Henry Clay contemplates Latin America on a world globe. John Neagle, 1843. Collection of the Union League of Philadelphia
Mr. Volk
Monday and Wednesday: 2:30-4:20 PM (King 337)
Office: Rice 309
Office Phone: 58522
Email: Steven.Volk@oberlin.edu
Office Hours: Monday 10-11AM; Tuesday 10-11AM; Wednesday 11-Noon, and by appointment
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Henry Clay contemplates Latin America on a world globe. John Neagle, 1843. Collection of the Union League of Philadelphia |
After years of conflict in Central America in the 1970s and 1980s, the Reagan Administration appointed a National Bipartisan Commission on Central America to plot out the road ahead. Led by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the Commission observed that, "Perhaps over the years we should have intervened less, or intervened more, or intervened differently. But all these are questions of what might have been. What confronts us now is a question of what might become." It was a characteristic statement, for it swept nearly 100 years of history (interventions, occupations, resistance) into the file cabinet of "what might have been," and suggested that the future ("what might become"), particularly in policy terms, could be decoupled from the past as if it never occurred and had not left behind any residue, either in terms of material consequences or memories. One of the principal concerns of this course will be to understand the interactions between the United Stales and Latin America by linking the present to the past while realizing how future options are located in past histories. |
With that in mind, two central problematics shape the course, its readings, discussions, and projects.
First is the contemporary debate among historians, political scientists, and policy analysts as to the role of "empire" in U.S. history. In the past few years, prompted by the foreign policy approaches of George W. Bush (approaches that, with greater or lesser precision have been labeled as "neoconservative"), the topic of a U.S. "empire" has reappeared in the scholarly agenda after an absence of nearly a century. A number of neoconservative scholars have argued that policymakers would do well to recognize and support the consolidation of a "benevolent" U.S. empire. As Richard Perle and David Frum argue in An End to Evil, "A world at peace will be brought into being by American armed might and defended by American might, too." Behind this argument is a belief that the explosive forces of the "non-Western" world will only be contained by the projection of American power, much as the equally benevolent British empire before it brought the "traditional" world to modernity (ignoring, according to others, that British colonialism also created every major flash point of "anti-Western" anger in the Middle East, and South and Central Asia today).
While most of these scholars engage this debate from the perspective of contemporary affairs (specifically U.S. policy in a post-Cold War framework), Latin Americanists have the benefit of actually being able to evaluate the consequences of more than a century of U.S. imperial practice, rather than predicting how a U.S. "empire" might work in the future. Indeed, one can argue without significant dissent that U.S. policy in Latin America and the Caribbean was "imperial" in all but its most formal aspect of administrative (colonial) rule, and even that was present in some places (Puerto Rico, the Philippines, etc). The first concern of the course, then, will be to examine the nature of the U.S. empire in Latin America by examining the causes, course, and consequences of U.S. interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean.
This debate is a complex one, and its full examination is beyond one single course. Given that, we will focus on one central argument within the new "imperial" literature, the argument that U.S. foreign policy in Latin America has been designed to spread democratic institutions (or the foundations on which democratic institutions can be built). In the Latin American context this has been taken one additional step: not only is U.S. policy designed to spread democracy abroad, but that democracy at home is seen to depend on the U.S. ability to project its power abroad. We will explore the premises of that argument and see how it played out in practice.
This project will link into the second main objective
of the course which is inherent in its title, "The United States and Latin
America." (1) Rather than (only) studying how Washington has been able
to impose its own "national" policy interests on Latin American governments,
we will study how the United States and Latin America have shaped each other,
while not ignoring the fact that one always has more power in the conventional
sense (wealth, military capabilities, and institutional strength); and (2) we
will take account of the fact that the range of interactions between the United
States and Latin America are much broader than the diplomatic/political. In
that sense, taking as an example one reading which uses the perspective of "commodity
chains" as its basis, we will explore how diet conscious consumers in Tennessee
(and across the United States) are tied to Maya broccoli farmers in Guatemala,
and how the ground was "prepared" for broccoli farming by literally
decades of monumental political repression of the Mayan peasants…initiated
by U.S. Cold War policies in the 1950s. We will want to pay attention to the
impact of Disney on popular culture in Latin America, and the impact of the
telenovela on popular culture in the United States; the way in which U.S. foreign
investment in Latin American has reshaped the countryside in Latin American,
and the impact of Mexican and Central American undocumented migration to the
North, a product of those investment decisions, in turn has recast labor markets
and service industries in the United States; the way in which Washington's policies
helped bring about a revolution in Cuba, and ultimately changed the political
landscape in Florida. And, finally, we will want to explore the question of
whether Washington's support for repressive regimes in Latin America in the
1960s and 1970s has returned home as Washington carries out the domestic side
of its "war on terror."
General Scott enters Mexico City, 1847 (Library of Congress print)
Assignments and Class Work
You are responsible for all the reading assigned in this course. You will soon note that there is a lot of reading, and I strongly advise that you form reading groups which will allow you to share the reading and to discuss it out of class. Generally speaking, I will be lecturing on Mondays and Wednesdays will be devoted to a class discussion. In that sense, the readings which are assigned for Mondays are usually background readings on the topic for that week, and the readings for Wednesdays are the basis of the discussions we will be having. When a single book is assigned for the week, it will be discussed on Wednesday.
Written Assignments
There are three written assignments for the class:
(1) March 3: 3-5-page paper addressing the question: Where is the domestic, where is the foreign in U.S. policy. This is meant to be a "thought" piece which will be based on secondary research asking you to consider where and how Washington drew lines between a "domestic" sphere and a "foreign" sphere in the 19th century. (20% of final grade)
(2) April 9: Mid-term, individual or collaborative project, on interactions between the United States and Latin America that are primarily conducted between/among non-state actors or which involve rhetorics other than that of policymaking and diplomacy. (35% of final grade)
(3) May 17, 9:00 PM: Final research (individual) project: 10-15 page research project based on primary and secondary research. Topic due April 21; refined topic with bibliography due May 5. No extensions after due date without official incomplete. (45% of final grade)
Assignments are to be turned in on the day noted in the syllabus. Late papers turned in without prior permission - you must request an extension before the due date of the paper - will be reduced by one grade-step for each day that an assignment is late. For example, a paper due on Monday, March 3 and turned in on March 4 will get a "B-" instead of the "B" that it merited; if it is turned in on March 5, it will get a "C+", etc. All work except for the final paper (due May 17) must be turned in by the last day of the Reading Period, May 13 -- No Exceptions. An extension for your final project is only available if you take an official incomplete in the course and that extension will ONLY be for your final paper, not for any work previously unaccounted for.
Final Grade
Books Recommended for Purchase
NOTE: These books can be purchased at the bookstore. One copy will also be available on reserve at the library. You can also order them through OHIOLINK. Almost all the books can be purchased at a discount on Amazon.com or other on-line book sellers, and many offer used copies for a sharply reduced price.
Edward F. Fischer and Peter Benson, Broccoli and Desire:
Global Connections and Maya Struggles in Postwar Guatemala (Stanford: Stanford
University Press), 2006.
Greg Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre. Latin America in the Cold War
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 2004.
Peter Kornbluh, The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier
on Atrocity and Accountability, New Ed. (New York: New Press), 2004.
Morris Morley and Chris McGillion, Unfinished Business. America and Cuba
after the Cold War, 1989-2001 (NY: Cambridge), 2002.
Sam Quinones, Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press), 2007.
Mary A. Renda, Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915-1940 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press), 2001.
SYLLABUS
Feb. 4, 6: The Empire Debate: U.S. Power in the World; A View Back from Today
Feb. 4: Introduction to Class
Feb. 6: "An Empire that Dare Not Speak Its Name"
Niall Ferguson, "The Unconscious Colossus: Limits of (& Alternatives to) American Empire" Daedalus 134:2 (Spring 2005): 18-33. [Blackboard "Readings"]
Robin Blackburn, "Emancipation & Empire, from Cromwell to Karl Rove," Daedalus 134:2 (Spring 2005): 72-87. [Blackboard "Readings"]
Richard Spielman, "The Emerging Unipolar World," New York Times, August 21, 1990 [Blackboard "Readings"]
Robert D. Kaplan, "Supremacy by Stealth: Ten Rules for Managing the World," The Atlantic Monthly (July/August 2003), pp. 66-83. [Blackboard "Readings"]
David Frum and Richard Perle, "A War for Liberty," in An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror (NY: Random House, 2003), 275-279. [Blackboard "Readings"]
Feb. 11, 13: Understanding the Beginnings: The Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny, and How to Tell Domestic from Foreign
There is a long standing debate about the history and intent of Monroe's Doctrine, one of the few foreign policy statements to have reached a canonic status. These documents can help you get at some of the arguments.
Feb 11: Monroe
John Quincy Adams, An Address Delivered … on July 4, 1821 (Washington: Davis and Force, 1821). [Blackboard "Readings"]. Focus on pgs. 26-31 (pamphlet numbered pages).
John Quincy Adams, "To Edward Everett," in The Writings of John Quincy Adams, ed. Worthington Chauncy Ford, Vol. VII (NY: The MacMillan Company, 1917), pp. 197-207. [Blackboard "Readings"] Focus on pgs 197-202.
Document set on the Monroe Doctrine from James M. Gantenbein, Evolution of Our Latin American Policy: A Documentary Record (New York: Octagon Books), 1971, pp. 301-322. [Blackboard "Readings"]
Simón Bolívar, "The United States: 'Destined to Plague America with Torments,'" from: "Letter to Colonel Patrick Campbell," reprinted in Robert H. Holden and Eric Zolov, eds., Latin America and the United States: A Documentary History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 17-18. [Blackboard "Readings"]
Feb. 13: Some interpretations
John M. Murrin, "The Jeffersonian Triumph and American Exceptionalism," Journal of the Early Republic 20:1 (Spring 2000): 1-25. [Blackboard "Readings"]
Robert Kagan, Dangerous Nation (NY: Knopf, 2006): Chapter 3 ("Liberalism and Expansion") and Chapter 5 ("'Peaceful Conquest'"), pp. 71-103 and 130-180 [Blackboard "Readings"]
Feb 18, 20: 1898: Flirting with the "Real Thing". Imperialism and anti-imperialism at home and abroad.
Feb. 18: The History
Walter A. McDougall, Promised Land, Crusader State (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), Chapter 5 ("Progressive Imperialism") pp. 101-121. [Blackboard "Readings"]
Albert Beveridge, "The March of the Flag" (Campaign speech, Sept. 16, 1898). [Blackboard "Readings"]
José Martí, "The Pan American Congress," from La Nación (Buenos Aires), Dec. 19 & 20, 1889. [English translation, Blackboard "Readings"]
Feb. 20: Anti-imperialism
"Anti-Imperialism: The Rejected Alternative," in Thomas G. Paterson and Stephen G. Rabe, eds., Imperial Surge: The United States Abroad, the 1890s-Early 1900s (Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath, 1992), 93-139. [Blackboard "Readings"]
Teddy Roosevelt eyes the imperial crown in this 1904 cover of Puck magazine, saying, "I rather like that imported affair" [Grant Hamilton, Puck, September 21, 1904]
February 25, 27: What Shall We Do with the Conquered
Islands? How interventions and empire shape/reflect the domestic.
Feb. 25: The Debate over Colonial Rule
Whitelaw Reid, "The Territory with which We Are Threatened," The Century 56:5 (Sept 1898): 788-794.
Feb. 27: Shaping the Domestic: The Insular Cases Then and Now
Cherokee Nation v. State of Georgia (1831). [Blackboard "Readings"]
The "Insular Cases," a set of approximately 14 cases that came before the Supreme Court between 1901 and 1922 and which consider how U.S. laws are to apply to islands (Puerto Rico and the Philippines, in particular) which were acquired by the United States but which were not expected to become states.
Read the short summaries of the cases (up until 1922) as presented on the "Island Law" web site; you may then want to skim the following cases:
Downes v. Bidwell 182 U.S. 244 (1901) [Course Documents]
Dorr v. United States 195 U.S. 138 (1904) [Course Documents]
Balzac v. Porto Rico 258 U.S. 298 (1922) [Course Documents]
Amy Kaplan, "Where is Guantánamo?" American Quarterly 57:3 (2005): 831-858. [Blackboard "Readings"]
MARCH 3: FIRST PAPER DUE IN CLASS
March 3, 5: Liberal Interventionism: Wilsonianism
March 3: Wilsonianism in Practice
Walter A. McDougall, Promised Land, Crusader State (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), Chapter 6 ("Wilsonianism, or Liberal Internationalism (so called)," pp. 122-146. [Blackboard "Readings"]
Steven Volk, "Wilsonianism in Central America: The Central American Court of Justice," 2003. [Blackboard "Readings"]
March 5: Wilsonianism Redux?
Stanley Hoffman, "The Crisis of Liberal Internationalism," Foreign Policy 98 (Spring 1995): 159-177. [Blackboard "Readings"]
Edward Rhodes, "Onward, Liberal Soldiers?: The Crusading Logic of Bush's Grand Strategy and What is Wrong with It," in Lloyd C. Gardner and Marilyn B. Young, The New American Empire: A 21st Century Teach-in On U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: The New Press, 2005): 227-252. [Blackboard "Readings"]
March 10, 12: The Culture of Imperialism. Shaping the Empire
Mary A. Renda, Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915-1940 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), Introductory materials and Part I (to pg. 181).
March 17, 19: Representation and Empire.
Class will screen a variety of images and representations on Latin America. No reading scheduled for this week to allow you time to work on group projects.
March 17: Disney and History
March 19: Screening of "Gringo in Mañanaland" (Dir: DeeDee Haleck) and "Blame it on Lisa" (The Simpsons, Episode 284, March 31, 2002)
March 24, 26: Spring Break
March 31, April 2: Guatemala and the Long Cold War
March 31: Lecture and Discussion
Greg Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre. Latin America in the Cold War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 2004. [NOTE: This is a fairly long reading for one week, and much will seem more geared to a "strictly" Latin American history course than one on the U.S.-Latin American relation. My central reason for using it is that the U.S. reaction to events in Guatemala needs to be measured both in its own terms and in terms of what was actually happening in Guatemala. Read the Grandin for its central arguments, not for the details he provides.]
Reuters, "Guatemalan Vows to Aid Democracy," New York Times, Dec. 6, 1982. [Blackboard "Readings"]
April 2: Screening of "Discovering Dominga" a film by Patricia Flynn with Mary Jo McConahay (2002, PBS - Point of View)
Additional materials you should know about (NOT required readings):
U.S. Policy in Guatemala, 1966-1996 (National Security Archive)
CIA and Assassinations: The Guatemala 1954 Documents (National Security Archive: A research organization that secured de-classified government documents related to the CIA's role in the 1954 coup in Guatemala).
CIA Guatemala Files (The CIA's Electronic Reading Room provides access to a collection of over 5,000 documents chronicling CIA involvement in the 1954 coup in Guatemala. The collection includes reviews of the event by CIA historians, administrative memos regarding operational plans and internal approvals, operational cable traffic and summaries of tapes used for propaganda purposes.)
Guatemala Human Rights Commission
Judith Berry, "Death in Guatemala"
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Following bragging reports in the press that the new force funded by the United States (the "contras") is intended to overthrow the government in Nicaragua (rather than to "interdict arms shipments"), Representative Edward Boland (D-MA) introduces legislation expressly prohibiting the use of US funds to overthrow the Nicaraguan government. It passes by 411-0.
Bill "Whitey" Sanders, December 1982. |
April 7, 9: Chile. Return of the Repressed?
April 9: SECOND PROJECT (INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP) DUE
April 7: U.S. Policy in Chile
Peter Kornbluh, The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability, New Ed. (New York: New Press), 2004. [Read the text of Chapters 1-4; skim the documents]
April 9: Return of the Repressed?
Steven Volk, "Chile and the United States Thirty Years Later: Return of the Repressed?" in Democracy in Chile: The Legacy of September 11, 1973, eds. Silvia Nagy-Zemki and Fernando Leiva (Brighton, UK: Sussex Academic Press, 2005), pp. 24-40. [Blackboard "Readings"]
April 14, 16: Return to Guatemala. Repression and Consumption
Kate Doyle, "The Atrocity File: Deciphering the Archives of Guatemala's Dirty War," Harper's Magazine (Dec 2007): 52-64. [Blackboard "Readings"]
Edward F. Fischer and Peter Benson, Broccoli and Desire: Global Connections and Maya Struggles in Postwar Guatemala (Stanford: Stanford University Press), 2006.
April 21: TOPIC FOR FINAL PAPER DUE
April 21, 23: Cuba. When Politics Trumps Policy
Morris Morley and Chris McGillion, Unfinished Business. America and Cuba after the Cold War, 1989-2001 (NY: Cambridge University Press), 2002.
Marc Lacey, "Report Finds U.S. Agencies Distracted by Focus on Cuba," New York Times, Dec. 19, 2007. [Blackboard "Readings"]
April 28, 30: NAFTA, Neo-liberalism, and Tortilla Crises
NAFTA: Carnegie Endowment: NAFTA's Promise and Reality (2003) [Blackboard "Readings"]
NACLA, "NAFTA Turns Ten," NACLA Report on the Americas 37:4 (Jan/Feb 2004). [Blackboard "Readings"]
Laura Carlsen, "NAFTA, Inequality, and Immigration," Americas Program Special Report, Nov. 6, 2007. [Blackboard "Readings"]
Laura Carlsen, "Standing up to NAFTA," Americas Program Congressional Briefing, Dec. 18, 2007. [Blackboard "Readings"]
Ana de Ita, "Fourteen Years of NAFTA and the Tortilla Crisis," Americas Program Special Report, January 10, 2008. [Blackboard "Readings" - available in both English translation and the original Spanish, "Catorce años de TLCAN y la crisis de la tortilla"]
Manuel Roig-Franzia, "A Culinary and Cultural Staple in Crisis. Mexico Grapples with Soaring Prices for Corn - and Tortillas," Washington Post (January 27, 2007), A01 [Blackboard "Readings"]
MAY 5: REFINED TOPIC AND BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE FOR FINAL PROJECT
May 5, 7: Immigration: Hopeless entanglements
Sam Quinones, Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press), 2007.
Recommended: Ray Lizza, "Return of the Nativist," The New Yorker (Dec. 17, 2007). [Blackboard "Readings"]
May 17, 9:00 PM: Final Project due.
(Please note that I will accept no projects turned in
after that time unless you have an official, signed incomplete).
