SOCIAL HISTORY OF LATIN AMERICA, 20th-21st c.

This course explores the main features, structures, problems and the dynamics of Latin American societies as shaped and evolved from the beginning of the 20^th century until now. It focuses on important topics such as: the economic and social modernization of Latin America since the last quarter of 19^th century; the “social issue” during the first decades of 20^th century: the problems caused by fast urbanization, the organization of social protest and the spread among popular classes of anarchist and socialist ideologies; the “native issue”; rural structures and land reforms in America Latina; the social experience of populism and its impact on the working-class identity; the radicalization of Latin America societies in the 1960s and 1970s; the experience of state terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s; poverty, inequality and social exclusion; the duality of urban landscape: shanty towns and private neighborhoods; the new social protest at the turn of the 21^st century.

Upon successful completion of the course, the students will have:

1. Acquired basic knowledge about the characteristics and structures of Latin American societies,
2. Developed the ability to make historical connections and insert the problems of Latin American societies into the further context of contemporary global history
3. Got familiar with different themes, concepts and debates of contemporary social history.

Week #1: “Colorful” multiracial societies: the population of Latin America.

Demographic, ethnic and cultural characteristics.

Week #2: Modernization and its limits in Latin America (1880-1910). Export

economies, urbanization and social transformation.

Week #3: The “social issue” in the decades 1900-1920.

Week #4: Latin American music in its social context: tango and samba.

Week #5: The “invasion” of masses at the public sphere: the social experience of

Peronism (1945-1955).

Week #6: Revolutions and Guerrilla movements in the 1960s and 1970s.

Week #7: The Cuban Revolution in the Cuban cinema.

Week # 8: Living in the margins of society: shanty towns in Latin America.

Week #9: The experience of terror: Latin American dictatorships in the 1970s and

1980s.

Week #10: The “boom” of Latin American novel.

Week #11: Indigenous people and indigenisms.

Week #12: Contemporary forms of social protest in Latin America.

Week #13: Endemic violence in Latin American countries.

Μαρία Δαμηλάκου, Ιστορία της Λατινικής Αμερικής από το τέλος της αποικιοκρατίας μέχρι σήμερα, Αθήνα, Αιώρα, 2014. José Carlos Mariátegui, Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana. (in Greek translation; for the Erasmus students either from the original in Spanish or in English translation). Eduardo Galeano, Las venas abiertas de América Latina (in Greek translation; for the Erasmus students either from the original in Spanish or in English translation).

Lectures accompanied by photographic and audio-visual material from different historical archives. Class discussion and interchange of viewpoints.

Oral exam. The students must prepare a subject among the topics discussed in the lectures and present it orally in the fixed date during the exam period.