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Spring 2003
WEEKS 2 & 3
Peter Bakewell’s history of miner Antonio López de Quiroga tells the story of a Spanish male
resident of Potosí, in the viceroyalty of Perú, in the 17th century. Making explicit comparison
with Zulawski or Myers, discuss how race, class and gender operate in this history, and whether
the author explicitly engages these categories. Why does it matter?
KIM GIEDD
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OR
Kathleen Myers uses a nun’s autobiography to reveal information about family life in colonial
Mexico. Compare Myers’ analysis of race, class and gender with that of Zulawski or Rheddock.
Do the different subjects lead to different types of argument? Different use of sources?
Combined, what do these two texts tell you about race, class and gender, and how these
categories operated in colonial Spanish America?
MICHELLE KURNIK ______________________________
WEEK 4:
Martinez-Alier’s book discusses the role of race, class and gender in marriages in nineteenthcentury Cuba. Compare this work with Nadine T. Fernandez, The Color of Love: Young
Interracial Couples in Cuba Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 23, No. 1, Women in Latin
America, Part 2. (Winter, 1996). What methods or assumptions do these two works share?
How are they different? Consider sources, ideas, methods and arguments.
MARCI RIDDELL
WEEK 5:
Torn from the Nest by Matto da Turner looks at the role of race, class and gender in creating a
nation nineteenth-century Peru. Compare this novel with Deborah Poole’s “The Face of a
Nation,” which analyzes a contemporary factual account about the country.
JACKIE CONE
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WEEK 6:
The story of the abolition of slavery, and its results, varies from one society to another. How does
article by Rebecca Scott, “Race, Labor, and Citizenship in Cuba: A View from the Sugar District of
Cienfuegos, 1886-1909, raise questions in the context of Fick’s discussion of peasants in
independent Haiti? How do political ideas intersect with race & class in each?
SUSANNE VELASCO
WEEK 7:
Compare Stepan on Brazil’s “whitening” ideology with Skidmore, “Racial Ideas & Social Policy in
Brazil, 1870-1940.”
DANIEL WYNER
KATE POKORNY
HI 228:
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Spring 2003
WEEK 7:
Compare the ideas in Stepan about race, class and gender in “scientific” forms of racism in
early 20th century Latin America with Jeffrey Gould’s article on mestizaje in Nicaragua. What
does this case study add to understanding of ideas of race, class and gender in this time
period? Does Gould complement or contradict the ideas in Stepan?
ABBY GREENUP
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OR
What does a primary source, newspaperman José Carlos Mariátegui’s, “Seven Interpretive
Essays on Peruvian Reality” (Excerpts) or Miguel Angel Asturias’ “Guatemalan Sociology” add
to understanding about the operation of eugenics in early 20th century Spanish America?
MAGGIE SULLIVAN
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WEEK 8:
REVIEW: Benedita da Silva grew from a poor negra in Brazil’s favelas to become one of her
marginal communities first senators. Discuss how her story confirms or contradicts (or both)
key tenets of Brazil’s ideas of racial democracy.
AlESSANDRA DE ALMEIDA
SARAH STOKES
OR Compare Viotti da Costa with Hanchard, “Racial Democracy: Hegemony, Brazilian Style” on
racial democracy in Brazil
KEVIN McKINNEY
ALEX DE LA CRUZ
WEEK 10:
Mexico’s revolutionaries introduced new ideas to address problems of race and class in 20th
century Mexico. Draw from selected articles in Octavio Paz’ Labyrinth of Solitude (“The Sons of
Malinche,” TBA) to discuss how effective an ideology the idea of the “cosmic race” was. What
was the goal of the new ideas? According to Paz, were they successful?
BEN JAFFE
JULIA LESHIN
WEEK 11:
REVIEW ESSAY: How does the novel by Edwige Danticat, The Farming of Bones, provide a
sense of the operation of race, class and gender along the Haitian/Dominican border in the
1930s? What is the author trying to add to discussions about these ideas in the relations
between the two countries?
TRACY LAIRD
DAN MARINO
WEEK 12:
Review Essay: Compare Miller Klubock on masculinity in Chile’s copper mines with excerpts
from the testimonies of Juan Rojas, Bolivian tin miner (“I Spent My Life in the Mines” (Ch 8, 19)
and Domitila Barrios, activist and wife of a miner (Let me Speak). Do these first-hand
testimonies complement or conflict with Miller-klubock’s anlaysis? Why or why not? What does
the primary source add to your knowledge or critique of the idea of race, class and gender in
20th century mining communities?
HI 228:
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Spring 2003
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