Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Specific details of courses to be offered will be published prior to enrollment each term.

COURSE DETAILS:

This course is a weekly seminar on the politics and society of contemporary Latin America. It aims to build a basic understanding of continuity and change in relationships between the economies, societies, and politics of Latin American countries during the contemporary era. As a region characterized by trenchant colonial legacies, transitions from authoritarianism to democracy, and dynamic social movements, Latin America exhibits how history and politics can affect social and economic development, and vice-versa. Drawing on multidisciplinary readings from the social sciences and history, the course explores this dynamic throughout the region, while offering more detailed consideration of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Mexico, among other major countries. We begin in Part I by focusing on the region’s history of Spanish colonialism and its ramifications for contemporary economic and social development. We then survey major animating periods of 20th century Latin American political economy, including critical political junctures of the 1920s and 1930s, U.S. imperialism, authoritarianism from the 1960s through the 1980s, transitions to democracy and economic liberalization during the 1980s, and the still-debated record of the 1990s. In Part II, we consider continuities and changes in 21st century economic and social development and their roots. We focus on changes in social policy amidst the “left turn” of the early 2000s, the mid-2010s rise of right-wing governments, and the incipient return of left and center-left governments to national power thus far in the 2020s.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

By the end of the course, students:
• gain substantive knowledge about contemporary Latin American politics, society, and economy
• gain familiarity with social scientific arguments about contemporary Latin America;
• improve skills in synthesizing such arguments through writing;
• improve skills in assessing such arguments through analytic writing

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

RECOMMENDED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: