- Department: History
- Credit value: 20 credits
- Credit level: H
- Academic year of delivery: 2024-25
The US and Latin America are deeply linked by their shared histories of colonialism, slavery, revolution, war, and cooperation. However, this history is too often reduced to a narrative of the Monroe Doctrine and US political and economic domination of the hemisphere. A transnational history of US-Latin American relations reveals a far more interesting story of protest, collaboration, and negotiation with state and non-state actors crossing borders, continents, and allegiances. By examining not just diplomatic agreements and state department reports, but also dissident texts, photography, advertising, and oral history we can better grasp how foreign exchange and conflict changed the history of the hemisphere.
This module examines US-Latin American foreign relations through a thematic approach that utilises different methods of studying this history. We will apply a transnational lens to better understand the US’s foreign policy towards Latin America, but also how these interactions changed foreign relations within Latin America. Rather than treating the US as an all-powerful hegemon, we will also assess how Latin Americans challenged and shaped the US’s domestic politics and foreign policy. Individual weeks will focus on themes and topics like indigenous international politics, slavery, religion, military invasions and occupations, revolution, and protest. The first semester broadly considers the 19th century, while the second focuses on the 20th and 21st centuries. While concentrating on the history of foreign relations, the module also delves into histories of capitalism, ecology, empire, and migration. While we will try to understand foreign relations outside the boundaries of the state, the module will focus on the US’s interactions with Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela.
Students taking this module must also take the first part in Semester 1.
Occurrence | Teaching period |
---|---|
A | Semester 2 2024-25 |
The aims of this module are:
Students who complete this module successfully will:
Students will attend a 3-hour seminar in weeks 2-4, 6-8 and 10-11 of semester 2. Weeks 5 & 9 are Reading and Writing Weeks (RAW). Students prepare for and participate in eight three-hour seminars in all. A one-to-one meeting between tutor and students will also be held to discuss assessments.
Seminar topics are subject to variation, but are likely to include the following:
Task | % of module mark |
---|---|
Essay/coursework | 100 |
None
For formative assessment, students submit an essay draft of 2000-words.
For summative assessment, students complete a 4000-word essay relating to the themes and issues of the module. This comprises 100% of the overall module mark. Summative assessments will be due in the assessment period.
Task | % of module mark |
---|---|
Essay/coursework | 100 |
Following their formative assessment task, students will receive a one-to-one meeting with the tutor to discuss the essay and their plans for the assessed essay.
Work will be returned to students with written comments in their tutorial and may be supplemented by the tutor giving some oral feedback to the whole group. All students are encouraged, if they wish, to make use of their tutor’s student hours. For more information, see the Statement on Feedback.
For summative assessment tasks, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 25 working days of the submission deadline. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.
For semester 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: