Proseminar: Modern Latin American History

4 units

This course is an introduction to the historiography of Latin Amarica from the colonial period to the present. Topics include: the Spanish Empire in comparative and Atlantic perspectives; colonial Latin American industries and the "world system"; sociocultural histories of colonial women, gender, and religion; peasants in the emergence of nation-states and liberal political regimes in the nineteenth century; race and nation in former slave societies; and the transition from dependency theory to imperial and transnational paradigms. This course is designed for M.A. and PhD students. Reading knowledge of Spanish is recommended, but not required.