History and Politics of International Development
How has economic growth come to define what it means to be a nation? Does being a nation among nations require giving up economic sovereignty? This course investigates the meaning of nationhood as both a political and economic idea in the 20th century. Both the United States and the Soviet Union stood for visions of economic and political sovereignty, sponsoring anticolonial struggle while also constructing their own imperial hegemony. During the Cold War, the ideals of humanitarianism and economic development served to promote individual well-being, while also undermining national sovereignties. This course examines the changing ideals of international development from U.S. and Soviet hegemonic projects to the post-Cold War world of NGOs and human rights norms. Where did this ideal of development come from, and how did it change throughout the 20th century? What remains of this ideal in the contemporary world?
Race and Poverty in the Americas
In my course on Race in the Americas, students think through changing ideas about race and citizenship, the legacy of colonial conquest and slavery, and urban realities in the Americas. Students read about the origins of colonial slavery in the New World to investigate the relationship between colonial power and race-making for indigenous and African people. Using films depicting transnational migration, primary documents on Latino/a experience, and secondary sources such as Julie Weise’s Corazón de Dixie, students examine how Mexican migrants confronted racial hierarchy in the United States using their own conceptions of mestizaje. Students then create presentations which link history with contemporary issues, for instance showing how labor practices with roots in Jim Crow have come to define the migrant experience.
Course texts:
David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World
Julie M. Weise, Corazón de Dixie: Mexicanos in the U.S. South since 1910
Fischer, McCann, and Auyero, Cities From Scratch: Poverty and Informality in Urban Latin America
Latin America in Literature and Film
This course covers Latin American culture from the conquest to the present, using the Oxford Book of Latin American Short Stories, films, and film criticism. The films I’ve used are:
También la lluvia/Even the Rain
Burn!/Queimada
Abrazo del Serpiente/Embrace of the Serpent
El lugar sin límites/Hell has no Limits
Amores Perros
Nostalgia de la Luz/Nostalgia for the Light
The general organizing principle is the relationship between art and politics, and the past to the present, and we work to tease out each film’s aesthetic, historic, and political contribution. The films’ content is chronological from 1492 to the present, while the short stories are arranged around themes: time, social injustice, class, revolution, etc.
Immigrant America
This course begins with an overview of the political theory of borders and immigration control, providing students with a theoretical vocabulary with which to think about changing ideas of national boundaries in the United States. It then gives an overview of changes in immigration policy, organized around the rise and fall (and partial rise again) of restrictionist sentiment. Along the way, we study the racialization of immigrant populations, the relationship between U.S. empire and immigration policy, and the changing U.S. political economy. We also examine fictional and creative non-fiction representations of the immigrant experience, such as Junot Díaz, Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Luis Alberto Urrea, The Devil’s Highway: A True Story, and Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer.
In our unit on Central American immigration to the United States, we follow patterns of immigration using fiction, film, and policy documents and their relationship with the history of U.S. intervention to understand the many possible ways immigration is posed as a problem. Using challenging first-person accounts, like those in Oscar Martinez’s The Beast, documents created by U.S. Homeland Security, and literature from pro-immigrant NGOs, students follow the stories of migrants in motion and governmental interventions in their lives. Together students then consider how to define this migration: are these people economic migrants, political refugees, or illegal aliens? How do the various countries and institutions through which these migrants pass define their status, and what are the consequences? Students then create presentations evaluating the different perspectives. The course involves presentations and an oral history component in which students write about the immigrant experience in their own community.
Latin America Area Studies: Environment and Crisis
This course serves as an introduction to Latin American history, and uses as a motivating device the history of environmental crises from the conquest to the present. It examines instantaneous catastrophes of the kind brought by war, revolution, or natural disaster, as well as the long term transformation of the lived environment of both urban and rural Latin America. The course covers all of Latin America, with special focus on the weird and wonderful floating metropolis that was/is Tenochtitlan/Mexico City.
U.S. Political Culture
In my course on U.S. political culture, students question the relationship between U.S. global power and domestic culture and consider the ways consensus has shaped national identity. The first unit of the course examines the New Deal and debates over the meaning of the good society in the context of catastrophic global crisis of capitalism and liberalism. We study the creation of the political consensus that would characterize U.S. politics for decades to come, then follow its fragmentation thanks to the counterculture movement of the 1960s. The course ends by looking at the most recent financial crisis and the political debates that ensued, to try and understand how political discourse has changed over the past century. Students engage in complex debates over the benefits and weaknesses of politics founded on consensus, and consider how other models of politics based on identity, class, or religion have also shaped cultural life. They also give presentations and lead discussions which tie these historical issues to contemporary politics, culminating in essays which they edit using peer review.
U.S. Media History
I designed this course to follow the interaction between media and U.S. politics, especially ideas about citizenship and nation, from the American Revolution to the present. The first part of the course uses the work of Michael Warner and Trish Loughran to think about the way the print culture shaped early American ideas about citizenship, and how the creation of a more inclusive and nation-wide public sphere helped spur the U.S. Civil War. Then we turn to the rise of the telegraph, photography, and the penny press and the social and political changes of the industrial era. Next we cover the early Cold War and the role of new media like radio and television, and their role in creating a national community. We then use historic changes in the media landscapes of the past to think about the rise of the internet, especially its role in both creating and fragmenting national and global communities.
Global Society since 1945
In my seminar on global society after 1945, we examine the twin processes of decolonization and expansion of U.S. global power following the Second World War. Our readings follow changing trends in international political economy and development from post-War modernization to the rise of neoliberalism, human rights, and environmentalism as alternatives to developmental consensus. Students examine case studies in national liberation in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa to better understand how superpower competition offered both liberatory potential and hegemonic constraints on the possibilities of national self-determination. The course culminates in a research paper combining a theoretical analysis and original research in primary document collections.
Urban History
This course is constructed around the three U.S. urban revolutions. First, the American Revolution as urban phenomenon: We look at the culture of the cities of the east coast and the way consumerism and communication networks sparked revolution. We also discuss the role of slavery in both building the urban metropolises of the north and creating the very different geography of the slave-holding south. Next we turn to the industrial revolution as urban revolution, following the explosion of new cities like Chicago, and the rise of working class politics in new urban spaces. Finally we look at the urban revolutions of the 1950s and 1960s, first the consumer and suburban revolution of the post-war period, and then at the politics of revolt of the black power and counterculture movements. I had the great fortune to teach this course for the first time at Garden State Youth Correctional Facility, through New Jersey’s fantastic STEP Program. The program allows students behind bars to earn an associates degree, and gives them the opportunity to enroll at Rutgers when they get out.
Indigenous Internationalism and Sovereignty without States
In what sense are indigenous relations as international relations? Do indigenous rights make international relations impossible? The course begins by examining contemporary critiques of international relations theory from indigenous perspectives. In what ways did the modern nation-state grow out of European encounters with indigenous people in the New World, and how did that system work to erase indigenous sovereignty? We then examine theories of indigenous sovereignty, the origins and limitations of the politics of recognition, and the growth of indigenous internationalist thought in the late 20th century. The course then focuses on the indigenous politics of the Americas, examining the indigenous politics of groups in North America and Latin America, and their relationships to state and imperial powers. It finally examines the international politics and political economy of indigenous peoples in Asia and Africa.