This seminar is an introduction to some dimension of the history of a nation, region, people, culture, institution, or historical phenomenon selected by the respective instructor. Students will come to understand, and develop an appreciation for: the origins and evolution of the people, cultures, and/or political, economic, and/or social institutions of a particular region(s) of the world. They may explore how human encounters shaped individual and collective identities and the political, economic, and social orders of the region/nation/communities under study. Instructors prioritize critical reading, engaged participation, and focused writing assignments.

This class focuses on an important element of relations between the US and Mexico: face to face encounters between people from the US and people from Mexico. It proceeds from the assumption that high level political and economic maneuverings are not the only things that shape relationships between countries. The first half of the class we will focus on North Americans in Mexico (as soldiers, tourists, landowners, expatriates, etc.) and in the second half of the class we will read on Mexicans in the US (religious expats, migrants, visiting artists, etc.). The class will also introduce students to methods and sources in transnational history. Each week a scholarly reading will be paired with one or two or three primary sources that the author used in writing their book. For example, we will read part of Peter Guardino’s The Dead March: A History of the Mexican-American War, and alongside we will read various diaries and memoirs of American soldiers in Mexico, including Samuel Chamberlain, My Confession: Recollections of a Rogue. Obviously we can’t read everything that was important to an author in developing an interpretation, but it will give us some sense of what it is like to build an argument from the basic building blocks of primary sources.

Repeat Rules

Requirements class fulfills