Syllabus

Gender and Sexuality in Caribbean and Latin American History (HIST 21901 / WS 21901) 

Spring 2020 M & W 3:30-4:45pm NAC Tech Center 1/301 Z 

Prof. Domínguez | ddominguez@ccny.cuny.edu | Phone: (212) 650-5758 | Office hour: M 5-6pm NAC 2/204 & by appointment.

 

This survey course – covering the Conquest/Encounter through the late 20th century – will explore Caribbean and Latin American history through the lenses of gender and sexuality. This course will focus on women but also begin to explore homosexuality and transgenderism in the Latin American and Caribbean context. Reading and film discussions will focus on the intersectional experiences of people of different ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds. You will partake in a semester-long roleplaying assignment designed to develop historical empathy and research skills. 

 

Learning outcomes:

  • understand major historical movements in Latin American history with a greater awareness and appreciation of the role and contributions of women and LGBTQ people
  • analyze and discuss the role that race, ethnicity, class, gender, language, sexual orientation, belief, or other forms of social differentiation play in Caribbean and Latin American societies. 
  • gather, interpret, and assess information from a variety of sources and points of view.
  • evaluate evidence and arguments critically or analytically. 
  • produce well-reasoned written or oral arguments using evidence to support conclusions.

 

Course Requirements: You are expected to attend class regularly and participate in class and BlackBoard discussions. You are also expected to read assigned material, participate in a role-playing project which includes written assignments and oral presentations, and complete other smaller written assignments.

 

Appointments & Communication:

 

Please e-mail me to arrange an appointment, notify me of an unavoidable absence, or schedule a phone conference. Please feel free to discuss with me any problem you might encounter or any difficulty you might envision encountering in the course. Please also make sure that your Citymail e-mail account is activated because you will need it in order to access databases from off-campus and request ILLs (interlibrary loans).

 

Written Assignment Late Policy: Assignments are due by 3:30pm, before the start of class. After that, they are considered late. For each day late, your grade will be dropped. For example, an A paper due Monday will receive an A- if submitted on Tuesday, a B+ if submitted on Wednesday, etc. That said, due to the COVID-19 crisis, if you need extra time, please let me know and I will give you a grace period (within reason).

 

20% Participation which consists of your:

 

  • prompt attendance (repeated lateness or absences will bring your participation grade down) Attendance Policy: Four absences will result in a WU, which counts as an F in a GPA calculation. If you are absent, it is your responsibility to find out what you have missed and to come to class prepared for the next class.
  • verbal communication in class discussions
  • facilitation of discussion (when you lead a BlackBoard discussion)
  • choice of:
    1. Cartonera project (three 2-page diary entries): See examples of cartoneras here and here) that will include your biographical sketches and diary entries (see writing assignments listed below).  The cartonera assignment is now optional; you can do it for extra credit. I can host a remote workshop for anyone interested. Please continue to write diary entries on their respective due dates regardless of whether you create a cartonera.
    2. Material Culture Project (three 3 page essays): For each unit, choose some type of material culture (clothing, object, food, etc.) related to the historical figure in your biographical sketch for that unit. You may also choose something that is not technically material, such as ritual, norm, music, etc. Write a well-documented 3-page essay explaining its significance to your historical figure and their society. You should include a graphic of the item in your essay (this does not count toward the page count). You must also show an audiovisual that represents one or all of your essays for your presentation on the final day of class. Everyone will present their material culture essays (or cartonera project) on the final day of class. 

 

Writing & Role Play Assignments

 

At the beginning of the semester, you will choose one subject related to gender and/or sexuality that will be the focus of your final bibliographic essay, which will be due on the last day of class. The course is broken up into 4 units where 3 different writing assignments are due by the end of the first three units: 1) a bibliographic essay; 2) a biographical sketch where you will invent and take on the perspective of a historical figure from the time period covered in that unit and play that role at the end of that unit (for each subsequent unit, your historical figure will be a descendant of the historical figure from the prior unit). See Role Playing Classes below for more details on how these classes will be run; and 3) diary entry from the perspective of that invented historical figure or a material culture essay. Please see the timeline for writing assignments below. The biographical sketches, diary entries, and material culture essays are meant to help you immerse yourself in the time periods studied and provide a more meaningful context for your final bibliographic essay. All writing assignments are meant to provoke specific questions that will help you narrow the focus of your final paper topic while discussing its larger significance throughout Caribbean and Latin American history. 

 

  • Unit 1
    • Bibliographic Essay Draft (2-3 pages) 10%  Due: 2/24
    • Biographical Sketch 1 (4-5 pages) 10% Due: 3/4
    • Diary or Material Culture Entry 1 (2-3 pages) part of participation grade Due: 3/11
  • Unit 2
    • Bibliographic Essay Revision 1 (3-4 pages) 10% Due: 3/25
    • Biographical Sketch 2 (4-5 pages) 10%  Due: 4/15
  • Unit 3
  • Unit 4
    • Final Bibliographic Essay (6-7 pages) 30% Due: 5/13 *** Final update must include 3 additional sources ***

 

Role Play Classes (March 4, April 1, and April 27): 

 

You will create and play the role of a representative of a socioeconomic group—developed by using the criteria of gender, race/ethnicity, occupation, and region as starting points—responding to the events and issues of the unit covered. For subsequent role-playing sessions, you will create a new character for succeeding generations of your family. During each session, each of you will explain how a particular historical period has affected you and your family. Use required readings, my lectures, the Role Play Bibliography on the course website, and independent research – websites, magazine articles, scholarly articles – to craft a realistic family history and help you contextualize your role play characters. Feel free to also be creative.


Format: Please use Chicago citation style. Please refer to the OWL Chicago Manual of Style website for help with the basics, including how to cite a book or an article. If you need extra help for formats not listed on that website, please refer to the Chicago Manual of Style (Cohen Library call number: Reference Desk PN149 .C54 2017). If you must use another style, please just make sure to be consistent with that style.

 

Plagiarism: Do not plagiarize! You will receive an F for the entire course.

CUNY Policy on Academic Integrity statement on Plagiarism:

Plagiarism is the act of presenting another person’s ideas, research or writings as your own. Examples of plagiarism include:

  • Copying another person’s actual words without the use of quotation marks and footnotes attributing the words to their source.
  • Presenting another person’s ideas or theories in your own words without acknowledging the source.
  • Failing to acknowledge collaborators on homework and laboratory assignments.
  • Internet plagiarism, including submitting downloaded term papers or parts of term papers, paraphrasing or copying information from the Internet without citing the source, or “cutting & pasting” from various sources without proper attribution.” 

 

BlackBoard: All written assignments should be uploaded onto BlackBoard as attachments in .doc or .docx format. Please do not upload PDFs. If you are unable, I will accept a shared Google Doc as a last resort.

 

ZTC (Zero Textbook Cost) Course: This is a zero textbook cost course, meaning that you will not have to spend money to complete any readings, which are either available freely online or via the fee-based databases available to you as a City College student. 

 

Required Readings:

 

1 M 1/27 Introduction
Unit 1 Pre-Columbian & Early Colonial World: 1470s-1630
W 1/29 Activity & Discussion 
2 M 2/3 M, F or X? Added Option Makes States Rethink Nature of GenderNew York Times May 29, 2019.

Vecchio, Rick. “Erotic Ceramics Reveal Dirty Little Secret.” Los Angeles Times. March 7, 2004. 

Sigal, Pete. 2005. “The Cuiloni, the Patlache, and the Abominable Sin: Homosexualities in Early Colonial Nahua Society.” Hispanic American Historical Review 85 (4): 555–93

Clip from Blossoms of Fire, dir. by Maureen Gosling and Ellen Osborne.

W 2/5 Guest Lecture: Prof. Sarah Aponte and Jhensen Ortiz, DSI Archives and Library

Black women, present in early Española as early as black men” & “An Almost Total Lack of Iconography We will meet at the DSI Archives and Library, NAC 2/202 *** Complete this  worksheet, which is due via e-mail to me Monday, 2/10 at 3:30pm. ***

3 M 2/10

BB: Mailisa, Teresa, Fernando

Anne McClintock, “Lay of the Land: Genealogies of Imperialism,” in Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (1995), 21-31. (College closed 2/12 & 2/17)
4 W 2/19 Library Workshop 1: Bibliographic Essay & Evaluating Sources
5 M 2/24 The Other Conquest, dir. Salvador Carrasco

Candelaria, Cordelia. “La Malinche” in The Oxford Companion to Women’s Writing in the United States edited by Cathy Davidson and Linda Wagner-Martin. Oxford University Press (1995): online.

*** Bibliographic Essay Draft due ***

W 2/26

BB: Raynae, Carla, Trinelle, Edwin

Karttunen, Frances. “Rethinking Malinche
6 M 3/2 Library Workshop 1: Role Play & Material Culture Essay
W 3/4

Role Play

The Conquest *** Biographical Sketch 1 due ***

*** If you are not present on a role play date (March 4, April 1, and April 27), your grade will drop even if you submit the paper early. Please do not miss role play classes. ***

Unit 2 Resistance and Independence: 1630-1899
7 M 3/9 Cartoneras – P. Celis-Carbajal, NYPL Curator for Latin American, Iberian, & U.S. Latino Collections
W 3/11

BB

Samiha, Sanjeda, Emely

1. Kathleen Ann Myers, “The Lieutenant Nun: Catalina de Erauso (1592?–l650)—Soldiers’ Tales and Virginity.” In Neither Saints Nor Sinners: Writing the Lives of Women in Spanish America, Oxford, 2003.

2. “Life and Adventures of the Ensign Nun.” In Madres del Verbo/Mothers of the Verb: Early Spanish-American Women Writers a Bilingual Anthology. (see BlackBoard)

*** Diary / Material Culture Entry 1 due ***

8 M 3/16 Class cancelled in preparation for COVID-19. All future classes throughout the rest of the semester will be held virtually.
W 3/18 Class cancelled in preparation for COVID-19. All future classes throughout the rest of the semester will be held virtually.
9 M 3/23

BB

Jennifer

Finish Catalina/Antonio Erauso 

Sor Juana:

  • Wills, Matthew. “Sor Juana, Founding Mother of Mexican Literature” JSTOR Daily. June 28, 2019.
  • Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Letter to Sor Filotea (see BlackBoard). Spanish language version.
  • Smith, Paul Julian. “Letter from Mexico City: Juana Inés, the Minisieries.” Film Quarterly 70, no. 4 (2017): 83-87. (see BlackBoard) 
  • Clip: Juana Inés dir. Patricia Arriaga Jordán (I meant to show episode 4, but it is not possible because it is not currently offered on Netflix; short montage
W 3/25 Sor Juana (continued)

*** Bibliographic Essay Revision 1 due ***

10 M 3/30 “Recalibration Period for Educational Equity” related to COVID-19. Class cancelled. 
W 4/1 “Recalibration Period for Educational Equity” related to COVID-19. Class cancelled. 
12 M 4/6

BB

Jazmine, Nathaly, Kori, Amira, Shraddha

(Spring Break: April 8-10 only. From Chancellor: “For faculty, staff and students whose religious observation extends into the week of April 13, as always you have the right to request a religious exemption to observe the holiday … CUNY’s guidance for religious exemptions can be found here.) 

M 4/13 BB Moreta, Martinez Foote, Nicola. “Manuela Sáenz and the Independence of South America” World History Connected
M 4/15 Role Play: Colonial Society *** Biographical Sketch 2 due ***
Unit 3 Modern Women: 1900-1960s
13 M 4/20

BB

Luz, Dakota

– Josefa Acevedo de Gómez. “‘Order and Cleanliness Must be [Her] Motto’: On a Woman’s Household Duties.” (see BlackBoard)

– Maria Abella de Ramirez, “Basic Plan for a Vindication of the Rights of Women.” (see BlackBoard)

W 4/22

BB Alejandro, J. Rodríguez

Salas, Elizabeth. “Soldaderas.” Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, 2008.

– Elizabeth Salas. “The Soldadera in the Mexican Revolution. War and Men’s Illusions.” (see BlackBoard)

14 M 4/27

Ormee, Romeo

– Rosario Castellanos. “On Mexican-Style Marriages” 1964. (see BlackBoard)

Humanae Vitae (1968)  

Unit 4 Human Rights (1960s-1980s, but I will accept up to 2000 for bib essay)
W 4/29

BB Sandy

– Howe, Sara Eleanor. “The Madres de la Plaza de Mayo: Asserting Motherhood; Rejecting Feminism?Journal of International Women’s Studies. 7, no. 3 (Mar. 2006): 43-.

The Official Story, dir. Luis Puenzo Trailer & protest scene

Arte, Mujer y Memoria: Arpilleras from Chile 

15 M 5/4 Guest lecture: Lourdes Bernard (on her “Mujeres de abril” Exhibit at the DSI Archives and Library). Skim: Marxists Internet Archive. Documents from the History of the Dominican Republic.
W 5/6 Guest Lecture: Prof. Sarah Aponte and Jhensen Ortiz, DSI Archives and Library

– Krause, Lisa. “The Metamorphosis of Las Mariposas: The Politics of Memory of the Mirabal Sisters in the Dominican Republic.” Américas Volume Vl (2017): 78-91.

“Butterflies Soaring Up to the Sky…” Interview with Doña Dedé Mirabal (see BlackBoard)

16 M 5/11 Role Play: World Conference on Women, June 19 – July 2, 1975 

Read: Klemesrud, Judy. “As the Conference Ends, What Now for Women?” Special to The New York Times 02 July 1975: 40.

*** Biographical Sketch 3 due ***

W 5/13  Final Discussion

*** Final Bibliographic Essay due. ***