Calendar

1 / Week 1: Introductions

1.24 Monday: Introduction to the course

1.26 Friday (Recitation)

2 / Week 2: Discoveries or Encounters?

1.29 Monday: The People Who Discovered Columbus I

Reading: The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca, [94-100, 159-168]

Is Cabeza de Vaca’s story heroic? Is it the kind of European explorer story you are familiar with? Why, Why not?

Often we can learn things about the native societies that existed in the Americas before Columbus’ arrival through European accounts. What do we learn from Caebza de Vaca’s narrative?

3 / Week 3: New Worlds Were Made not Found

2.5 Monday: The Sword and the Cross

Source: "Orders Given to the Twelve" (#8) "The Lords and Holy Men of Tenochtitlan" (#3) in Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History.

–What clues do the Orders given you about the mentality of theclergymen who arrived in the Americas to evangelize among native peoples? Please read the document and the scholarly introduction. Underline words in the document that seem significant to you.

-The "Lords" is not a direct engagement with the "Orders" but it can be read as representative of the different perspectives that Native lords had at the time? What are the conflicts between the two that you see represented?

2.7 Wednesday: Race in Colonial Spanish America

Source: "Two Casta Paintings from Eighteenth-Century Mexico" (#48) and "The Mulatto Gentlemen of Esmeraldas, Ecuador" (#24) in Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History.

These two primary sources can be used to explore ideas about race and ethnicity in early Spanish America. Study them carefully. How could you use them to describe the world/s that is/are taking shape in 16thc Spanish America?

2.9 Recitation

4 / Week 4: Colonization and Competition

2.12 Monday: Imperial Expansion

Source:The Buccaneers of America, Part 1

I adore this reading. It is truly "pirates to he Caribbean!" As you read Part 1, think about the following: What myths and realities about piracy are confirmed/denied? How does this source give us an on the ground/at sea viewpoint on the Caribbean as a landscape of imperial design? What do we learn about this reading relating to Native peoples/native flora/fauna?

2.14 Wednesday: The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery

Viewing: The Atlantic Slave Trade (cc)

Source: The Haitian Revolution: A Documentary History, Part One: Saint Domingue on the Eve of Revolution, subsections 4, 15, 16.

The crash course will give you a broad sense of the story of Atlantic slavery. The sources will provide an in-depth [and painful] look at the realities of enslavement. I would like you to pay attention to the tension between slave masters' will to dehumanize the enslaved and the enslaveds' refusal to permit that dehumanization.

2.16: Recitation

5 / Week : Emancipation and Decolonization

2.19 Monday: TEST 1

2.21 Wednesday: Decolonization and Emancipation

Latin American Revolutions (cc),

Source:

"All Must Die"in The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics.

Letter from Micaela Bastidas to Tupac Amaru

Bolivar's Letter from Jamaica,

The Haitian Revolution a Documentary History, 94,

We have smattering of sources for today. The Crash course will give you the "textbook" view of the period. Each of the sources is a different first hand perspective on this tumultuous time. Two are first hand letters, one is a report from an administrator responding to an indigenous revolt and the last is a Declaration of Independence. Please pick one source to reflect on. What does that source tell us both about the specific circumstance that produced it and the larger historical issues at stake or at play at the time?

2.23 Recitation

6 / Week 6: Expansion and Second Imperialism,

2.26 Monday:Second Imperialism

Viewing: Imperialism (cc) Expansion and Resistance (cc)

Source: George Washington William's Open Letter to King Leopold On the Congo.

These two crash course videos will provide necessary context for the transition period between the first and second major phases of European expansion.The source provides insight into a particularly nefarious episode in the European carving up of Africa.

2.28 Wednesday: Second Imperialism II

Special Lecture: Brandon Burger

3.1 Friday (Recitation)

7 / Week 7: The Making of "Third Worlds"

3.4 Monday: Second Decolonizations

Source:Discourse on Colonialism (page 31-46) and Patrice Lumumba's Last Letter,

OAU 1963 Speech Nkrumah

Discourse on colonialism is an essay by a very important thinker in the world of decolonization studies. What do you find to be the most significant statement articulated in the assigned pages and why? Lumumba's letter gives us an intimate look at the project of decolonization. What does Lumumba insist is needed for Congo to truly be free from colonial legacies? What about Nkrumah's speech before the OAU? What are the basic premises of Pan-Africanism?

Second 3.6 Wednesday: Globalization and Immigration. 1870s-present

Readings: Suketa Mehta, This Land is Our Land: An Immigrant's Manifesto. PDF

This is a powerful testimony written by an immigrant in the United States today. The book offers a meditation on many of themes we have been exploring and brings them through to the present. What are two class themes that you discern in this reading? How does this text reframe your understanding of immigration as a global challenge.

3.8 Friday (Recitation)

8/ Week 8

3.11 Monday: In-class Impossible Project Workshop session [mandatory]

3.13 Wednesday: Test 2

3.15 Friday (Recitation)

9 / Week 9

3.18-3.20-3.22 SPRING BREAK!

10 / Week 10: Revolution

3.25 Monday: Revolution

Viewing: The Haitian Revolution (cc)

Reading: Plundered and corrupted for 200 years Haiti was doomed to end in anarchy. [the Guardian March 16, 2024]

This week is on revolution. Our goal is to assess the power and potential of revolution as a means to end global inequality. What can we learn from the Haitian Revolution in this respect [video]? It has been 200 + years since the revolution. What can we learn about the history of Haiti since 1804 [article]?

3.27 Wednesday: Revolution

Reading: Britannica, "Porfiriato", "Mexican Revolutions"

Source: The Cosmic Race,

Some 100 + years after the Haitian Revolution, the Mexican Revolution occurs. Both revolutions sought to bring into being fundamentally new societies. What can we learn from the Mexican Revolution in this respect? Your source, the Cosmic Race, is a key text of the Mexican Revolution's cultural dimensions. Notably, the piece offers a glorification of race mixing at a time when many European and American intellectuals believed in racial segregation. Why is that meaningful?

3.29 Friday (Recitation)

11 / Week 11: Refusal and Reform

4.1 Monday: Refusal

Reading: Marronage: A Risky but Possible Path to Freedom [Chapter 2 in Slave No More].

This lecture focuses on the politics of refusal through an examination of runaway slave communities of self-liberated Africans. What do you make of the idea of refusal when you read about enslaved Africans running away? Can we fully "run away"? Can we exit oppression? What are some of the benefits and drawbacks of exiting a situation of oppression? Can you imagine ways that refusal and flight could be tools we use to end global inequality?

4.3 Wednesday: Reform

Viewing: Civil Rights (cc)

Sources: "Letter from Birmingham Jail"

The Civil Rights movement in the US saw gradual legal, policy, and cultural change that evolved over a long period of time from the end of slavery onward to the present. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this kind of long road to justice?

What is the vision for change that MLKJr. lays out in his letter? How can it be a guide for us today? If we choose reform as a path, what will be the drawbacks?

In the Letter King says :"An injustice anywhere is threat to justice everywhere." What does he mean?

What is King's defense of "non-violent direct action?"

4.5 Friday (Recitation)

12 / Week 12: Technosolutionism

4.8 Monday: Technosolutionism

Watch: The New Jim Code: Reimagining the Default Settings of Technology and Society (Ruha Benjamin- Interview [Video])

Today many assume that we will be saved or devastated by technology. Indeed, technology is increasingly central in all of our lives. In fact, it is likely that technology will play a significant role in whatever future we make. How does technology exacerbate inequality? How might it be used to combat global inequality? What could technology look like in our future world.

4.10 Wednesday: Technosolutionism

Reading: https://www.ajl.org/

https://mullvad.net/en

27 startups

There is no lecture today due to our special guests but you will discuss current examples of organizations intervening in the technology space. What can we learn from the examples above.

SPECIAL GUESTS in class. You will see Impossible Project presentations-in-progress shared by advanced students. DON'T miss it!

4.12 Friday (Recitation)

13 /Week 13: New Epistemologies

4.15 Monday: New Epistemologies I

Reading: Designs or the Pluriverse [chapter 4]

Why is design "ontological?" What does that mean?

What does the author mean when he acknowledges that we humans both design the world and are also designed [117]?

What is the relationship between sustainability, design and "reworlding?"

See page 133: Pick the principle of ontological design that you could use to build your impossible project.

4.17 Wednesday: New Epistemologies II

Reading: "Strategic Anti-essentialism: Decolonizing Decolonization" in On Being Human as Praxis.

This chapter and the book it is part of focus on the writing of Sylvia Wynter, a Jamaican theorist. Wynter is a challenging and visionary scholar, so take your time with her ideas. What is most revolutionary about her thinking is her emphasis on the idea that we need to learn to live [and consequently learn to think] differently to bring about a different world, one where global inequality is not the norm. So, how do we "decolonize decolonization?"

4.19 Friday (Recitation)

14 / Week 14

4.22 Monday: TEST 3

4.24 Wednesday: TBD

4.26 Friday: Impossible Project Workshop [recitation= Professor attending]

15/ Week 15

4.29 Monday: Impossible Project Workshop

5.1 Wednesday: Class Conclusions [Professor in person]

5.3 Friday (Recitation)

16 Week 16

5.6 Monday: Impossible Project Workshop [presentation run-through and details]

Final Exam/presentation

MAY 10, 2024 @ 9-11 am HOCH 114

Each team will have 10 minutes to present their plan and solution for ending global inequality.