HISTORY 415/LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES 415
FALL 2014
WEDNESDAYS, 4:00-6:40
PRECONTACT AND COLONIAL LATIN AMERICA
General: This course is designed as an introduction to the history of Latin America up to around
1825. The historical coverage of this course is divided into two components, namely, the
prehispanic and the colonial Iberian. Particular attention will be given to two regions:
Mesoamerica during the prehispanic era, and present-day California and the Southwest during the
colonial period. Instruction will incorporate a variety of formats including lectures, class
discussions, DVDs, and slides.
Student Learning Outcomes:
The official SDSU wording for this course’s student learning outcomes is:
“This is an Explorations course in the Humanities and Fine Arts. Completing this course will help
you do the following in greater depth: 1) analyze written, visual, or performed texts in the
humanities and fine arts with sensitivity to their diverse cultural contexts and historical moments; 2)
describe various aesthetic and other value systems and the ways they are communicated across time
and cultures; 3) identify issues in the humanities that have personal and global relevance; [and] 4)
demonstrate the ability to approach complex problems and ask complex questions drawing upon
knowledge of the humanities.”
In addition to these officially stated student learning outcomes, this course has the following student
learning outcomes:
Students who complete this course should have an understanding of
-the basic geography of Latin America as well as the social and economic diversity of the
region;
-the major features of social, economic, religious, and cultural life for both the prehispanic
and colonial eras;
-several of the principal scholarly debates relating to prehispanic and colonial Latin
America;
-interdisciplinarity through the interrogation of primary sources that include texts, artifacts,
and art;
-the relationships among social, economic, political, ecological, and cultural history;
-historical empathy as an approach to interpret the actions of people who lived in the past in
the context of their times and not from present-day perspectives; and
-history as a disciplined, evidence-based interpretation of past human behavior rather than a
mere listing of names and events.
Course Requirements: Course requirements include short essay tests, response essays, and an
essay final examination. Students may also write an “extra credit” book review.
1.
Essay Quizzes. Unannounced essay quizzes will be given throughout the semester,
and these will count toward the course grade (total 40%). Each quiz will examine
required materials (lectures,DVDs, slides, and class discussions) covered during the
previous class meeting. Students may drop the lowest scoring quiz. “Make-up"
quizzes will be permitted only in cases of documented illness or hardship.
2.
Response Essays. Students will write two take-home response essays (total 20%).
These essays will be responses to questions posed by the instructor and will be based
upon required materials. These essays will be graded "pass/fail." A "pass" will be
assigned to essays earning the equivalent grade of "C" or better. Students will, then,
be called upon not only to utilize their interpretive skills but will also be challenged to
express their written interpretations within specific allocations of time. Detailed
guidelines will be given on Blackboard for each response essay. “Make-up" response
essays will be permitted only in cases of documented illness or hardship.
3.
Final Examination. The final examination will be essay in format, and
comprehensive in scope, and will be based on all required material. Study guidelines
for the final will be posted on Blackboard during the last week of class. The final, to
be administered on December 17 (4:00-6:00), will count toward 40% of the course
grade.
4.
Extra Credit. An "extra credit" book review, not to exceed three double-spaced
pages, will count toward a maximum of an additional 3 points toward the course
grade. Only papers earning a grade of "B" or better will be counted ("B"=3 points,
"A"=4 points). Each student will have the opportunity of selecting a book of
his/her choice for this review, but this selection must have the approval of the
instructor. Students are, then, required to submit a formal written request (giving
the author, title, and publisher of the book intended for review) to the instructor.
The book review must be of a scholarly secondary work (not a primary source)
relating to the topical scope of this course. The review is not a summary of a
book's contents, but is rather a critical assessment of the following features of
authorship: 1) writing style; 2) thesis; and 3) the nature, quality, and use of sources.
The book reviews are due at the beginning of the class on December 10; reviews
may be turned in before that time but no late reviews, or reviews that contain more
than three spelling errors, three contractions, or three incomplete sentences will be
accepted.
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Reading Assignments: The four required books for this course are:
Charles Gibson, Spain in America (New York: Harper, 1966). Reproduced by Montezuma
Publishing.
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca, edited and translated with an
introduction by Rolena Adorno and Patrick Charles Pautz (Lincoln and London: University of
Nebraska Press, 2003).
Stuart B. Schwartz, editor, Victors and Vanquished: Spanish and Nahua Views of the Conquest of
Mexico (Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000).
Richard F. Townsend, The Aztecs, 3rd edition (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2009).
There are also required two chapters from an EBOOK (available through the SDSU Library’s
PAC): Luis Alberto Martos López, The Essence of Maya (Mexico: FCAS, 2011): Chapter 3 (“The
Path to Power: Historical and Cultural Development of the Maya Area”), pages 36-58, and Chapter
4 (“Social, Economic, and Political Structure of the Maya”), pages 59-70.
Required reading assignments for each meeting are given below in the Course Outline.
Assignments are designated by authors' names. If specific chapter and/or page numbers do not
follow a given author's name, then the entire work by that author is to be read. Students may begin
the assigned readings at any time, of course, but they should be aware that the readings assigned for
a given meeting are to be completed before that meeting, and lectures will be presented with this
premise in mind. Because the lengths of these readings vary from meeting to meeting, students
should plan their study schedules accordingly.Students are expected to bring the required readings
with them to the class for which the readings were assigned.
Grading Criteria: Course grades are derived by totaling the number of points earned on the sort
essay tests, response essays, and final (and, if appropriate, the extra credit book review) as follows:
"A" (90-100 points), "A-" (89 points), "B+" (88 points), "B" (80-87 points), "B-" (79 points), "C+"
(78 points), "C" (70-77 points), "C-" (69 points), "D+" (68 points), "D" (60-67 points), "D-" (59
points), "F" (58 points and below). An "Incomplete" will be considered only in exceptional cases of
documented illness or hardship.
Student Disability Services: If you are a student with a disability and believe you will need
accommodations for this class, it is your responsibility to contact Student Disability Services at
(619) 594-6473. To avoid any delay in the receipt of your accommodations, you should contact
Student Disability Services as soon as possible. Please note that accommodations are not
retroactive, and that the instructor cannot provide accommodations based on disability until the
instructor has received an accommodation letter from Student Disability Services.
Classroom Protocol: A classroom should provide an environment that fosters the assimilation of
knowledge and the responsible and civilized exchange of ideas. Most students attend a class
because they genuinely wish to learn a particular subject. However, some students enroll in courses
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without having this seriousness of purpose, and a few of these individuals will occasionally engage
ininappropriate classroom behavior. Such behavior includes talking during lectures and video
presentations, interrupting the instructor during his/her lecture, and arriving late and/or leaving early
without previously notifying the instructor of compelling reasons for entering or exiting the
classroom while class is in session (for other forms of unacceptable behavior, refer to the 2014/2015
San Diego State University General Catalog). Of course, disruptiveness of any kind is disturbing to
instructors and serious students alike.
Accordingly, any form of behavior deemed to be disruptive by the instructor will not be tolerated.
The instructor will advise a student once that his/her behavior is disruptive; the first time this
disruptive behavior is repeated, the matter will be turned over to the Center for Student Rights and
Responsibilities for appropriate disciplinary action.
Cheating in any form (which includes plagiarism [for the University's formal definition of
plagiarism, refer to the 2014/2015 General Catalog]) comprises a grave offense. Cheating will not
be tolerated, and evidence of cheating by a student will result in an automatic "F" as that student's
course grade. Any evidence of cheating will also be promptly reported to the Center for Students
Rights and Responsibilities.
All students are expected to adhere to “acceptable standards of conduct” as described on the web
page for the Center for Student Rights and Responsibilities (http://www.sdsu.edu/srr/).
Students are held responsible for all material covered in class (lectures, discussions, slides, videos)
even if they are not in attendance for whatever reason.
Pagers, cell phones, and text-messaging devices must be turned off during class.
Caveat Emptor: While the requirements for this class are fairly rigorous, they are by no means
excessive for an upper-division university history course. Still, students should consider at the
outset whether they have the time and/or seriousness of intent to enroll in this section of History
415.
Changes to the Syllabus: The instructor reserves the right to make changes to this syllabus as he
considers appropriate. Whether these changes are given by the instructor orally or in writing, they
must be considered as binding course requirements.
Instructor: Dr. S.A. Colston. Office: Arts & Letters, Room 528. Telephone: 594-4716 (voice
mail). Email: colston@mail.sdsu.edu Office Hours: Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays,
2:30-3:30. No appointments are necessary. The instructor will return E-mail and voice mail
messages only during office hours.
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COURSE OUTLINE
Class Meetings
1
(August 27)
Introduction to course.
2
(September 3)
Prehispanic Andean civilizations. Reading assignment: none.
3
(September 10)
Prehispanic Mesoamerica: Eastern Mesoamerica (the Maya). Reading assignment: Martos
López, Essence of the Maya, Chapters 3 and 4 (EBOOK).
4
(September 17)
Prehispanic Mesoamerica: Western Mesoamerica before the Aztecs. Reading assignment:
Townsend, Chapter 2.
5
(September 24)
Prehispanic Mesoamerica: the rise of the Aztec empire. Reading assignment: Townsend,
Chapters 3, 4, and 5 (Chapter 1 is recommended).
6
(October 1)
Prehispanic Mesoamerica: Aztec social and economic life. Reading assignment:
Townsend, Chapters 7, 8, and 9.
7
(October 8)
Prehispanic Mesoamerica: Aztec religion; aesthetic and intellectual achievements. Reading
assignment: Townsend, Chapter 6.
8
(October 15)
Iberian background. Colonial Spanish America: the great European discoveries; early
Spanish settlement in the Caribbean. Reading assignment: Gibson, Chapter 1.
9
(October 22)
Colonial Spanish America: Spain’s conquests of the Aztecs and the Inkas. Reading
assignment: Townsend, Chapters 10 and 11; Gibson, Chapter 2.
10
(October 29)
Colonial Spanish America: interpreting multiple visions of the Spanish conquest of the
Aztecs. Reading assignment: Schwartz (all).
11
(November 5)
Colonial Spanish America: church and state. Reading assignment: Gibson, Chapters 4, 5,
and 8.
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12
(November 12)
Colonial Spanish America: economic and social life. Reading assignment: Gibson,
Chapters 3, 6, and 7.
13
(November 19)
Colonial Spanish America: Spain’s explorations of the Borderlands. Interpreting the
account of a sixteenth-century Spanish explorer. Reading assignment: Gibson, Chapter 9
(pages 182-85); Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (all).
14
(November 26)
No class—Thanksgiving Recess.
15
(December 3)
Colonial Spanish America: Spain’s settlement of the Borderlands. Reading assignment:
Gibson, Chapter 9 (pages 185-204).
16
(December 10)
Colonial Latin America: the Brazilian contrast; wars of independence. Conclusions to
course. Review for final exam. Extra credit book reviews due at 4:00. Reading
assignment: Gibson, Epilogue.
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