Aims

In consonance with the degrees offered in the SML, this module aims:
- to build on skills and knowledge gained at Stage 1.
- to provide students with an in-depth knowledge of Latin American history in the ‘long 19th century’ with its lasting legacies.
- to prepare students for more specialist study at Stage 4.
- to make aspects of the above available to students from outside the degree.

The main purpose of this course is to give students an idea of the similarities and divergences in the historical development of Latin American countries during the key period from Independence to the Mexican Revolution. In contrast to Western Europe and North America, in Latin America ‘Independencia’ state-building preceded nation-building. Iberian mercantilism gave way to an economic re-colonisation by Great Britain, while France remained the major cultural reference point during the ‘long 19th century’. Yet, 'Amérique Latine' was an artificial construct, suggesting that the more than two dozen Latin American countries formed a kind of homogenous bloc.

The course will make you aware that, from their Conquest, Spanish and Portuguese America, let alone French Saint-Domingue (an important excursus), had been separated by more than language and natural barriers, and you will understand why Liberator Simón Bolivar failed in maintaining at least the territorial integrity of the four Spanish viceroyalties. We will look at the 'caudillo' dictatorships which followed political emancipation and contrast them to Brazil's ambivalent attempts to forge a nation post facto; analyse the liberal reforms of the mid-19th century in Colombia, Mexico and Argentina; compare Cuba's anti-slavery and belated pro-Independence movements with Brazil's abolitionists and republicans; and learn about Uruguay’s transformation into Latin America’s first welfare state democracy and Mexico’s paradigmatic 1910-17 revolution.

Outline Of Syllabus

The course will cover the following topics and case studies:

Week 1:
Intro to course and intro to Latin America
Weeks 2-8 (core):
1. LATIN AMERICA ON THE EVE OF INDEPENDENCE:
State, society and economy at the end of the colonial period and the anti-colonial movements in Spanish America and Brazil (Tupac Amaru Revolt in Peru and Brazilian Inconfidências);
2. THE REVOLUTION OF INDEPENDENCE IN SPANISH AMERICA:
The first (1810-16) and second phase (1816-26)
3. INDEPENDENCE IN SOCIETIES WITH A DYNAMIC PLANTATION SLAVERY:
Haiti's slave revolution and Brazil's independence as a monarchy
4. CONTINUITY AND CHANGE: LATIN AMERICA IN THE PERIOD OF POST EMANCIPATION (1826-ca. 1850):
The 'oligarquización de la política' in Spanish-America vs. Brazil between pro-Portuguese absolutism, nativist constitutional monarchy and democratic republic
5. DURING BRAZIL'S 'CONCILIATION' GOVERNMENTS: THE LIBERAL REFORM WAVE IN MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY SPANISH AMERICA:
Colombia's 1849-54 liberal revolution and Argentinas 'national reconstruction' under Mitre and Sarmiento
6. THE REVIVAL OF ABOLITIONISM AND REPUBLICANISM IN THE LAST THIRD OF THE 19th C.
Benito Juárez's ‘Reforma’ and the overthrow of Maximilian in Mexico and the Cuban Ten-Year-War in Spanish America vs. Paraguayan War, gradual abolition of slavery, and overthrow of the monarchy in Brazil.
7. CHALLENGES TO THE OLIGARCHIC SYSTEMS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY:
The reformist challenge (Uruguayan Batllismo) vs the revolutionary challenge (Mexican Revolution)
Weeks 9:
Round-up and materials on Essay Writing

The course will be taught and assessed in English.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

In the planning session, students will be introduced to the intellectual and organisational design of the course, learn about the applied teaching methods and how to analyse primary sources, and hear about the formative and summative assessments. This will be followed by material that embeds this course on the ‘long nineteenth century’ into a broader disciplinary, temporal, and global context. Students will be able to establish links between the different Area Studies, Area Studies and systematic disciplines, and literary and other texts, and they will be pointed to the significance of the studied period for explaining Latin America’s current travails. The core of the module follows a strictly comparative design: it focuses on major periods of transformation in Latin America and uses exemplary and deviant cases. Online lecture materials will allow for definition of the scope of the syllabus, an introduction to a body of knowledge, and modelling of the analysis required (note-taking). These materials, which deal with a complex matter, will remain part of the 33 contact hours. Students have expressed very high regard for these high-quality recordings because they can work through them in their own time and well in advance of the workshops and seminars, and this has also proven to be very beneficial for those with SSPs. Workshops, which are linked to the lecture blocks, will consolidate students’ knowledge and train their hermeneutic skills in analysing documentaries and key primary sources. Seminars will give them the possibility to consolidate their knowledge in individual and group presentations and apply a comparative analysis. The workshop on exam preparation is to provide students with advice about how to read exam questions and give a concise and well-argued answer.

In case PIP teaching were not possible in general or for this module leader, workshops and seminars could take place in synchronous remote form.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Summative assessments: In the in-class test, students should demonstrate both core knowledge of Latin American History, acquired in lectures, and the ability to historically place and briefly criticise a textual extract, trained in the workshops. The formal written exam will allow them to convey good understanding of at least one broader period of Latin American history previously studied in a whole teaching block. They will have the opportunity to apply their knowledge to specific cases and to highlight their similarities and divergences. This form of assessment provides an occasion to practice written communication as well as analytical and problem-solving skills.

Formative assessment: Presentations on the ‘real’ exam/essay questions of the previous year have become a longstanding and well-received practice. They act as a mock, and students then know exactly what type of questions they can expect in the summative assessment and that they should focus on an overarching thesis and operationalise it.

Alternative assessments: The class-test could become a 24 taking-home exam but would then have to exclude the factual questions; students would just analyse the extract from the primary source in 500 words. The written examination would become an essay of 2,500 words.