Professor Nora Hamilton is teaching a special course in Spring 2011. The course, POSC 469, 2-4:50 W, will fuflill an upper division POSC course in Comparative Politics or can be used as a POSC upper division elective. Professor Hamilton is a specialist in Latin American politics and this is a one time only feature class that you may be interested in taking. There is no prerequisite for the course.
Course description
A young mother discovers that her adopted daughter was taken at birth from a woman who was then killed during Argentina’s ”dirty war”….
In the midst gun battles between revolutionaries and government troops, children in a Salvadoran village attempt to maintain a normal childhood during El Salvador’s civil war…
A young woman seeking to earn extra money gets caught up in the Colombian drug trade….
A youthful Che Guevara takes an epic motorcycle journey through South America that will change his life….
By focusing on individuals and families caught up in historic events, Latin American filmmakers provide new insights into the political and social reality of Latin American politics and society that cannot be obtained through simply reading about them.
This course will examine issues of Latin American contemporary politics through these – The Official Story, Innocent Voices, Maria Full of Grace, and The Motorcycle Diaries -- and other films. Students will also draw on assigned articles and other sources that provide a context for understanding Latin American politics and the specific issues under study.
