Week One
We begin with the ancient (and oft-ignored in world history textbooks) civilizations of Mesoamerica. A great resource for any and all things Mesoamerican is the FAMSI website -- take some time to explore it if you have an interest. I especially recommend Mark van Stone's great page on the 2012 phenomena, and John Pohl's brief summary of Mesoamerican history. One of the very few timelines I found that included anything American before the fifteenth century comes from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
(All maps for this week's lectures come from Robert M. Carmack, Janine Gasco, and Gary Gossen, The Legacy of Mesoamerica. Carmack and Gossen are anthropologists working in Guatemala and Chiapas respectively, and were pioneers of what in the 1960s and 70s came to be called "ethnohistory," an interdisciplinary approach to the Mesoamerican past that combines archaeology, history, art history, anthropology, epigraphy, and whatever else is useful to understand a people or culture. Gasco is an ethnohistorian working on the southern Pacific Coast, where much of ancient Mesoamerica's cacao came from).
Here is a nice video on the Mesoamerican ball game amongst the unexcavated ball court at Piedras Negras, a Classic Maya site. (The narrator is archaeologist/epigrapher Stephen Houston, mentioned in the Coe reading).
Also, the Teotihuacan Home Page by one of the archaeologists who works there, Saburo Sugiyama.
FIRST EXTRA CREDIT QUIZ
You will have four chances over the course of the semester to take a Mexican Trivia quiz. Each one is worth 1/2 a point on your final semester grade. (So if you earn an 87.2 and successfully complete only one of the extra credit quizzes, you will receive an 87.8 which would push you from a B to an AB for the course. What a deal!).
The first Mexican Trivia quiz is the following: take Level 5 of the Mexican States quiz on this website and earn 100% in 150 seconds or less.
Print out your score and turn it in no later than Thursday, Jan. 22 in class!
Week Two
Check out my del.icio.us links, especially under the tags 'Mesoamerica' and/or 'AncientAmericas,' for reviews by archaeologists of Mel Gibson's 'Apocalypto' (do you think it matters that Gibson conflated the Classic Maya with the Aztecs?), reactions in Spanish to the Lienzo de Quauhquechollan recently exhibited in Guatemala, and the University of Oregon's wonderful site of digitalized Mesoamerican mapas.
The Templo Mayor Museum is run by Mexico's renowned National Institute for Anthropology and History. You can see some of these same pieces, or ones very like them, in Chicago through April 19, at the Field Museum's current exhibit "The Aztec World"!
SECOND EXTRA CREDIT QUIZ
This one covers Ancient Mesoamerica. As before, you have unlimited tries to get a perfect score within an allotted time period. You must have taken the quiz successfully by midnight on Sunday, February 1, to receive 1/2 point on your final semester grade. The quiz is available on D2L, under (you guessed it) Quizzes.
In response to Tom's query a while back about the desiccation of Lake Texcoco, take a look at this website (it has some great images of Mexico City -- still largely surrounded by water -- in the 19th century) and also look in your Mexican Reader pp. 520-536, "The Sinking City" by Joel Simon.
Here's a nice site with images from Mexico's early colonial churches.
Be getting ready to volunteer for a part in our production of the Coloquio on the Virgen of Guadalupe! Come to class Thursday with several options, in case you don't get your first choice.
I'm a little behind in posting the outlines. Above is everything you need for Tuesday. On Thursday, we may talk briefly about the northern frontier. Or perhaps that will have to wait until after the play....
Here are some nice sites about the casta paintings of 18c Mexico; the African heritage of Mexico by a U.S. anthropologist who has worked with Afromestizo communities on the southern Pacific coast; and a recent exhibit at Chicago's National Museum of Mexican Art. For this last site, go to "Materials/Products" to see a nice little video. Yanga (of the exhibition title) was an escaped slave who founded a 'palenque,' or runaway slave society, in the sixteenth century. It was so disruptive of trade along the Gulf Coast and so powerful that the colonial government negotiated a settlement in 1608 that granted it formal recognition and partial autonomy in exchange for peace. It was called San Lorenzo de los Negros, but was renamed after its founder in 1932.
We meet all this week in Weasler Auditorium at the AMU.
Come early if possible!
The Basilica of St. Mary of Guadalupe in Mexico City
Wishing her a happy birthday in 2007
A mural for the Virgen in San Antonio, TX
It is really hard to find the entire Virgen de Guadalupe series by Chicana artist Yolanda López on the internet!
We meet Tuesday in Weasler Auditorium at the AMU. On Thursday, we're back in the regular classroom.
The play is on its way to being a great success -- only a little tweaking was necessary Thursday. I'm looking forward to seeing it all come together!
On Tuesday, we will start at 12:35 sharp with Act I, so come to class as early as you can to help set up and be ready, especially for that act. I will be there at 12:15. Those who are able should plan to help clean up afterwards, and thank you.
On Thursday, you will be asked to answer the following question in an in-class essay: what does the Coloquio reveal about colonial society? You will have 30 minutes to write, and may pull out any subjects or themes you deem important. You may bring written notes, an outline, and/or your copy of the Coloquio to help you write the essay.
At the unlikely risk of devolving into nostalgia for my 7th-grade Texas History class ... a bunch of YouTube offerings on the War of Texas Independence (okay, I can't completely shake it) and the War of Yankee Invasion.
Johnny Cash sings "Remember The Alamo"
John Wayne talks about The Alamo
The trailer for Disney's 1960 film on the Alamo
(Disney spent just $3 million less to make this film
than the U.S. paid Mexico for half its territory in 1848)
A critical look at the ceremony of the Niños Héroes
The official annual commemoration of the Battle of Chapultepec
Gustavo Arellano's take on the "reconquista"
of the American Southwest
Class meets on Thursday in AMU 407...
We'll talk about gender roles in 19c Mexico, explore some cookbooks, and self-select into midterm food project groups for after Spring Break.
LOOKING AHEAD
The Third Mexican Trivia Quiz will be available after Spring Break!
THIRD EXTRA CREDIT QUIZ
This one covers Independence through the Second Empire, and will close at 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, March 25. You have unlimited tries to get a 90 or above (a little leeway this time) within an allotted time period, to earn 1/2 point on your final semester grade.
Recipes for the fiesta are due to me on Tuesday! Plan to cook for 6-8 people; groups larger than four should cook more than one dish. No nut products of any kind, and some vegetarian options welcome.
Links for the Mexican Revolution -- please send me more!
Postcards with images of the fighting down south were common, especially along the Mexico-U.S. border. This collection belongs to Texas A&M University. If you want one of your own, they go for about $100 from this European? seller on the internet.
A web museum of Diego Rivera's murals.
The Olvera St. mural of David Siqueiros, called "Tropical America," whitewashed over in 1932 (soon after its completion) by its patron for its U.S.-as-imperialist theme. Siqueiros's first outdoor mural, it was restored at its original site in Los Angeles in the late 1960s.
José Clemente Orozco painted at Dartmouth College.
On Thursday, class meets in AMU 407 for our ...
¡MEXICAN FIESTA!
Each group, in addition to its food dishes, should please bring one or two liter-sized bottles of something appropriate to drink. You can bring Mexican music, too, if you like!
(El Rey has a nice selection of Jarritos etc., and maybe even some Coca-Cola with REAL SUGAR in it instead of that nasty high fructose corn syrup the U.S. bottling plants use....Gustavo Arellano again).
Thanks to the OIE and History offices for providing napkins, silverware, etc., -- THANK YOU
The films we will watch excerpts from on Tuesday are both from director Fernando de Fuentes: the number one film in twentieth-century Mexican cinema according to this oft-cited website, "Vamonos con Pancho Villa" (1935), and the enormously popular "Alla en el rancho grande" (1936). In 1948, the great Jorge Negrete would star in a remake of the latter.
Besides the link on Mexico City's water woes above under Week Three, here are some more recent updates from 1995, 2004, and this week.
How does this Pacific coast resort compare to Acapulco in the 1950s?
We will be reading about El Santo next week, but here are some early examples of his work:
The wildly popular "Santo contra las mujeres vampiro" (1962).
The classic James Bond-like El Santo film "Operación 67" (1967) doesn't need subtitles -- there's not much dialogue!
This site summarizes all the El Santo movies. Another site on Mexican horror films has a nice collection of national and international movie posters, as well as some clips.
Capitalizing on El Santo's fame, a university student made this short piece "El Santo y los burócratas" in 2005. The hero is the son of El Santo (equally as famous as his father), fighting against an experience familiar to all Mexicans: endless lines and capricious government employees. Compare the young bureaucrats in the student's satirical film with their cheerier counterpart in this very similar production by the government's non-partisan elections oversight board, promoting voter registration for the 2006 elections. (So similar, the student accused the government of plagiarism!).
In 2006, Mexico quietly released the long-promised report on its own "Dirty War" against student and others anti-government activists from the late '60s through the '80s.
The music festival Avandaro in 1971 was Mexico's Woodstock.
Great aerial photos of Mexico City!! What a way to travel, huh.
Documents by and about the Zapatistas, and an interview with Subcomandante Marcos (you can link to parts 1 and 3 from here, too).
LANIC's NAFTA information page.
An interview with Carlos Salinas de Gortari in Spanish with Jorge Ramos of Univisión, and a longer one (also in Spanish) from the Grupo Reforma (parent company of the Mexico City daily Reforma). Carlos's brother Raúl was acquited on appeal of the murder of his brother-in-law in 2005.
FOURTH EXTRA CREDIT QUIZ
is due by Sunday, April 26 at midnight
Latinos in the U.S. meatpacking industry, from the Migration Policy Institute
Teenagers reflect on growing up between Chicago and Durango, Mexico, with their former fourth-grade teacher
John Bowe interviewed by Jon Stewart about modern-day slavery in the U.S.; here's his article about Mexican and Guatemalan workers in Florida.
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers home page
One of my favorite Selena videos
Marine private Guy Gabaldon, the "pied piper of Saipan," a Mexican-American whose WWII story was told (without reference to his ethnicity) in the movie Hell to Eternity.
Marine lance corporal José Gutierrez, a Guatemalan immigrant and one of the first soldiers to die in Iraq.
The LA Times is doing a series on Mexican drug trafficking of late, called "It's a War". Sam Quinones is an infrequent contributor.
This background study for the Brookings Institute on the narcotics trade and worldwide counternarcotics initiatives is one of the best and most informative things I've read in a long time.
Swine Flu!!
The Chica-Iranian Project from Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Ali Dadgar
Thanks for your attention this semester, and
Have a great summer!