This course offers a broad overview of
important historical literature, mainly written in English, about colonial
The reading assignments, which cover a variety of topics in colonial history from the Conquest period through the late colonial period, have been selected for their narrative, empirical, methodological, and historiographic value. Each assigned reading should be treated as an individual work of research that illuminates specific issues in Latin American colonial history, as well as a component of a larger set of interrelated questions and approaches.
The writing assignments are intended to sharpen the writing and analytical skills necessary for advanced graduate and postgraduate work.
Classroom discussion will focus on weekly reading assignments, loosely organized around a chronological overview of colonial Ibero-America (from continental and Atlantic perspectives). Each week, the group will discuss a common reading(s).
Once during the semester, each student will lead the discussion of a week's common reading. Individually-assigned readings may also be discussed, based upon time and interest.
On a rotating basis, each student will be expected to write four concise (1000 words maximum) critical reviews of the weekly common reading. The book review should summarize, analyze, and contextualize the main argument of the selected monograph. The regular book reviews published in the Hispanic American Historical Review, the American Historical Review, and H-LATAM should be used as guides.
At the end of the course, each student will be responsible for writing a ten-to-fifteen-page historiographic review essay on 5-6 monographs on a chosen subject related to the colonial period. Up to two books and an additional article/essay from the common readings may be used for the review essay. The other readings should be drawn from outside the common readings. This review essay should assess the connections and disjunctures between the chosen monographs, looking for the ways in which subject matter, theoretical models, use of sources, and methodology are presented by individual authors, as well as the collective. Review essays appearing in the Latin American Research Review and the Hispanic American Historical Review should be used as guides.
Final grades will be determined usually the following formula:
Reviews 40% (10% each)
Participation 20%
Final Paper 40%
Active participation and lively discussions enrich everyone's learning experience.
REQUIRED
Camila Townsend, "Burying the White Gods: New Perspectives on the Conquest of Mexico," American Historical Review 108:3 (June 2003): 659-687 [Full-Text on History Cooperative] and ensuing debate on H-LATAM.
REQUIRED
“'Are These Not Also Men?':
The Indians' Humanity and Capacity for Spanish Civilisation”
by Patricia SeedJournal
of Latin American Studies, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Oct., 1993), pp. 629-652 JSTOR Stable URL:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/158270
“Taking Possession and Reading Texts:
Establishing the Authority of Overseas Empires” by Patricia Seed The William and Mary
Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Apr., 1992), pp. 183-209 JSTOR Stable URL:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2947269
RECOMMENDED
Patricia Seed. American Pentimento: The Invention of Indians
and the Pursuit of Riches.
J.H. Elliott. The
Patricia Seed.Ceremonies of Possession in Europe's Conquest of the
REQUIRED
Ida Altman, "Emigrants and Society: An
Approach to the Background of Colonial
RECOMMENDED ADDITIONAL
Irene Silverblatt.
Sun, Moon, Witches: Gender Ideologies and
Class in Inca and Colonial
REQUIRED
“Copied Carts: Spanish Prints and Colonial
Peruvian Paintings” by Carolyn S. Dean. The
Art Bulletin, Vol. 78, No. 1 (Mar., 1996), pp. 98-110 JSTOR Stable URL:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3046159
RECOMMENDED ADDITIONAL
Carolyn Dean. Inka Bodies and the Body of Christ:
REQUIRED
“Reading the 1835 Parish Censuses from Bahia: Citizenship,
Kinship, Slavery, and Household in Early Nineteenth-Century
The
RECOMMENDED ADDITIONAL
Stuart Schwartz. Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian
Society.
B.J. Barickman. A Bahian Counterpoint: Sugar, Tobacco, Cassava, and Slavery in the Recôncavo, 1780-1860. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998, excerpts.
REQUIRED
Eric Van Young, "Mexican Rural History Since Chevalier: The Historiography of the Colonial Hacienda," Latin American Research Review, 18:3 (1983): 5-61. [Full-Text in JSTOR]
RECOMMENDED ADDITIONAL
Peter Bakewell,
"Mining," in Bethell, ed., Colonial
Murdo Macleod, "Aspects of the Internal
Economy," in Leslie Bethell, ed., Colonial
REQUIRED
Frederick Bowser. "The Church in
Colonial
RECOMMENDED ADDITIONAL
Kathryn Burns. Colonial Habits: Convents and the Spiritual Economy of
REQUIRED
David Cahill, "Colour
by Numbers: Racial and Ethnic Categories in the Viceroyalty of
RECOMMENDED ADDITIONAL
R. Douglas Cope. The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial
REQUIRED
:Cacao and Economic Inequality in
Colonial
RECOMMENDED ADDITIONAL
William Taylor. Drinking, Homicide, and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages.
Stanford:
REQUIRED
RECOMMENDED ADDITIONAL
James H. Sweet, Recreating
REQUIRED
RECOMMENDED ADDITIONAL
David Brading,
"Bourbon
REQUIRED
“Investing the Riches of the Poor: Servant
Women and Their Last Wills” by GIOVANNA BENADUSI STABLE URL: http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/109.3/benadusi.html
RECOMMENDED ADDITIONAL
Ann Twinam, Public
Lives, Private Secrets: Gender, Honor, Sexuality, and Illegitimacy in Colonial
REQUIRED
RECOMMENDED ADDITIONAL
Kenneth Maxwell, "Hegemonies Old and
New," in his Naked Tropics: Essays on
Empire and Other Rogues,
Kirsten Schultz. Tropical