The Americas in the world

Core Course

This course introduces American hemispheric history, society, and culture, tracing the transformation of European settler colonialism into the modern industrial nation-states across North and South America.

Focusing on the 20th and 21st centuries, the course will introduce significant social, cultural, and economic developments across selected countries of the Americas. Topics will include native-colonial relations; slave-based economies, slave resistance, and emancipation; the impact of modernity on social, economic, and cultural relations; the struggle for Civil Rights in 20th and 21st centuries; war and revolution during the Cold War; the psychedelic flower-power of the ‘60s, the effect of forced migration on societies and politics across nations; political and military responses to terrorism; the rise of populist politics in the 21st century. Throughout the course, particular attention will be given to the dynamics of

race, class, gender, and sexuality. Through lectures and class debates we will attempt to compare our popular knowledge of the Americas with the sometimes-different historical reality behind it. Studying documentary sources, film, literature, comic books and popular music, we will lay foundations for a better understanding of the Americas and their changing relations to the world.