Social Thought & Polic. Econ 492H - STPEC Focus Seminar II

Open to Senior and Junior STPEC majors only. STPEC 391H Topic Title: TRANS-AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES: RACE, GENDER, AND NATION
This course introduces the intersection of slavery, colonialism, and capitalism in the United States and Latin America & the Caribbean. We will analyze discourses on the nation and revolution, racial democracy, gender in Nation-building, and anti-racist struggles covering events from the late 19th century until the early 21st century. In this sense, the course connects the legacy of political struggles with contemporary process of resistance and focuses on students developing historical-comparative approaches. With particular attention to the case of the United States, Haiti, Brazil, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Bolivia, the course engages with analytical perspectives from different fields such as Sociology, Gender Studies, African American History, Latin American Studies, and Decolonial Studies. These perspectives allow the analysis of racial projects and colonialism in the Americas and discuss references for constructing political subjects from anti-racist activism. We will read W.E.B. Du Bois, Irene Diggs, C.L.R. James, Saidiya Hartman, Jose Mariategui, Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, and Aline Helg. The course includes the analysis of primary sources (i.e., 20th-century anti-colonial periodicals) using a digital teaching tool and the Special Collections at UMass Library.