Weekly Schedule

On this page you will find updates to the class schedule as well as links to lecture outlines, assignment instructions, study guides, and lists of other relevant web pages and Internet resources. For your convenience, you will also be able to access the current lecture outline and current assignment instructions directly from the main page of this site. Many of these items will be placed here without graphics or special formating so that you can more easily print them out if you wish and use them for study guides.

Important note on the lecture outlines: Normally I plan to post the lecture outlines previous to class so that you can print them out and bring them to class if you wish. Everything I have on the overheads (sans the maps and graphics) will be in these outlines. The lecture outlines included here in no way represent a substitute for attending class. They are designed merely to indicate the major themes and give the spellings of difficult words of items we discuss in class. For the exams and other written assignments, you will need to know the broader historical significance of the items listed in the outlines. Much of this information will be presented only in the lecture.

January 12-16 Introduction & Geography
Read: Bonfil Batalla, Introduction and Ch. 1 ("A Land of Millenarian Civilization")

• January 12: Introduction
• January 14: Geography
• January 16: Finish Geography

January 21-23 Mayas & Aztecs
Read: Meyer/Sherman, Part I ("Pre-Columbian Mexico")
Bonfil Batalla, Ch. 2 ("The Indian Recognized")

• January 19 No Class (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day)
• January 21: Early Civilizations
• January 23: Mesoamerica

January 26-30 Cortés & Conquest
Read: Meyer/Sherman, Part II ("The Spanish Conquerors")
Bonfil Batalla, Ch. 3 ("De-Indianizing That Which Is Indian")

• January 26: Video: Cities of Ancient Mexico
  Last day to withdraw from this course with no grade assigned.
• January 28: Discuss Bonfil Batalla, México Profundo
• January 30: Postclassic Mesoamerica (Toltecs & Aztecs)

February 2-6 Colonial Period
Read: Meyer/Sherman, Part III ("The Colony of New Spain")
Bonfil Batalla, Ch. 4 ("The Problem of National Culture") and Ch. 5 ("The Colonial Order")

• February 2: Video: The Buried Mirror: Reflections on Spain and the New World; The Conflict of the Gods
• February 4: Aztecs
• February 6: Introduction to library resources (meet in Milner 164D)

February 9-13 Independence
Read: Meyer/Sherman, Part IV ("Reform and Reaction: The Move to Independence")
Bonfil Batalla, Ch. 6 ("Forging a Nation")

• February 9: European exploration and conquest
  Library exercise due
• February 11: Colonial Society
• February 13: Midterm Review
  Last day to withdraw with a (WX) or to remove the credit/no-credit option from this course.

February 16-20 Foreign Interventions
Read: Meyer/Sherman, Part V ("The Trails of Nationhood, 1824-55")
Start reading B. Traven, The Rebellion of the Hanged

• February 16: Midterm Exam
• February 18: Independence
• February 20: Liberals and Conservatives: 19^th-Century Mexico

February 23-27 Liberals and Conservatives
Read: Meyer/Sherman, Part VI ("Liberals and Conservatives Search for Something Better, 1855-76")
"The Writing of a Historical Essay or Research Paper"

• February 23: 19^th-Century Mexico
• February 25: Film: Juarez
• February 27: Film: Juarez
  Final project proposals due

March 2-6 Porfiriato
Read: Meyer/Sherman, Part VII ("The Modernization of Mexico, 1876-1910")
Finish B. Traven, The Rebellion of the Hanged
Raat/Beezley, Part I ("Mexico in the Twentieth Century")

• March 2: Film: Juarez
• March 4: Discuss Juarez, and finish talking about reform movements in 19^th-Century Mexico
• March 6: Discuss Traven, The Rebellion of the Hanged

March 9-13 Spring Break (no class)

March 16-20 Mexican Revolution
Read: Meyer/Sherman, Part VIII ("The Revolution: The Military Phase, 1910-20")
Vasconcelos, The Cosmic Race
Bonfil Batalla, Ch. 7 ("Our [Revolutionized] Modern Times")
Raat/Beezley, Part II ("The Great Rebellion, 1900-1923")

• March 16: Porfiriato (1876-1911)
• March 18: Video: Mexico: Revolution, 1910-1940
• March 20: Discuss Vasconcelos, The Cosmic Race

March 23-27 Indigenismo & Cárdenas
Read: Meyer/Sherman, Part IX ("The Revolution: The Constructive Phrase, 1920-40")
Plan de Ayala
1917 Constitution (Also at the reserve desk)
Raat/Beezley, Part III ("Mexico Under Calles and Cárdenas")

• March 23: Discuss 1917 Constitution
• March 25: Indigenismo
• March 27: No class

March 30 - April 3 Urban Cultures

• March 30: The Institutionalization of the Mexican Revolution
  Essay Due
• April 1: Film: Los Olvidados
• April 3: Film: Los Olvidados

April 6-10 Students & Women
Read: Meyer/Sherman, Part X ("The Revolution Shifts Gears: Mexico Since 1940")

• April 6: Revolutionary Muralists
  Internet Resources on Mexican Art
• April 8: Student Movements and University Reform
• April 10: Feminism and Women's Movements in Mexico

April 13-17 Chicanos & Immigration
Read: Raat/Beezley, Part IV ("Mexico Since Cárdenas"s)

• April 13: Mexican-Americans
  Final project drafts due
• April 15: Immigration
• April 17: Video: The Highland Maya: A Case in Economic Anthropology
  Internet Resources on Chicanos

April 20-24 NAFTA & Economics
Read: Finish Bonfil Batalla, México Profundo

• April 20: Guest speaker: Jody Herman from Amnesty International will talk about the Tarahumara Indians in northern Mexico
  Visit this Tarahumara website
• April 22: NAFTA and the Mexican Political Economy
• April 24: Discuss Bonfil Batalla, México Profundo
  Internet Resources on Mexican Indians

April 27 - May 1 Zapatistas
May 1 Final Review; Final Projects Due
Read: Zapatistas (on the Internet)

• April 27: Video: The Sixth Sun: The Mayan Uprising in Chiapas
• April 29: Zapatistas
• May 1: Final Review
  Final Projects Due
  Internet Resources on the Zapatistas

Final Exam: Tuesday, May 5, 7:50 a.m.