2014-2015 academic year

Modern and Contemporary History of Latin America (22259)

  

Degree/study: Degree in Humanities.
Year: 3^rd-4.
Term: 1^st.
Number of ECTS credits: 5 credits.
Teaching language: English.
Instructor: Alexandre Coello de la Rosa.

Office hours: Tuesdays, 11-12 h.

Office Number: 20.267.

Phone Number: (93) 542 26 57.

  

1. Presentation of the subject

 

This class is designed to introduce you to the study and interpretation of the fundamental episodes, as well as the assumptions and consequences, of the history of Latin America during modern and contemporary times, paying special attention to the role of the Catholic Church and popular religion throughout the different historical moments to present.

 

2. Competences to be attained

  

General competences

Specific competences

1. Instrumental competences:   1.1. Oral and written communication skills in presenting historical phenomena in academic works. -Correction and precision in both oral and written expositions. - Skills in transmitting the main ideas of texts. - Writing skills, that is, capacity to meet the academic standards and to use sources and sound arguments. -Skills in presenting positions with sound arguments and textual cohesion in front of an audience. - Skills in developing and using analytical mind when interpreting opinions, both from professor or classmates and from texts used in class. -Using analytical skills while being precise and using documented data. -Using specific historical terminology to explain the studied processes and events.   1.2. Analytical skills: -Synthesis skills and inference skills. -Capacity to interiorize and separate the constitutive elements of texts. -Capacity to organize the diverse elements of text into a hierarchy. -Initiative and capacity to complement information by using basic texts. - Capacity to use analytical mind with historical texts. -Capacity to understand that some elements about a historical moment are simply explanatory and others are directly connected to the current times. -Skills in analyzing both past and present complex social realities. -Understanding of the importance of "thinking historically" about past societies.   1.3. Investigating skills: -Control over the procedures and instruments used in historical science. -Capacity to search specialized information in different contexts (written and audiovisual material, internet and so on). -Capacity to understand and interpret primary and secondary data. -Capacity to select information and order it. -Capacity to present results in a logical and systematical way.   2. Interpersonal competences: -Teamwork skills. -Use of cooperative spirit to improve results. -Initiative and responsibility in teamwork. -Interaction with the professor and the classmates about the development of autonomous work and teamwork. -Capacity to work in a diverse context and be receptive with diversity.   4.3. Systemic competences: -Reflection and learning skills. -Skills in integrating knowledge and methods from different disciplines. -Ability to answer historical questions related to different fields (politics, economy, society, culture and so on). -Capacity to put into practice the theoretical knowledge acquired. -Capacity to use common sense with the new knowledge acquired.

Analysis of the role that the Catholic Church played in Latin American history from the Conquest to present day. Knowledge on the actions developed by the Church at the start of the Spanish Conquest and Colonization and capacity to see how those actions can be contextualized in a wider social and political process. Being able to analyze the social and civilizing project that the Church had as an element of transformation of indigenous social practices and as a form of domination over the territory. Analysis of the imposition methods used by the Catholic Church regarding indigenous religiosity, that is, the extirpation of idolatries. Analysis of the role of women in Colonial Church and the discrimination of distinctive features related to genre as a form of domination and control over feminine population and spread of faith. Knowledge on strategies used by the Colonial Church to elaborate the new moral models with the "fabrication" of Saints of peninsular or Creole origins who had supposedly had a vital connection to the colonial territories. Analysis of the missionary practices of the Society of Jesus in the New World up to the moment of their expulsion and analysis of the causes of this situation. Knowledge on the ways in which the Church adapted to a new political and social reality that had emerged from the implantation of the Republican nation-states caused by the different independence movements of the 19th century. Knowledge on the forms in which popular religiosity survived in the new Latin American nation-states, giving rise to hybrid practices which were opposed to the imposition of the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church official religiosity. Analysis on the forms in which the Catholic Church reactivated their prominence in the Latin American society after losing the preeminent role that they had during the colonial period. Study of the new models, which arose from the renewal movements of the Catholic Church during the 20th century. Analysis of the strength of the movements, such as the Liberation Theology, or important figures such as Pere Casaldàliga or Óscar Romero, who were exponents of a socially compromised Church.

  

3. Contents 

 

Unit 1. The Spanish Conquest and Evangelization of the New World (16^th century)

Unit 2. Evangelization and Frontier Missions (16^th and 17^th centuries)

Unit 3. Catholicism and the "Extirpation of Idolatries" (16^th and 17^th centuries)

Unit 4. Saints and Sanctity of the New World (16^th and 18^th centuries)

Unit 5. Gender, Power and Institutional Control in the Catholic Church (16^th and 18^th centuries)

Unit 6. The Expulsion of the Society of Jesus (18^th century)

Unit 7. From the Bourbon Reforms to the Construction of the Nation-States (18^th to 19^th centuries)

Unit 8. Catholicism and Popular Religiosity (20^th century)

Unit 9. Populism and Revolution (20^th century)

Unit 10. Central America: Dictatorship and Revolution (20^th century)

Unit 11. Liberation Theology (20^th century).

 

4. Course Requirements

 

Three variables:

•        Attendance to the seminars (20%)

 

•    20% of your course grade is based on a combination of attendance, class participation and proficiency on discussing readings of the course pack. Those of you who volunteer to present a specific class reading are welcome. While we are all human, and lateness are sometimes unavoidable, students who have difficulty arriving on time or who need to leave early should be aware that they will not be allowed to interrupt the class in order to maintain personal or employment obligations.

 

•        Written requirements related to the seminars (3) of the course (30%)

 

•    At each seminar, we will discuss two assigned readings. There will be a written assignment (questionnaire) for each of the six assigned readings of the course. Be aware that at three out of six assignments must be completed for the course.

•    Each questionnaire corresponding to the readings of the course pack will be available at the Aula Global.

•    Questionnaires will be due (and handed in) at the end of the seminars. No written assignments will be accepted after the due date of the seminars.

 

•        Final exam (50%)

 

•    The final exam is worth 50% of your final grade. It will be based on the weekly lectures as well as on the readings of the seminars. Students who did not hand in the three required questionnaires can do it at the end of the final exam, as a maximum grade of 5.

  

Second chance examination:

 

Three variables:

 

•       Exam (50%):

 

It will consist of answering several qüestions based on the weekly lectures as well as on the readings of the seminars.

  

•        Written requirements related to the seminars (2) of the course (30%):

  

The grade of those questionnaires you already passed will be kept. Students are allowed to rewrite those failed questionnaires and submit them again for a higher grade. If students do not rewrite any of the two failed questionnaires the first grade will be kept. In addition, students are allowed to present any of the two questionnaires that have never been submitted before provided that they have been graded for at least one of the two questionnaires or the final exam. The highest grade of any submitted questionnaire is of 5.

  

•·         Active participation and attendance to the seminars (20%):

 

Attendance grade cannot be overcome and March-grade will be kept.

  

  

5. Assigned Texts (course pack)

  

•1.      Alexandre Coello de la Rosa, "Representing the New World's Nature: Wonder and Exoticism in Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés". Historical Reflections / Reflexions Historiques, Vol. 28, nº 1, pp. 73-92.

•2.      Nicholas Griffiths, The Cross and the Serpent: Religious Repression and Resurgence in Colonial Peru. Chapter One: "The Extirpation as Repression". Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996, pp. 29-64.

•3.      Ronald J. Morgan, Spanish American Saints and Rhetoric of Identity, Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press, 2002, pp. 3-17; 19-38.

•4.      Derek Williams, "The Making of Ecuador's Pueblo Católico, 1861-1875", in Nils Jacobsen & Cristóbal Aljovín de Losada (eds.), Political Cultures in the Andes, 1750-1950, London: Duke University Press, 2005, pp. 207-229.

•5.      Marjorie Becker, "Torching La Purísima, Dancing at the Altar: The Construction of Revolutionary Hegemony in Michoacán, 1934-1940", en Gilbert M. Joseph & Daniel Nugent, Everyday Forms of State Formation. Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico, Durham & London: Duke University Press, 1994, pp. 247-264.

•6.      María Teresa Tula, Hear my Testimony. María Teresa Tula, Human Rights Activist of El Salvador. Boston, Massachusetts: South End Press, 1994, pp. 1-8; 79-129.

  

5.1. Additional Bibliography (optional)

  

•1.      Leslie Bethell, Colonial Spanish America, Cambridge - London - New York - New Rochelle - Melbourne - Sydney, Cambridge University Press, 1987.

•2.      Leslie Bethell, Historia de América Latina, Tomo 8. Cultura y Sociedad, 1830-1930, Cap. 2, "La iglesia católica en América Latina", pp. 65-123.

•3.      Peter Bakewell, A History of Latin America. Empires and Sequels, 1450-1930, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997.

•4.      Juan Carlos Garavaglia & Juan Marchena, América Latina. De los orígenes a la independencia. II. La sociedad colonial ibérica en el siglo XVIII, Barcelona: Editorial Crítica, 2005, pp. 72-83.

•5.      Guillermo Céspedes del Castillo, América Hispánica (1492-1898), Madrid: Fundación Jorge Juan & Marcial Pons Historia, pp. 233-263; 411-416.

•6.      Carmen Bernand & Serge Gruzinski, De la idolatría. Una arqueología de las ciencias religiosas, México: FCE, 1988] 1992.

•7.      Thomas Calvo, Iberoamérica. De 1570 a 1910, Barcelona: Edicions Península, [1994] 1996. Cap. VII. Iglesia, religión y cultura: aglutinantes del orden colonial, pp. 199-221; Cap. XII. ¿Un Antiguo Régimen perpetuado, o regenerado?, pp. 358-363.

•8.      Alexandre Coello, Javier Burrieza & Doris Moreno, Jesuitas e imperios de ultramar (siglos XVI-XX), Madrid: Sílex, 2012.

•9.      Alexandre Coello, En Compañía de ángeles. Vida del extático y fervoroso padre Juan de Alloza, SJ (1597-1666), Barcelona: Edicions Bellaterra, 2007.

•10.  Alexandre Coello, "Idolatría, mestizaje y buen gobierno en la diócesis de Charcas: el Memorial y Relación Verdadera (1632-34) del visitador fray Bernardino de Cárdenas (1578-1670), en Alexandre Coello & Verena Stolcke (eds.), Identidades ambivalentes en América Latina (siglos XVI-XXI), Barcelona: Edicions Bellaterra, 2008, pp. 61-92.

•11.  Alexandre Coello, "La doctrina de Juli a debate (1576-1585)", Revista de Estudios Extremeños. Diputación Provincial de Badajoz, Vol. LXIII. Número II Mayo- Agosto, 2007, pp. 951-990. http://www.dip-badajoz.es/publicaciones/reex/index.php

•12.  Pablo Joseph de Arriaga, La extirpación de la idolatría en el Piru (1621). Estudio preliminar y notas de Henrique Urbano. Cuzco-Perú: Centro de Estudios Regionales Andinos "Bartolomé de Las Casas", 1999

•13.  Ramón Mújica Pinilla, Rosa Limensis. Mística, política e iconografía en torno a la patrona de América, México: FCE, [2001] 2005.

•14.  Pilar García Jordán, "Misiones, fronteras y nacionalización en la Amazonía andina: Perú, Ecuador y Bolivia (siglos XIX-XX), en Pilar García Jordán & Núria Sala i Vila (coord.), La nacionalización de la Amazonía, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 1998, pp. 11-37.

  

Modern and Contemporary History of Latin America

6. Methodology

Class organization

 

 

  

  

3 seminars divided in subgroups (2 hours each, Thursdays, 12 to 14:00 h).

14 lectures (Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12 to 14:00 h).

  

  

 

  

  

  

Methodology:  2 hour lectures.

Methodology:  Commentaries of assigned texts by students under the professor's supervision.

  

  

7. Course Schedule

  

TUESDAY	THURSDAY
	WEEK 25.09.14. LECTURE: "CONQUEST AND EVANGELIZATION OF THE NEW WORLD"
WEEK 30.9.14. LECTURE: "CONQUEST AND EVANGELIZATION OF THE NEW WORLD"	WEEK 02.10.14. LECTURE: "EVANGELIZATION AND FRONTIER MISSIONS"
WEEK 07.10.14. LECTURE: "CATOLICISM AND EXTIRPATION OF IDOLATRIES (17th CENTURY)"	WEEK 09.10.14. SEMINAR 101 Readings: Coello, Griffiths.
WEEK 14.10.14. LECTURE: "CATOLICISM AND EXTIRPATION OF IDOLATRIES (17th CENTURY)"	WEEK 16.10.14. SEMINAR 102 Readings: Coello, Griffiths.
WEEK 21.10.14. LECTURE: "SAINTS AND SANCTITY OF THE NEW WORLD (17th-18th CENTURIES)"	WEEK 23.10.14. SEMINAR 101 Readings: Morgan, Williams.
WEEK 28.10.14.  "SAINTS AND SANCTITY OF THE NEW WORLD (17th-18th CENTURIES)	WEEK 30.10.14. SEMINAR 102 Readings: Morgan, Williams.
WEEK 04.11.14. "THE EXPULSION OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS (18TH CENTURY)"	WEEK 06.11.14. SEMINAR 101 Readings: Becker, Tula.
WEEK 11.11.14. "GENDER, POWER AND INSTITUTIONAL CONTROL (17th AND 18th CENTURIES)"	WEEK 13.11.14. SEMINAR 102 Readings: Becker, Tula.
WEEK 18.11.14. LECTURE: "THE MODERNIZATION OF THE CHURCH IN LATIN AMERICA"	WEEK 20.11.14. LECTURE: "POPULAR RELIGIOSITY IN LATIN AMERICA (19th- 20th CENTURIES)"
WEEK 25.11.14. LECTURE: "POPULAR RELIGIOSITY IN LATIN AMERICA (19th - 20th  CENTURIES)"	WEEK 27.11.14. LECTURE: "THE SPIRIT OF VATICAN SECOND COUNCIL AND MEDELLÍN IN LATIN AMERICA" (2)
WEEK 02.12.14. LECTURE: "THE SPIRIT OF VATICAN SECOND COUNCIL AND MEDELLÍN IN LATIN AMERICA" (1)