Past Courses

Graduate Course Descriptions: Spring 2002

Religion and Social Movements in Latin America
History 77300
Professor Margaret E. Crahan (notmeg@rcn.com)

Mondays, 6:30-8:30 PM Room TBA, 3 Credits

This course focuses on the interaction of religion and social movements in Latin America from the precolonial period to the present time. As early as the Incas, religion was a major social mobilizer. Indigenous religious beliefs continued to serve this function from the conquest era up to the present as witness the Zapatista uprising in Mexico in 1994. In the colonial era indigenous, African and European religious beliefs frequently informed movements of resistance and rebellion. Indeed in colonial Brazil, Islam served as a stimulus for a slave revolt in 1835. The independence movements of the early nineteenth century frequently adopted socioeconomic agendas influenced by popular religiosity, while reformist impulses later in the century borrowed from European movements that incorporated Catholic social doctrine. In the twentieth century the interplay of religion and social movements has become even more intimate, particularly in the 1920s and 1930s with the emergence of Catholic Action and religiously based student and labor movements. The proliferation of social movements since the 1960s, often stimulated by such religious innovations as liberation theology and base Christian communities, as well as the expansion of Pentecostalism, has deepened the relationship between religion and social movements. This course will use both primary and secondary materials in its analysis of the nature of the interaction of religion and social movements.

Requirements: There are three requirements in this course, each one of which will constitute one-third of the final grade.

1. Class participation. Each student will be expected to complete the assigned readings prior to each class and be prepared to analyze them in-depth.
2. Research paper: Each student will prepare an analytical paper on one of the major topics discussed in the course (see syllabus).
a. topic due 2/25/02.
b. outline and bibliography due 3/18/02.
c. final paper due 4/29/02. Multiple copies will be turned in so that each student will be able to read the paper and prepare comments for in class discussion on either 5/6/02 or 5/13/02.
3. Class presentation: Each student will present the findings of her/his paper for discussion in class on either 4/29/02, 5/6/02 or 5/13/02. The date will be assigned according to "groupings of topics."

Required Readings: Available in paperback at Labyrinth Books, 536 W. 112th St., NY, NY, 10025. books@labrynthbooks.com

Chalmers, Douglas, et al., eds. The New Politics of Inequality in Latin America: Rethinking Participation and Representation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Cleary, Edward L. & Stewart-Gambino, Hannah, eds. Power, Politics, & Pentecostalism in Latin America. Boulder: Westview Press, 1997.

Dorr, Donal. Option for the Poor: A Hundred Years of Catholic Social Teaching.
Maryknoll: Orbis Press, 1992 or later.

Escobar, Arturo & Alvarez, Sonia, eds. The Making of Social Movements in Latin America: Identity, Strategy and Democracy. Boulder: Westview Press, 1992.

Pattnayak, Satya R., ed. Organized Religon in the Political Transformation of Latin America. New York: University Press of America, Inc., 1995.

Sigmund, Paul E. Liberation Theology at the Crossroads: Democracy or Revolution? New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Silverblatt, Irene. Moon, Sun and Witches: Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial Peru. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987.

ASSIGNMENTS

2/4/02 Introduction to the Course

2/11/02 Role of Religion in Precolombian and Conquest Era Social Mobilization.
Read: Silverblatt, all.

Supplementary: Las Casas, Bartolome de. The Devastation of the Indies (There are various editions of this classic work in English & Spanish); Hanke, Lewis. Aristotle and the American Indian: A Study in Race Prejudice in the Modern World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1959.

2/20/02 NB., THIS IS A WEDNESDAY

Role of Religion in Colonial Resistance Movements
Read: Bush, Barbara. Slave Women in Caribbean Society, 1650-1838.
pp. 51-82; Stern, Steve. Resistance, Rebellion, and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World: 18th to 20th Centuries, pp. xi-210. (On Reserve)

Supplementary: Dean, Carolyn. Inka Bodies and the Body of Christ: Corpus Christi in Colonial Cuzco, Peru. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999; MacCormack, Sabine. Religion in the Andes: Vision and Imagination in Early Colonial Peru. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990; Reis, João José Reis. Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993; Gosner, Kevin. Soldiers of the Virgin: The Moral Economy of a Colonial Maya Rebellion. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1992.

2/25/02 Role of Religion in Independence Movements
Read: Humphrey, R.A. & Lynch, John, eds. The Origins of the Latin American Revolutions, 1808-1826. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966, pp. 3-72; Lynch, John. The Spanish American Revolutions, 1808-1826.
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1973, pp. 294-334. (On reserve)

TURN IN TOPIC OF RESEARCH PAPER

3/4/02 Role of Catholic Social Doctrine in Reformist Movements of Early 20th Century
Read: Dorr, Donal. Option for the Poor: A Hundred Years of Vatican Social Teaching. Maryknoll: Orbis Press, 1992, all.

3/11/02 Proliferation of Social Movements in Contemporary Latin America
Read: Escobar/Alvarez, all.

Supplementary: Ai Camp, Roderic, ed. Democracy in Latin America: Patterns and Cycles. Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1996; McManus, Philip & Schlabach, Gerald, eds. Relentless Persistence: Nonviolent Action in Latin America. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1991; Van Cott, Donna Lee. Indigenous Peoples and Democracy in Latin America. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995.

3/18/02 Social Movements and Religious Innovation
Read: Sigmund, all.

Supplementary: There is an enormous bibliography on Liberation Theology and Base Christian Communities. Choose according to the country or topic you are interested in.

4/1/02 Pentecostalism and Social Movements
Read: Cleary/Stewart-Gambino, all.

Supplementary: Burdick, John. Looking for God in Brazil: The Progressive Catholic Church in Urban Brazil's Religious Arena. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993; Chestnut, R. Andrew. Born Again in Brazil: The Pentecostal Boom and the Pathogens of Poverty. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1997; Mariz, Cecilia Loreto. Coping with Poverty: Pentecostals and Christian Base Communities in Brazil. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994.

4/8/02 Religion and Politics
Read: Pattnayak, all.

Supplementary: Jelin, Elizabeth & Hershberg, Eric, eds. Constructing Democracy: Human Rights, Citizenship, and Society in Latin America. Boulder: Westview Press, 1996; Lehmann, David. Democracy and Development in Latin America: Aeconomics, Politics and Religion in the Postwar Period. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990; Swatos, Jr., William. Religion and Democracy in Latin America. New Brunswick: Transaction Press, 1995.

4/15/02 Rethinking Social Movements
Read: Chalmers, pp. 1-236.

Supplementary: Payne, Leigh A. Uncivil Movements: The Armed Right Wing and Democracy in Latin America. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.

4/22/02 Rethinking Religion and Civil Society
Read: Chalmers, 311-582.

Supplementary: Crahan, Carter, Armony

4/29/02 Discussion of Case Studies
TURN IN RESEARCH PAPER. NO EXTENSIONS.

5/6/02 Discussion of Case Studies
Read: assigned student papers.

5/13/02 Discussion of Case Studies
Read: assigned student papers