Modern Mexican History: Art and Revolution

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course is designed to introduce students to the modern history of “Greater Mexico” and its people. The emphasis on “greater” in the title is an attempt to complicate narrow ideas of the “nation” that generally exclude Mexicans residing in the United States or erroneously describe them exclusively as “immigrants.” The first two parts of the class pay particular attention to political and artistic movements that developed during the Porfiriato (1876—1910), the Revolution (1910—c.1940), and the post-revolutionary period (c.1938—1970s). The third part of the class continues on its emphasis on art, but also examines the role of youth and its response to the neoliberal period (1980s-present). Students will examine what it meant to be a “militant” in the political world of artistic production and social movements in Revolutionary and “Greater Mexico” and the different ways in which the Mexican and American governments responded to this militancy. We will learn how and why a broad range of representative leaders of Greater Mexico’s most important political and cultural revolutions used paintings, murals, graphic art, photography, cartoons, music, graffiti, and especially film to (A) lead a social, cultural, and political restructuring of their respective communities; (B) export their unique notions of “Revolution” to the nation and to the world; and (C) question the contradictions that some artists (at times) faced within their own revolutionary movements in both the national and global contexts, from the revolutionary to the neoliberal period. The success of the course relies on a combination of note-taking during the lectures, a willingness to analyze art (individually and collaboratively in group work), and a constant engagement during the class and group discussions.