Write a 2-3 page paper (double spaced, standard margins) presenting and and analyzing an example of Latin American cultural production.
This paper should be your version, and your example, of the topics we have covered in the class – as if you were presenting another week. DO NOT write about something that is covered in the class (check the syllabus – you would be surprised how many people present something we have already done back to me). Also – make sure you are not presenting something Spanish (for example I’ve read a number of thoughful papers on Salvador Dali the famous spanish artists – they were interesting but they don’t count in a class on the Americas). You should write about your example and explain how it relates to the course thesis (covered in the first couple of weeks). Do not simply describe your focus, explain how it fits with the class.
This course examines the development of Latin America as overlapping, though distinct regions, from before the Spanish Conquest of
America to the present day. Many of the units consider a specific historical
episode or era, while also posing a broader question concerning these regions. Over the course of the
semester students will acquire some sense of these regions and their place in
the world. We will consider history, literature, art, music, and contemporary
politics. The goal is to understand the diversity of Latin America and to understand how they are places that produce things of
importance – ideas, culture, politics – that are important the world over
Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico.
by Thomas B.F. Cummins
ILONA KATZEW, Casta Paintings: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico, New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2004. 256 pp.; 127 color ills., 143 b/w. $60.00