, 2007, pp. 96-103. Edwidge Danticat, “Marie Micheline: A Life in Haiti, The New Yorker, June11 & 18, 2007, pp. 96-103. Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, (New York: Riverhead Books, 2007), pp 1-207.
Week 12: April 3th	Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, pp. 210-345.
Final Exam: 20% of final grade, to be held in the regular examination period. or Oral History Project Please Note: All the readings for the course should be available on 2-hour loan at the reserve desk of Scott library. Books that are still in print will be ordered for sale at the York bookstore. However, it is in the nature of this course that many of the readings are “classics” that are no longer in print. However, very cheap copies of these can be found on line from Amazon and other electronic sources, and, you may also find that many of the books that are currently in print will be found on line at very low prices.