Spring 2016 CSER 3928 [Mexico City Program]
Colonization/Decolonization
Wednesdays 4-6 PM
Professor: Claudio Lomnitz
This undergraduate seminar examines the processes of colonization and
decolonization that define the making of a modern, integrated world (c. 1500 to the
present). “Colonization” may refer to any process by which an entity (plant, animal,
human society) transfers and establishes itself in an area of a different character. Human
societies have migrated and colonized new areas throughout human history, at times to
previously uninhabited areas and at times adjoining, displacing or subordinating existing
populations. Throughout human history colonization has meant the spread and exchange
of cultures, the development of trade networks, war, and the construction and decline of
empires.
In this course we focus on the spread of European influence and hegemony
throughout the world from the age of discovery in the late fifteenth and sixteenth century
to the era of decolonization after World War II and postcolonial realities of the present.
We are interested in the processes and contents of social and cultural contact and
exchange, the development of knowledge, and how they shape relations of power; the
place of colonialism in the development of western capitalism; and the elements of
colonial power and resistance, including ideologies of liberal political philosophy, social
Darwinism, and nationalism. We will think about how ideas about civilization, religion,
self and other, and freedom have evolved over time and shaped the making of the modern
world. Class is held as a discussion seminar based on close reading of the primary-source
documents.
This particular section of Colonization/Decolonzation has been specially adapted
for teaching in Columbia’s new semester abroad program in Mexico City, which will
conjoin Columbia and CIDE students. Course sized is capped at 22. Although the course
retains its global scope, weekly subjects are supplemented with Mexican primary sources
that relate thematically to the central topic. A set of field trips have been designed and
prepared specially to provide students with an experiential and hands-on sense of the
colonial and anti-colonial archive that is visible in Mexico City and its environs.
Course requirements and evaluation:
 Reading journal—weekly posting on course website, under “class discussion”.
This should be a short (500 words) “reaction” comment on one or more of the
week’s readings. May include questions for class discussion. 30% of final grade.
 Participation in class discussion and field trips. 40% of final grade.
 Four essays (5-6 pages), each 30% of final grade.
Texts for purchase:
Emilio Kouri, A Pueblo Divided: Business, Property and Community in Papantla,
Mexico. (Stanford U. P., 2004)
David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World
(Oxford UP, 2008)
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (Penguin edition, 2007, 1902)
Milton Murayama, All I Asking for is My Body (U-Hawaii Press, 1988)
MK Gandhi, Hind Swaraj (Cambridge UP edition, 1997, 1909)
CLR James, Black Jacobins (New York: Vintage Edition, 1989).
Course pack—uploaded to course website.
Note: You must print out and bring the hard copy of the week’s readings to class.
Three films, to be screened outside of class, dates/times TBA, for in-class discussion
(Aguirre: Wrath of God; A Passage to India; and The Battle of Algiers)
Class schedule with reading assignments
Week 1. Jan 20. What is colonialism? (lecture and discussion)
Week 2. Jan 27. Before European hegemony
Janet Lippman Abu-Lughod, The World System in the Thirteenth Century: Dead-End or
Precursor? (American Historical Association Essays on Global and Comparative
History, 1993).
Travels of Marco Polo (c. 1298), Book I, Prologue and Chapter 1; Book II, Chapters 1-2
and Chapters 17-26.
Film: Aguirre: Wrath of God (screened outside of regular class hours)
Week 3. Feb 3. Discovery and exploration
Christopher Columbus, First Voyage (selections), in Personal Narrative of the First
Voyage to America (Boston, 1827) [Early Encounters in North America]
“Requerimiento.” English trans., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requerimiento
Pedro Cieza de León, The Discovery and Conquest of Peru: Chronicles of the New World
Encounter (selections), translated by Alexandra Parma Cook and David Noble
Cook. Durham, Duke University Press, 1998 (1553). Chapters I, XX, XXIV,
XXVII, XLI-XLVI.
Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España: Que en doce
libros y dos volúmenes. Mexico 1829-30. Book 1, chapter 1; Book 2, Chapter 1,
Book 3, Chapter 1, Book 4, Chapter 1, Book 5, Chapter 1, Book 6, Chapter 1,
Book 7, Chapter 1, Book 8, Chapter 1, Book 9, Chapter 1, Book 10, Chapter 1,
Book 11, Chapter 1, Book 12, Chapter 1.
“Secret instructions” to James Cook (Royal navy)
Royal Society instructions to Cook (1768)
James Cook, Journals (1768-1771), First Voyage, Tahiti (King George’s Island), April 13,
1769 through July 13, 1769; Australia (New Holland), Botany Bay, April 29, 1770
through May 7, 1770; available online at http://southseas.nla.gov.au/index.html
(National Library of Australia). Follow link to “Cook’s daily entries in his
journal” and select by dates.
Field trip: Templo Mayor and site museum, Cathedral of Mexico, Zócalo (guides:
Dr. Pablo Escalante, Claudio Lomnitz)
Week 4. Feb 10. Conquest of the Americas
Cantares Mexicanos, Songs of the Aztecs, translated from the Nahuatl by John Bierhorst.
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985. Introduction + selected poems.
Claudio Lomnitz, Death and the Idea of Mexico, Part 1
Zurita, Alonso de, Life and Labor in Ancient Mexico: The Brief and Summary Relation of
the Lords of New Spain (selections), Norman, University of Oklahoma Press,
1994.
Guaman Poma de Ayala, Felipe, First New Chronicle and Good Government, selected
and translated by David Frye. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co., 2006 (1613),
chapters 19 and 20. [In the Frye version, chapters 5 and 6]
James Lockhart (Ed. and Trans.), We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of
Mexico (selections) (University of California Press, 1993).
Field trip: Tlaxcalla and Cacaxtla (guide: Dr. Jaime Cuadriello)
FIRST PAPER ASSIGNMENT
Week 5. Feb 17. Tea and Sugar
Thomas Mun, “The qualities which are required in a perfect merchant of foreign trade,”
in England’s treasure by foreign trade. Or, the balance of our foreign trade is the
rule of our treasure. (1755)
Godfrey McCalman, A natural, commercial and medicinal treatise on tea. With a concise
account of the East India Company-thoughts on its government (1787),
“Introduction of tea to Europe,” “Summary Detail of the E. India company,” pp
46-77. Eighteenth Century Collections Online
Samuel Martin, of Antigua, “Of the best method of making sugar,” in Martin, An essay
on plantership. Inscribed to Sir George Thomas, Bart. as a monument to ancient
friendship. The seventh edition (1785 ed), pp 1, 21-26, ECCO
“To preserve whole oranges” and “To make marmalade of oranges” in The young lady’s
companion in cookery, and pastry, preserving, pickling, candying, &c.
London,1734, pp 2-9, ECCO
Kouri, A Pueblo Divided (selected chapters)
Week 6. Feb 24. Slave trade and slavery
David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage, chapters 1-7
Stanley Engerman, Seymour Drescher, and Robert Paquette, eds.. Slavery: A Reader
(Oxford University Press) pp 113 to 121 and 154 to 165 (passages on "The Code
Noir in Louisiana, 1685," "Virginia Slave Code, 1705," "Voyage of the James,
1675- 1676," Voyage of the Hannibal, 1693-1694," "Journal of a Slave Trader,
750-1754," and, selection from Ottabah Cugoano.
Richard Price and Sally Price, eds., Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the
Revolted Negroes of Surinam (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), chapter 3
(66-78)
Field Trip: Tepoztlán and the sugar-producing region of Cuautla (guides: Prof. Juan
Pérez Quijada and Claudio Lomnitz)
Week 7. March 2. American revolutions
Laurent Dubois and John D. Garrigus, Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 1789-1804: A
Brief History with Documents (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006) 67-70, 99-107, 120125, 159-162, 186-191.
Simón Bolivar, “The Jamaica Letter” (1815)
Francois Xavier Guerra, “The Spanish-American Tradition of Representation and its
European Roots.” Journal of Latin American Studies 26(1): 1-35
Servando Teresa de Mier, Memoirs (selections), translated by Helen Lane. New York:
Oxford University Press.
SECOND PAPER ASSIGNMENT
SPRING BREAK: MARCH 7-11
Week 8. MARCH 16. Gunboat diplomacy and national humiliation
Agreement between Nabob Nudjum-ul Dowlah and East India Company (1765)
Treaty of Lahore (1846)
Lin Zexu, Letter of Advice to Queen Victoria (1839)
Alexander Murray, Doings in China (1843) (excerpt)
Treaty of Nanjing (1842)
Treaty of Tientsin (1858)
“Observations of the Coolie Trade” (1892)
“Abduction of Chinese by a Peruvian Ship” (1872)
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In Richard Griswold del Castillo, The Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo: A Legacy of Conflict. Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press.
The Platt Amendment. In Latin America and the United States: A Documentary History,
edited by Robert H. Holden and Eric Zolov. New York: Oxford University Press,
2000
Brian DeLay, War of a Thousand Deserts, chapter 7.
Week 9. MARCH 23. Resistance and reform
“Boxers demand death for all foreign devils” (1900) (four short texts)
Sarah Conger, Letters from China (1909), pp. 88-108
Fei Qihao (Fei Ch’i Hao) on the Boxer Rebellion (1900)
King of Oude, Manifesto (Dehli Gazette, Sept. 1857)
“The Bengal Mutiny,” Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine (Sept. 1857): 372-92.
VD Savarkar, Indian war of Independence (1909), introduction and Chapter 1
Week 10. MARCH 30 Orientalism
Edward Said, Orientalism (1975), introduction
Stephen Greenblatt, Marvellous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World (selection),
University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1902)
T. Roosevelt, “The Strenuous Life” (1899)
Domingo Sarmiento, Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism. Trans. Kathleen Ross.
(University of California Press), Chapter 2
Film: A Passage to India
Field Trip: Ballet Folklórico de México (guide: Claudio Lomnitz)
Week 11. APRIL 4. The later colonialisms (Germany, the US, and Japan)
Friedrich Fabri, Does Germany Need Colonies? (1879), pp. 169-173, 177-181.
George Steinmetz, “The Visual Archive of Colonialism: Germany and Namibia.” Public
Culture 18(1)
Mark Twain, “To the person sitting in the darkness”(1900)
Japan, “Fundamental Principles of National Policy” (1936) and “The Way of Subjects”
(1941).
Nogi Harumichi, “I wanted to build Greater East Asia” and “Keeping order in the Indies”
Milton Murayama, All I want is my body
THIRD PAPER ASSIGNMENT
Week 12. APRIL 11. Nationalism
Lu Xun, “Diary of a Madman” from Call to Arms (1918)
Sun Yat-sen, “Fundamentals of National Reconstruction” (1923)
MK Gandhi, Call for non-violent resistance (1914)
MK Gandhi, Hind Swaraj (1938)
1917 Constitution of Mexico, Article 27
Field Trip: Diego Rivera Murals and Palacio Nacional and SEP (Guide: Dr. Alicia
Azuela and Claudio Lomnitz)
Week 13. APRIL 18. Decolonization
UN Charter and UN Declaration of Human Rights (1945)
Statement from the Bandung conference (1955)
Kwame Nkrumah, “I Speak of Freedom” (1961)
Massali Hadj, The Algerian Revolution (London, 1957), pp. 1-11.
Film: Battle of Algiers
Week 14. APRIL 25. Post-colonies
Australia’s apology to indigenous peoples (2008)
Bolivian Constitution (2009) [selections]
Claudio Lomnitz, “Times of Crisis: Historicity, Sacrifice and the Spectacle of Debacle in
Mexico City”
Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe (selection)
Achille Mbembe, On the Postcolony, Chapter 1.
FOURTH PAPER ASSIGNMENT
MAY 4. WRAP-UP SESSION AND CONCLUSION