Master of Arts Global Studies – Global and European Studies Institute – University Leipzig

Seminar: Weekly, Wed. 15:15 -16:45 Uhr. Start: October 13, 2021

Lecturers: Agustina Carrizo de Reimann – Carolina Rozo

https://networks.h-net.org/node/23910/pages/27764/h-latam-syllabi

Since its “discovery,” Latin America has played an ambiguous role in the Western imaginary. Unlike “the Orient,” Africa or Oceania, the macro-region has been regarded by both Europeans and Americans as somewhat “backward” than as radically different (Lomnitz 2001:127). The course aims to identify the structural conditions and tackle the strategies that have encouraged and challenged Latin America’s (own) divergent integration under the global condition. After the introductory session, which will discuss the relationship between Global, Area Studies, and Latin American academic production, we will deal with “time-spaces of globalization”: regional and transregional orders established through colonization, nineteenth-century independence movements, and Latin America’s positions in the twentieth-century global conflicts. The second block will focus on “actors of globalization.” We will scrutinize discourses and theories of dependency and global governance from a multidimensional perspective by looking at political movements and international organizations coming from and intervening in the macro-region. The selected readings on global markets of violence, migration, and transnational communities will allow us to address further orders and disorders of globalization. The third block will introduce central debates driven by critical global and Latin American scholarship, bringing the discussion to a theoretical level. Following the arguments of transformative global studies, we will revisit the concept of coloniality, alternatives for decolonizing knowledge, the possibilities and limits of the “global south” as both political and conceptual framework.

The joint reading and discussion of case studies and theoretical explorations aim to provide an overview, which will allow students to identify divergences, interconnections, and parallels within Latin America and concerning other regions. Furthermore, the critical treatment of political and academic discourses endeavors to stimulate reflection on the impact of power asymmetries on both globalization and the knowledge produced about it.

Recommended readings

• Lomnitz, C. W. (2001). Deep Mexico, silent Mexico. An anthropology of nationalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Olstein, Diego. “Latin America in Global History: An Historiographic Overview.” Estudos históricos 30 (2017): 253–72.
• Nilsson, Manuela, and Jan Gustafsson, eds. Latin American Responses to Globalization in the 21st Century. International Political Economy Series. Berlin: Sringer-Verlag Berlin and Heidelberg, 2012.

Schedule

13.10, I. Introduction to the seminar

20.10, II. Latin America in Global studies

• Brown, Matthew. “The Global History of Latin America.” Journal of Global History 10, no. 3 (2015): 365–86.
• Further reading: Hensel, Silke. “Außereuropäische Geschichte – Globalgeschichte – Geschichte Der Weltregionen Aus Der Perspektive Einer Lateinamerikahistorikerin.” H-Soz-Kult, 02.12.2017. www.hsozkult.de/debate/id/diskussionen-4357.

27.10, III. Time-Spaces of globalization: The Age of Revolutions in Latin America

• Sanders, James. “Atlantic Republicanism in Nineteenth-Century Colombia: Spanish America’s Challenge to the Contours of Atlantic History.” Journal of World History 20, no. 1 (2009): 131–50.
• Further reading: Brown, Matthew. From Frontiers to Football: An Alternative History of Latin America Since 1800. London: Reaktion Books, 2014.

3.11, IV. Time-Spaces of globalization: Latin America and the First World War

• Rinke, Stefan H. The Demise of a World. In: Latin America and the First World War. With the assistance of Christopher W. Reid. Global and international history. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017, 195-225.
• Rinke, Stefan H. Nation and Trans-nation. In Latin America and the First World War. With the assistance of Christopher W. Reid. Global and international history. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017, 226-255.

10.11, V. Actors of Globalization: Latin America’s Revolutionary Left movements (1960-1970)

• Rey Tristán, Eduardo. “5. The Influence of Latin America’s Revolutionary Left in Europe: The Role of Left-Wing Editors.” In Toward a Global History of Latin America’s Revolutionary Left. Edited by Tanya Harmer and Alberto M. Álvarez, 199–226. University of Florida Press, 2021.
• Further reading: Nash, Andrew. “Third Worldism.” African Sociological Review / Revue Africaine de Sociologie 7, no. 1 (2003): 94–116.

24.11, VI. Actors of Globalization: Agents of global governance

• Deciancio, Melisa, and Diana Tussie. “Globalizing Global Governance: Peripheral Thoughts from Latin America.” Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences 13, no. 1 (2020): 29–44.
• Reinold, Theresa. “The Causes and Effects of Hybrid Anti-impunity Commissions: Outline of a Research Agenda.” In: Global Cooperation Research Papers, no. 26 (2020).

1.12, VII. Actors of Globalization: Global entrepreneurs of violence

• Hristov, Jasmin. “Pro-Capitalist Violence and Globalization: Lessons from Latin America.” In The Routledge Handbook of Transformative Global Studies. Edited by S.A.H. Hosseini et al. Routledge, 2020.
• Stiles, Thomas S. “Unintended Exports: The Globalization of the Mara Salvatrucha.” In Latin American Responses to Globalization in the 21st Century. Edited by Manuela Nilsson and Jan Gustafsson, 134–48. International Political Economy Series. Berlin: Sringer-Verlag Berlin and Heidelberg, 2012.

8.12, VIII. Actors of Globalization: Migrants and transnational communities

• Robinson, William I. Latin America and Global Capitalism: A Critical Globalization Perspective. Johns Hopkins paperback edition. Johns Hopkins studies in globalization. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010.
• Araújo, Natalie. “Cosmopolitan Revolutionaries: Masculinity, Migration, and Gender Performativity in Latin American London.” Masculinities and Social Change 9, no. 1 (2020): 1–27.
• Gruner-Domic, Sandra. “Transnational Lifestyles as a New Form of Cosmopolitan Social Identification? Latin American Women in German Urban Spaces.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 34, no. 3 (2011): 471–89.

15.12, IX. Debates: Modernity, Globalization, and decolonization of knowledge

• Mendieta, Eduardo. “Remapping Latin American Studies: Postcolonialism, Subaltern Studies, Post-Occidentalism, and Globalization Theory.” In Coloniality at Large. Latin America and the Postcolonial Debate. Edited by Mabel Moraña, 286–306. Durham [u.a.]: Duke Univ. Press, 2008.

5.1, X. Debates: “Global South” as a heuristic frame

• Grovogui, Siba. “A Revolution Nonetheless: The Global South in International Relations.” The Global South 5, no. 1 (2011): 175.
• Schneider, Nina. “Between Promise and Skepticism: The Global South and Our Role as Engaged Intellectuals.” The Global South 11, no. 2 (2017): 18.

19.1, XII. Students’ Presentations

26.1, XIII. Students’ Presentations

2.2, XIV. Final Discussion

Students’ obligations

For each session, students are expected to read in-depth and contribute actively to the discussion of the readings. Participants will be asked to post summaries, insights, further questions, and interesting material in the course’s own Padlet.

Students will choose the evaluation mode between an oral presentation, a written summary, and an essay. The oral presentation (max. twenty minutes long, individual or in groups) should introduce and deal with a related topic or case. Speakers will provide 48h before the session a one-page long handout and submit a written summary no longer than 2000 words by 28 February 2022.

Alternatively, students may submit an essay by 28 February 2022, no longer than 3500 words.

Consultation hours: Wed., 14-15 h