CLHUMHI006 - Key Topics in South American Political and Cultural History
Nicolas Shumway, Ph.D., explores the unique identity of South America, that vast area extending from the Colombia-Panama border to the tip of the continent at Tierra del Fuego. Given the United States’ proximity to Mexico and Central America, North Americans frequently lose sight of South America. This lecture series addresses that void, highlighting the political and cultural history of the different regions, ethnicities and societies that compose the continent. While most South American republics felt the influence of ideologies such as liberalism, positivism, statist development policies, neoliberalism and populism, others faced more local concerns, often occasioned by differing ethnicities—for instance, the large Indigenous populations of Bolivia and Peru as compared to the huge African diaspora of Brazil or the seemingly Europeanized cultures of Buenos Aires and Montevideo. The series ends with a discussion of the unique challenges of the 21st century.
TOPICS INCLUDE:
- Conquest and Colonization in South America
- Nation Formation, Drawing Borders, and the Brazilian Difference
- Race, Abolitionism, and Immigration
- Unions, Liberalism, and Statist Nationalism
- The Cold War, the Rise of the Militant Left, and the Dirty Wars
- The Democratic Restoration, Neoliberalism, and the Drug Economy
- South America in 2021 and Onward
CO-SPONSOR: Department of Modern and Classical Literatures and Cultures, Rice University