LAH 6906: Argentina, 18th-20th C.
Prof. Mark D. Szuchman

FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
Department of History
(Fall 2007)

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FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
Department of History
Fall 2007

LAH 6906: Advanced Readings in Latin American History: Argentina

SYLLABUS
Dr. Mark D. Szuchman
Mon. 5:00 - 7:40 pm
ECS 451
Office Hours: Mondays 4:00 - 5:00 pm, ECS 453
szuchman@fiu.edu

This is a reading seminar designed to expose you to a broad but intensive coverage of historical literature on Argentina, starting with the Bourbon era through the twentieth century. Reading knowledge of Spanish is assumed. So is the ability to work with a Windows-based PC, preferably a laptop. An Intel-based Mac with good emulation software will also do well (see, for example, Parallels -- no endorsement is suggested).

As is the case normally with my seminars, you will be required to use specialized software assiduously. Four mandatory software training sessions will be held from 9:00 am until noon on Saturdays at the start of the semester in PC 322 (September 8, 15, 22, and 29). Students with previous software training, but who would like to gain greater confidence and enhanced skills, are most welcome to attend also.

Each student is responsible for the following course components:

  • reading and analysis of some of the more important historical literature on Argentina
    • come to seminar prepared with digital notes to lead sessions and discuss the readings
  • a paper that analyzes the literature and documentation within a larger social and political framework of an era or historical problematic

Preliminaries
General background in Latin American History. Students who do not have a general knowledge of Latin American history are strongly urged to read introductory surveys in preparation for the more discrete monographic readings in the seminar. The following titles are recommended:

Burkholder, Mark A., and Lyman L. Johnson. Colonial Latin America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Burns, E. Bradford. Latin America: A Concise Interpretive History. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 1986.
Voss, Stuart. Latin America in the Middle Period, 1750–1929. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2001.

Computers
A Windows PC or an Intel-based Mac with PC emulation software to run the Windows applications; optimally, laptops should be brought to class meetings.

Grading
Paper: 50%
Participation / contribution to discussions: 50%

Keys to Success
Humility. Above all else, you will need to be humble about your abilities to handle the significant amount of time and effort needed for the course, not because it is especially more onerous than other reading seminars in the Department of History, but because of the rich evidence demonstrating students’ underestimation, on the one hand, of how long it takes to do a good job of reading and understanding the material, and overestimation, on the other, of how effectively they manage their time to handle graduate-level obligations.

Hunger. You have to be hungry for new information, new modes of analysis, new modes of data gathering. You have to have thirst for accumulating literature, gathering titles, ordering their value and appreciating their context. You have to have a sense of self-doubt, but as motivator, not inhibitor (“am I doing enough? have I followed the right leads? have I articulated arguments clearly? am I afraid to ask questions?”).

Software training/mastery. Four mandatory Saturday morning sessions are reserved for software training. Software is a fundamental part of the course, of your management of the data and of the writing of the paper. Thus attendance at the scheduled software training sessions is not an optional matter. Software support will be available throughout the semester.

Notes. You will take notes on the weekly reading assignments. These notes will be “live” documents in the sense that you will be referring to them and refining them throughout the term and well beyond. Optimally, you will bring your laptop to the seminar meetings. The dynamic nature of your note-taking is a key element in their long-term usefulness. The notes will be given to me electronically at the end of each seminar meeting. You are free to exchange your notes with your classmates. You will receive training in the notes-taking component of the software and you will use it in your research and paper. Your notes form an essential component of my evaluation of your work.

Bibliography accumulation. You will have training in — and use of — database software designed to accumulate and manage bibliographies. While I will not be evaluating this aspect of your work, it will necessarily show bibliography and citation management skills in the required paper.

Discussions and participation. The scope and nature of your notes will, in part, determine the quality of your participation in seminar discussions. each student will be expected to frame the class discussion of the readings at least once during the term. Students will be evaluated for the quality of their presentations, their notes and their overall participation during class meetings. Participation represents 50% of the grade.

Paper. A review of the literature (i.e., state of the literature paper or historiographical paper) of 4500 to 5000 words in length. This syllabus lists several articles of this sort. Because there is nothing obvious or easily “teachable” about how to craft this type of paper, you are encouraged in the strongest manner to read a couple of them (see below). We will also discuss during class how to go about writing the paper. The paper represents 50% of the grade. The topic of your paper will be the result of our conversations and, ultimately, my approval.

Examples of State-Of-Lit Reviews

Bonnell, Victoria E. “The Uses of Theory, Concepts and Comparison in Historical Sociology.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 22, no. 2 (1980): 156-73.


Campbell, Leon G. “Recent Research on Andean Peasant Revolts, 1750-1820.” Latin American Research Review XIV, no. 1 (1979): 3-50.

Chasteen, John Charles. “Fighting Words: The Discourse of Insurgency in Latin American History.” Latin American Research Review 28, no. 3 (1993): 83-111.

Collier, Simon. “The Historiography of the Portalian Period (1830-1891) in Chile.” Hispanic American Historical Review 57 (November 1977): 660-90.

Gelman, Jorge, and María Inés Schroeder. “Juan Manuel de Rosas contra los estancieros: Los embargos a los ‘unitarios’ de la campaña de Buenos Aires.” Hispanic American Historical Review 82, no. 3 (August 2003): 487-520.

Hunt, Lynn. “Charles Tilly’s Collective Action.” In Vision and Method in Historical Sociology, edited by Theda Skocpol, 244-75. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Kuznesof, Elizabeth A., and Robert Oppenheimer. “The Family and Society in Nineteenth-Century Latin America: An Historiographical Introduction.” Journal of Family History 10 (Fall 1985): 215-34.

Scott, Joan Wallach. “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis.” American Historical Review 91, no. 5 (December 1986): 1053-75.

Skocpol, Theda, ed. Vision and Method in Historical Sociology. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Trimberger, Ellen Kay. “E. P. Thompson: Understanding the Process of History.” In Vision and Method in Historical Sociology, edited by Theda Skocpol, 211-43. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Van Young, Eric. “Recent Anglophone Scholarship on Mexico and Central America in the Age of Revolution (1750-1850).” Hispanic American Historical Review 65, no. 4 (November 1985): 725-44.

Weinstein, Barbara. “The Decline of the Progressive Planter and the Rise of Subaltern Agency: Shifting Narratives of Slave Emancipation in Brazil.” In Reclaiming the Political in Latin American History: Essays from the North, edited by Gilbert M. Joseph, 81-101. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001.

Purchases. Few book purchases are required, but you are encouraged to acquire books that are important or of lasting value. Readings are available physically in the Green Library at the Reserve Desk or electronically; check each title below for access information.

Modus operandi.

The weekly seminar meetings will involve the following routine:

  • Students are required to bring their digital notes on their weekly reading assignments taken in their computers with Nota Bene. There are no exceptions to this requirement, as the skills and practices in taking notes represent essential components of the course.
  • Students are required to bring their laptops with their notes to every class meeting.
  • Students may share their notes with seminar members.
  • Students will make oral presentations on their readings; the process of discussions will serve to add and refine notes in real-time.
  • Students will use Nota Bene and incorporate the notes into their ownOrbis textbases.
  • Students will enter bibliographic data they come across in the course and in their reading assignments into Ibidem and build electronic libraries.

Requirements.

Hardware. Students are required to have a Windows computer, preferably, a laptop.
Software. Use of specialized academic software (Nota Bene) is mandatory. Students will have use of Nota Bene for the duration of the course. After completion of the term, students who receive the grade of “B”or better can choose to have the software license transferred to their names to become the legal owners. Attendance at four software training sessions is required at the start of the semester on Saturday mornings, 9:00 am to noon.
Language. Reading knowledge of Spanish.
Preliminaries. General background knowledge of Latin American History. Students who do not have a general knowledge of Latin American history are strongly urged to read introductory surveys in preparation for the more discrete monographic readings in the seminar. The following titles are recommended:

Required Reading for purchase at B&N:

Imaz, José Luis de. Los que mandan. Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 1973.

Rock, David. Argentina, 1516–1982: From Spanish Colonization to the Falklands War. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985 (or latest edition).

Shumway, Nicolas. The Invention of Argentina. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991.

Maps. Political geography formed an important component of the Argentine experience. You are expected to become familiar with the region's geographic characteristics. In addition, the following links are to historical maps of the city of Buenos Aires from 1800, 1822, and 1859.

SCHEDULE/TOPICS/THEMES/READINGS

Software training sessions (MANDATORY FOR NEW NB USERS; OPTIONAL FOR USERS WISHING TO UPGRADE SKILLS): SEPT. 8, 15, 22 and 29 in PC 322, 9:00 am to 12 noon

NOTE: Book titles marked below with an asterisk indicate that it would be a good idea to own them as part of your Latin American history library.

Aug. 27 Introduction: The Land Shapes the Past, Arranges the Nation

Amaral, Samuel. “Rural Production and Labor in Late Colonial Buenos Aires.” Journal of Latin American Studies 19, no. 2 (November 1987): 235–78.

Amaral, Samuel, Juan Carlos Garavaglia, Jorge Gelman, and Carlos Mayo. “Polémica: gauchos, campesinos y fuerza de trabajo en la campaña rioplatense colonial.” Anuario del IEHS, no. 2 (1987): 21–70.

Amaral, Samuel. “Public Expenditure Financing in the Colonial Treasury: An Analysis of the Real Caja de Buenos Aires Accounts, 1789–1791.” Hispanic American Historical Review 64, no. 2 (May 1984): 287–95.
together with:
Klein, Herbert S. “Structure and Profitability of Royal Finance in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1790.” Hispanic American Historical Review 53, no. 3 (August 1973): 440–69.

Johnson, Lyman L. “The Racial Limits of Guild Solidarity: An Example from Colonial Buenos Aires.” Revista de Historia de América 99 (Enero-Junio 1985).

Mayo, Carlos A. “Landed but not Powerful: The Colonial Estancieros of Buenos Aires.” Hispanic American Historical Review 71, no. 4 (November 1991): 761–79.

Shumway, Nicolas. The Invention of Argentina. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991.*

Socolow, Susan M. “Marriage, Birth, and Inheritance: The Merchants of Eighteenth-Century Buenos Aires.” Hispanic American Historical Review 60, no. 3 (August 1980): 387–406.
OR
Socolow, Susan M. “La burguesía comerciante de Buenos Aires en el siglo XVIII.” Desarrollo Económico, no. 70 (Julio-Septiembre 1978): 205–16. JSTOR

Sept. 3: University holiday

Sept. 8: Software traning session, 9:00 am to noon (PC 322)

Sept. 10: Revolution; Independence

Chiaramonte, José Carlos. Nación y estado en Iberoamérica. El lenguaje político en tiempos de las independencias. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 2004. ON RESERVE

Johnson, Lyman L. “The Military as Catalyst of Change in Late Colonial Buenos Aires.” In Revolution and Restoration: The Rearrangement of Power in Argentina, 1776–1860, Mark D. Szuchman and Jonathan C. Brown, 27–53. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993. ON RESERVE

Szuchman, Mark D. “Construyendo la ciudad, construyendo el Estado: transición política y arquitectónica en la Argentina urbana, 1810–1860.” In Naciones, gentes y territorios. Ensayos de historia e historiografía comparada de América Latina y el Caribe, edited by Victor Manuel Uribe Urán and Luis Javier Ortiz Mesa, 175–208. Medellín: Editorial Universidad de Antioquia, 2000. ON RESERVE

Sept. 15: Software training session, 9:00 am to noon (PC 322)

Sept. 17 Fragmentation

Brown, Jonathan C. A Socioeconomic History of Argentina, 1776–1860. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.* ON RESERVE

Halperín Donghi, Tulio. Guerra y finanzas en los orígenes del Estado argentino, 1791–1850. Buenos Aires: Editorial del Belgrano, 1982.* ON RESERVE

Myers, Jorge. Orden y virtud. El discurso republicano en el régimen rosista. Bernal, Buenos Aires: Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, 1995. ON RESERVE

Sept. 22: Software training, 9:00 am to noon (PC 322)

Sept. 24: Gen 37

Adelman, Jeremy. Republic of Capital: Buenos Aires and the Legal Transformation of the Atlantic World. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.* ON RESERVE

Amaral, Samuel. The Rise of Capitalism on the Pampas: The Estancias of Buenos Aires, 1785–1870. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1997. ON RESERVE

Barreneche, Osvaldo. Crime and the Administration of Justice in Buenos Aires, 1785–1853. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006. ON LINE VIA LIBRARY

Barreneche, Osvaldo. “Criminal Justice and State Formation in Early Nineteenth-Century Buenos Aires.” In Judicial Insitutions in Nineteenth-Century Latin America, edited by Eduardo Zimmermann, 86–103. London: Institute of Latin American Studies, 1999.

Garavaglia, Juan Carlos. “La apoteósis del Leviathán: El estado en Buenos Aires en la primera mitad del siglo XIX.” Latin American Research Review 38, no. 1 (February 2003): 135–68.

Gelman, Jorge. “New Perspectives on an Old Problem and the Same Source: The Gaucho and the Rural History of the Colonial Río de la Plata.” Hispanic American Historical Review 69, no. 4 (November 1989): 715–31.

Szuchman, Mark D., and Jonathan C. Brown, eds. Revolution and Restoration: The Rearrangement of Power in Argentina, 1776–1860. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994. ON RESERVE

Sept. 29: Software training, 9:00 am to noon (PC 322)

Oct. 1: Gen 80

Ansaldi, Waldo. “Notas sobre la formación de la burguesía argentina, 1780–1880.” In Orígenes y desarrollo de la burguesía en América Latina, edited by Enrique Florescano, 518–83. Mexico: Editorial Nueva Imagen, 1985. ON RESERVE

Cornblit, Oscar, Ezequiel Gallo, and A. O’Connel. “La Generación del 80 y su proyecto: antecedentes y consecuencias.” In Argentina, sociedad de masas, edited by Torcuato Di Tella, Gino Germani, and Jorge Graciarena, 18–58. Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 1971. ON RESERVE

Hora, Roy. “The Making and Evolution of the Buenos Aires Economic Elite in the Nineteenth Century.” Hispanic American Historical Review 83, no. 3 (August 2003): 451–86.

Rock, David. State Building and Political Movements in Argentina, 1860–1916. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.* ON RESERVE

Salvatore, Ricardo. “The Normalization of Economic Life: Representations of the Economy in Golden-Age Buenos Aires, 1890–1913.” Hispanic American Historical Review 81, no. 1 (February 2001): 1–44.

Szuchman, Mark D. “Imagining the State, Building the Nation: The Case of Nineteenth-Century Argentina.” History Compass 4 (January 2006): 1–34.

Oct. 8: Export Boom; Immigration

Baily, Samuel L. “The Adjustment of Italian Immigrants in Buenos Aires and New York, 1870–1914.” American Historical Review 88 (April 1983): 281–305.

Moya, José C. Cousins and Strangers: Spanish Immigrants in Buenos Aires, 1850–1930. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. ON RESERVE

Newton, Ronald C. German Buenos Aires, 1900–1933: Social Change and Cultural Crisis. Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1977. ON RESERVE

Scobie, James R. Revolution on the Pampas: A Social History of Argentine Wheat, 1860–1910. Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1964. ON RESERVE

Sofer, Eugene F. From Pale to Pampa: A Social History of the Jews of Buenos Aires. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1982. ON RESERVE

Sofer, Eugene F., and Mark D. Szuchman. “Educating Immigrants: Voluntary Associations in the Acculturation Process.” In Educational Alternatives in Latin America: Social Change and Social Stratification, edited by Thomas La Belle, 334–59. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1975. ON RESERVE

Solberg, Carl E. Immigration and Nationalism: Argentina and Chile, 1890–1914. Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1970. ON RESERVE

Szuchman, Mark D. Mobility and Integration in Urban Argentina: Córdoba in the Liberal Era. Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1980. ON RESERVE

Oct. 15: Belle Epoque

Beyhaut, Gustavo, Roberto Cortés Conde, Haydée Gorostegui, and Susana Torrado. “Los inmigrantes en el sistema ocupacional argentino.” In Argentina, sociedad de masas, edited by Torcuato S. Di Tella, Gino Germani, and Jorge Graciarena, 85–123. Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 1971. ON RESERVE

Blackwelder, Julia Kirk. “Urbanization, Crime, and Policing: Buenos Aires, 1880–1914.” In The Problem of Order in Changing Societies: Essays on Crime and Policing in Argentina and Uruguay, 1750–1940, edited by Lyman L. Johnson, 65–88. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990. ON RESERVE

Cortés Conde, Roberto. “Problemas del crecimiento industrial (1870–1914).” In Argentina, sociedad de masas, edited by Torcuato Di Tella, Gino Germani, and Jorge Graciarena, 59–84. Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 1971. ON RESERVE

Ford, A. G. “British Investment and Argentine Economic Development, 1880–1914.” In Argentina in the Twentieth Century, edited by David Rock, 12–40. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1975. ON RESERVE

Korzeniewicz, Roberto P. “Labor Unrest in Argentina, 1887–1907.” Latin American Research Review 24, no. 3 (1989): 71–98.

Scobie, James R. “Buenos Aires as a Commercial-Bureaucratic City, 1880–1910.” American Historical Review LXXVII (October 1972): 1035–73.

Scobie, James R. Buenos Aires: From Plaza to Suburb, 1870–1910. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971.* ON RESERVE

Solberg, Carl E. “Immigration and Urban Social Problems in Argentina and Chile, 1890–1914.” Hispanic American Historical Review 49, no. 2 (May 1969): 215–32.

Yujnovsky, Oscar. “Políticas de vivienda en la ciudad de Buenos Aires, 1880–1914.” Desarrollo Económico, no. 54 (Julio-Septiembre 1974): 327–72. ON LINE

Oct. 22: Pluralist politics

Gallo, Ezequiel, and Silvia Sigal. “La formación de los partidos políticos contemporáneos: la U.C.R. (1890–1916).” In Argentina, sociedad de masas, edited by Torcuato S. Di Tella, Gino Germani, and Jorge Graciarena, 277–96. Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 1971. ON RESERVE

Rock, David. Politics in Argentina, 1890–1930: The Rise and Fall of Radicalism. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1975. ON RESERVE

Walter, Richard J. “The Intellectual Background of the 1918 University Reform in Argentina.” Hispanic American Historical Review 49, no. 2 (May 1969): 233.-253.

Walter, Richard J. “Elections in the City of Buenos Aires During the First Yrigoyen Administration: Social Class and Political Preferences.” Hispanic American Historical Review 58, no. 4 (November 1978): 595–624.

Oct. 29: Nationalism

Baily, Samuel L. Labor, Nationalism, and Politics in Argentina. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1967. ON RESERVE

Delaney, Jean H. “Imagining El Ser Argentino: Cultural Nationalism and Romantic Concepts of Nationhood in Early Twentieth-Century Argentina.” Journal of Latin American Studies 34, no. part 3 (August 2002): 625–58.

Díaz Alejandro, Carlos F. Essays on the Economic History of the Argentine Republic. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970. ON RESERVE

Falcoff, Mark. “Raul Scalabrini Ortíz: The Making of an Argentine Nationalist.” Hispanic American Historical Review 52 (February 1972): 74–101.

Guy, Donna J. Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family and Nation in Argentina. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991. ON RESERVE

Irazusta, Julio. Ensayos históricos. Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 1968. REQUIRES INTER-LIBRARY LOAN

Rock, David. Authoritarian Argentina: The Nationalist Movement and Its Impact. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. ON RESERVE

Rock, David. “Intellectual Precursors of Conservative Nationalism in Argentina, 1900–1927.” Hispanic American Historical Review 67, no. 2 (May 1987): 271–300.

Winston, Colin M. “Between Rosas and Sarmiento: Notes on Nationalism in Peronist Thought.” Americas 39 (January 1983): 305–32.

Nov. 5: Populism/Peronism

Cantón, Dario, and J. Jorrat. “Occupation and Vote in Urban Argentina: The March 1973 Presidential Election.” Latin American Research Review XIII, no. 1 (1978): 146–57.

García-Heras, Raúl. “World War II and the Frustrated Nationalization of the Argentine British-Owned Railways, 1939–1943.” Journal of Latin American Studies 17 (May 1985): 135–55.

Germani, Gino. “Mass Immigration and Modernization in Argentina.” In Masses in Latin America, Irving L. Horowitz, 289–330. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. ON RESERVE

Horowitz, Joel. “Occupational Community and the Creation of a Self-Styled Elite: Railroad Workers in Argentina.” Americas XLII (July 1985): 55–81.

Imaz, José Luis de. Los que mandan. Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 1973.* ON RESERVE (BOTH SPANISH AND ENGLISH)

James, Daniel. “October 17th and 18th, 1945: Mass Protest, Peronism, and the Argentine Working Class.” Journal of Social History 21 (Spring 1988): 441–61.

James, Daniel. Resistance and Integration: Peronism and the Argentine Working Class, 1946–1976. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. ON RESERVE

Kirkpatrick, Jeanne. Leader and Vanguard in Mass Society: A Study of Peronist Argentina. Cambrdige: M.I.T. Press, 1971. ON RESERVE

Little, Walter. “Party and State in Peronist Argentina, 1945–1955.” Hispanic American Historical Review 53, no. 4 (November 1973): 644–62.

O’Donnell, Guillermo A. Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics. Berkeley: University of California, 1973.* ON RESERVE (CHECK)

O’Donnell, Guillermo. “Reflections on the Patterns of Change in the Bureaucratic-Authoritarian State.” Latin American Research Review XIII, no. 1 (1978): 3–38.

Smith, Peter H. Argentina and the Failure of Democracy: Conflict Among the Political Elites, 1904–1955. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1974. ON RESERVE

Smith, Peter H. “The Social Base of Peronism.” Hispanic American Historical Review 52, no. 1 (February 1972): 55–73.
OR
Smith, Peter H. “Las elecciones argentinas y las inferencias ecológicas.” Desarrollo Económico No. 54 (Julio-Sept. 1974).

Timerman, Jacobo. Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number. New York: Knopf, 1981. ON RESERVE

Nov. 19 University holiday (research/writing period)

Nov. 26 Presentations

Dec. 3: Presentations; last meeting

Dec. 10: Papers due electronically no later than 5:00 pm

Special Dates
Nov. 12 Univ. holiday
Nov. 19 Research/Writing period
Nov. 26 Presentations
Dec. 3 Presentations; last class mtg
Dec. 10 Papers due electronically no later than 5:00 pm
Dec. 19 Grades submitted (midnight)