MODERN MEXICO

 

HIST H421/H521                                                                    Prof. Michael Snodgrass

Fall 2002                                                                                  Office: Ca 503S    278-7761

T 5:45-8:25                                                                              Hours: M 11-12, T 1-2

Cavanaugh 221                                                                        E-mail: misnodgr@iupui.edu     

 

 

Course description and objectives:

This course will introduce students to modern Mexican history, politics, and culture by exploring the multiple roots and enduring legacies of the Mexican Revolution.  Among the relevant questions we shall consider: Why did so many people of distinct backgrounds support the world’s first social revolution of the twentieth century?  Why have the very issues that gave birth to the 1910 revolution - rural poverty, civil rights, social inequality, and nationalism - reappeared so vividly in the past two decades?   In other words, how does our knowledge of Mexico’s past help us better understand the forces that shape Mexican lives today?  Finally, how does Mexico’s history compare to those of other countries in the Americas and the developing world? 

 

We begin our narrative and analytical tour of Mexican history with the Wars of Independence in the early l800s.  We explore the major issues of the nineteenth century to understand the causes of the revolution: regionalism and nation building; Mexico’s relation to the United States; the Mexican political system; patterns of economic development; and social unrest in the cities and countryside.  We then explore the aims of the revolution, its protagonists, and its successes and failures.  In particular, we seek to understand how a single political party ruled post-revolutionary Mexico for seven decades and why it fell from power in 2000. 

 

Consistent with IUPUI’s Principles of Undergraduate Learning, the course is designed to develop students’ skills of critical and comparative analysis, improve their writing proficiency, and enhance their capacity to organize and express their thoughts.  Please familiarize yourself with the principles at:http://www.iupui.edu/~history/principlesundergradlearning.htm.  Students will sharpen their analytical and communicative skills through a variety of assignments: analyzing historical documents, writing short papers, engaging in classroom discussions, and preparing for quizzes and examinations. 

 

 

Required readings:

Douglas Richmond, The Mexican Nation: Historical Continuity and Modern Change (2002)

Mariano Azuela, The Underdogs (first published l924)

William H. Beezley, Judas at the Jockey Club and Other Episodes of Porfirian Mexico (l987)

Ruben Martinez, Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail (200l) - * paperback edition available in bookstore in late August

Please print the on-line articles from the library’s Electronic Reserve System (http://errol.iupui.edu)

            (Login: HISTH421 - Password: H421)

 

 

Course requirements and grading (based upon 1,000 total points):

Final grades will be determined by student performance on two exams (200H2, or 40%), two 4-5  page essays (200H2, or 40%), five 20-point quizzes on reading assignments (100, or l0%), and participation in classroom discussions (100, or 10%).

 

Final grade scores: A (1,000-930),  A- (929-900), B+ (899-880), B (879-830), B- (829-800), C+ (799-780), C (779-730), C- (729-700), D (699-600), F (599 or less).

 

*Graduate students enrolled in H521 will write a 10-12 page term paper in lieu of the mid-term and final exams.  The professor will provide a written guideline for the assignment.

 

Remember...

* Persistent absenteeism results in lower class participation grades, inferior quiz results, and poor test preparation.  Students must make prior arrangements with the professor if extraordinary circumstances cause them to miss an exam.  In-class quizzes may not be made up under any circumstances, although only five of seven quiz scores count towards the overall grade. 

 

* It is expected that all students will 1) read,  2) think critically about, and 3) arrive to class prepared to discuss and be quizzed upon assigned readings.  Preparation is the key to effective participation. 

* All late assignments will be penalized as follows: 1/3 grade for assignments not turned in on due date (B to B-), one full grade for first week late (B to C), two full grades thereafter (B to D). Be sure to save all papers on your hard drive and a diskette. 

 

* Students who do not complete all written assignments and exams will not pass the course. 

 

* University policy states that incomplete grades may be taken only by students who have completed 75% of course requirements. 

 

* Plagiarism and cheating will be punished in accordance with university policy, as outlined in the Indiana University Academic Handbook (p.123) and the IUPUI Campus Bulletin, 2000-2002 (p.36).  The following is excerpted from the School of Liberal Arts official statement on plagiarism:

 

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“Plagiarism is the use of the work of others without properly crediting the actual source of the ideas, words, sentences, paragraphs, entire articles, music or pictures.  Using other students’ work (with or without their permission) is still plagiarism if you don’t indicate who initially did the work.  Plagiarism, a form of cheating, is a serious offense and will be severely punished.  When an instructor suspects plagiarism, he/she will inform the student of the charge; the student has the right to respond to the allegations.  Students whose work appears to be plagiarized may be asked to produce earlier drafts of work or all the books/articles used in a paper or speech.  Students should, for this reason and as a protection in cases of lost papers, retain rough drafts, notes, computer files and other work products for three weeks after the end of each semester.  The penalties for plagiarism include reprimands, being failed for a particular take-home exam, paper, project or the entire course, disciplinary probation, or dismissal.  Faculty, after consulting with their chair and/or the School of Liberal Arts Dean of Students must notify students in writing of their decision.  Students have the right to appeal such decisions by submitting petitions to the Academic Affairs Committee.  Petitions can be obtained in room CA 401.  For further information, see “Code of Student Ethics,” available in CA 401. 

 

 

                                                         COURSE SCHEDULE

 

Week l:            Course introduction: Mexico Today

(8/27)  

 

 

Week 2            Mexican Independence and the Legacies of Spanish colonialism

(9/3)                 Readings: Richmond, The Mexican Nation, pp. 35-46, 62-79, 92-99, 101-124

 

 

Week 3            Challenges of a New Nation

(9/l0)                Readings: Richmond, The Mexican Nation, Chapters 6-9

ERROL - Mora, Arriaga & Alaman documents on ‘Property’ and ‘The Indian’

 

 

Week 4            Order and Progress in Porfirian Mexico

(9/l7)                Readings: Richmond, The Mexican Nation, Chapter 10

                        Beezley, Judas at the Jockey Club and Other Episodes of Porfirian Mexico

 

                        Essay #1 due today

 

 

Week 5            Land, Labor, and Political Dissent in Porfirian Mexico

(9/24)               ERROL - a) Brown, “Foreign and Native-Born Workers” - b) Creelman, Turner & Liberal  Party documents (“Porfirio Diaz, Dictator of Mexico”)

 

 

Week 6            Making Sense of the Mexican Revolution

(l0/1)                Readings: Richmond, The Mexican Nation, Chapters 11-12

                        Azuela, The Underdogs

 

 

Week 7            Examination #1

(l0/8)

 

 

Week 8            Mexico’s cultural revolution     

(l0/l5)               Readings: Richmond, The Mexican Nation, Chapter 13

ERROL - Tannenbaum, “Experience and Philosophy in Education”

 

 

 

Week 9            Revolution in the countryside

(l0/22)              Readings: Richmond, The Mexican Nation, Chapter 14

ERROL - Simon, “Crisis in El Campo”

 

 

Week 10          Workers and organized labor in the new Mexico          

(l0/29)              Richmond, The Mexican Nation, Chapter 16

 

 

Week 11          US-Mexican Relations: from revolutionary conflict to Cold War peace

(l1/5)                Richmond, The Mexican Nation, Chapter 15

ERROL - a) Fein, “Everyday Forms of Transnational Collaboration” - b) Zolov, “Discovering a Land Mysterious and Obvious”

 

 

Week 12          Mexico’s Tarnished Miracle; or, how the PRI stayed in power

(11/12) ERROL - a) Guillermoprieto, “Mexico City l990”; b) Weiner, “Mexico’s President Open Up the Files” - c) Sandoval - “As ‘dirty war’ files are opened...”

 

 

Week 13          Immigration: the immigrants’ experience and their impact on Mexico     

(11/19) Readings: Martinez, Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail

 

                        Essay #2 due today

 

 

Week 14          Mexico l982-2002: Economic crisis and democratization

(l1/26)              Readings: Richmond, The Mexican Nation, Chapters l7-18

                        ERROL - Quinones, “Afterward”

 

                       

Week 15          Examination #2

(12/3)