Studying at York
Republican Experiments: Race and Popular Politics in Latin America (1820-1910) - HIS00171I
- Department: History
- Credit value: 20 credits
- Credit level: I
- Academic year of delivery: 2024-25
Module summary
By 1820 the former Spanish territories of Latin America had successfully cast off their colonial ties and become home to the majority of the world's democratic republics. In committing themselves to republicanism, Latin Americans undertook a political experiment of an unprecedented scale. Challenging the conventional view of the region as a case of failed modernization, anarchic turmoil, and political breakup, this module examines how Latin Americans —peasants, artisans, formerly enslaved people, Indigenous communities, and letter men and women— charted new meanings of citizenship, shaped new political practices, and struggled over political recognition in their recently constituted republican settings.
Drawing on a great variety of primary sources, including official reports, political discourses, commercial correspondence, diaries, travel writing, visual sources, and objects, we will pay special attention to the many contradictions and trials of upholding the republican experiment in the region’s socially, ethnically, and racially divided societies. The latter will inform our understanding of the legacies of republicanism in the region and across the Atlantic, and of Latin America’s enduring problem of social and racial inequality.
Module will run
| Occurrence | Teaching period |
|---|---|
| A | Semester 1 2024-25 |
Module aims
The aims of this module are:
- To provide students with the opportunity to study particular historical topics in depth
- To develop students’ ability to examine a topic from a range of perspectives and to strengthen their ability to work critically and reflectively with secondary and primary material
Module learning outcomes
Students who complete this module successfully will:
- Have acquired a deep knowledge of the specific topic studied
- Have developed their ability to use and synthesise a range of primary and secondary sources
- Be able to evaluate the arguments that historians have made about the topic studied
- Have developed their ability to study independently through seminar-based teaching
Module content
Students will attend a 1-hour briefing in week 1. Students will then attend a 1-hour plenary/lecture and a 2-hour seminar in weeks 2-4, 6-8 and 10-11 of semester 1. Weeks 5 & 9 are Reading and Writing Weeks (RAW) during which there are no seminars. Students prepare for and participate in eight 1-hour plenaries/lectures and eight 2-hour seminars in all.
Seminar topics are subject to variation, but are likely to include the following:
- Latin America: Themes and Problems
- The Republican Experiment in the Americas
- Republicanism and the “Indian Question”
- Black Republicans
- Citizenship, Gender, and Public Opinion
- Slave Resistance and Abolition in the Americas
- Degrees of Freedom: Postemancipation Struggles for Citizenship in the Americas
- Republican Legacies
Indicative assessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Essay/coursework | 100 |
Special assessment rules
None
Additional assessment information
For formative assessment, students will complete a referenced 1200 to 1500-word essay relating to the themes and issues of the module. This will be submitted in either the Week 5 or Week 9 RAW week (on the day of the weekly seminar).
For summative assessment, students will complete an Assessed Essay (2000 words, footnoted). This will comprise 100% of the overall module mark.
Summative assessments will be due in the assessment period.
Indicative reassessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Essay/coursework | 100 |
Module feedback
Following their formative assessment task, students will typically receive written feedback that will include comments and a mark within 10 working days of submission.
Work will be returned to students in their seminars and may be supplemented by the tutor giving some oral feedback to the whole group. All students are encouraged, if they wish, to discuss the feedback on their formative work during their tutor’s student hours. For more information, see the Statement on Feedback.
For the summative assessment task, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 25 working days of the submission deadline. The tutor will then be available during student hours for follow-up guidance if required. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.
Indicative reading
For term time reading, please refer to the module VLE site. Before the course starts, we encourage you to look at the following items of preliminary reading:
- Sabato, Hilda. Republics of the New World: The Revolutionary Political Experiment in Nineteenth-Century Latin America. Princeton University Press 2018.
- Sanders, James E. The Vanguard of the Atlantic World: Creating Modernity Nation and Democracy in Nineteenth-Century Latin America. Duke University Press 2014.
- Cowling, Camillia. Conceiving Freedom: Women of Color, Gender, and the Abolition of Slavery in Havana and Rio De Janeiro. University of North Carolina Press 2013.