Historical Memory in Modern Latin America

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• processes of forging oppositional identities, consciousness and movements
• processes of creating national identities, myths and histories
• theoretical debates regarding what is history and the constitution of historical memories,
• The suppression of historical memory.
• major debates in modern Latin American history, politics and society

Subject Specific Practical Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• discuss the uses and abuses of history
• work with and analyse primary and secondary historical materials
• think about and discuss debates about historical memory
• engage in advanced work that relates to modern Latin America, both academic and non-academic
• extract key conceptual and theoretical issues from historical literatures
• undertake post-graduate work in the humanities or social sciences

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• analyse debates regarding historical memory, particularly how historical memory is forged, reworked and/or suppressed
• analyse debates regarding what is history,
• analyse connections between historical memory and national identity

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• write analytical essays and articles
• deliver competent oral presentations
• write and speak with some authority on Latin America
• lead and participate in intellectual discussions
• conduct research in the humanities and social sciences

The module begins with theoretical debates about historical memory, oral history and ‘what is history.’ It examines struggles over how history was remembered and forgotten in a number of Latin American countries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the place of history in contemporary politics. The module analyses why some governments tried to exterminate Indians while others attempted to eliminate Indians by assimilation, and how these processes are remembered. It explores the myth of racial democracy in Brazil and the ‘disappearance’ of Afro-Argentines and the impact on memory and political activity. The module also explores how state policies conflated women with mothers, and how this played retrogressive or progressive roles in different times and places. Finally, the module assesses how Left movements were represented in official histories and collective memory. You will develop an understanding of the role of historical memory in creating national identities and how ongoing debates about the past shape the present with particular reference to the work of truth commissions.

Case studies are drawn from some of the following countries: Cuba, Guatemala, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Nicaragua and Mexico. Material studied will include primary and secondary sources, testimonial writing and films.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include

• lectures
• seminars

Learning activities include

• using and evaluating primary and secondary historical texts
• selecting and analysing historical and more non-traditional materials for class presentations and essays presenting theoretical and analytical conclusions in essays, oral presentations

The lectures and seminars will treat theoretical and analytical issues relating to historical memory in general and in the Latin American context in particular. In seminars, you will be encouraged to discuss theoretical and analytical issues as they apply to the Latin American material at the core of the programme, and to consider these issues in a comparative framework. The essays and seminar presentation work will demonstrate your grasp of the theoretical and analytical issues at hand, as well as your writing and presentations skills. The class presentation will enable you to develop confidence in their ability to present analytical material in oral form in such a way as to interest an audience of your peers.

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Priscilla Hayner (2002). Unspeakable Truths –Facing the challenge of truth commissions. Routledge.

Steve Stern (2006). Remembering Pinochet’s Chile. Duke University Press.

Elizabeth Jelin (2003). State repression and the struggles for memory. LAB.

Daniel James (2000). Dona Maria’s Story. Duke University Press.

Lynn Abrams (2010). Oral History Theory. Routledge.

Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (2006). The Oral History Reader. Routledge.

Assessment strategy

Assessments designed to provide informal, on-module feedback

• group discussions in seminars

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External