PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS NOT THE FULL COURSE SYLLABUS. FOR THE COMPLETE SYLLABUS, PLEASE REFER TO THE FILE EMBEDDED IN THE HOME PAGE.
In this course we will follow the histories of Peru and two of its Andean neighbors, Bolivia and Ecuador, from Inca times to the twenty-first century, paying particular attention to the complex, shifting relationship between Indigenous peoples, peasant communities, communities of African descent, and the state. Our readings and lectures will ask how the Inca imperial state, the Spanish colonial government, and the postcolonial nation-states of the Andes have attempted in the past to incorporate and/or exclude highland populations and others considered “marginal” from their broader projects of political inclusion, development, and rule. In engaging this question, however, we will especially emphasize how such communities have defined, structured, and mediated their own relationships with the state, and how they in turn have shaped the history of the Andes.
This course will also examine several additional topics crucial to understanding the history of Peru and the Andean region. These include, but are not limited to, shifting forms of ethnic and cultural identity, the politics of gender and sexuality, religious beliefs and religious conversion, slavery and abolition, the changing role of the Andes in the colonial economic system, nationalism and nation building, revolution and reform, the US-led War on Drugs, Peru’s internal war with the Shining Path, democratic and political reforms, and the politics of neoliberalism.
This lecture class will include group discussions and will meet in person, public health conditions permitting. Required readings will center the voices of Andean peoples, from heirs to the Inca throne to ordinary people in a colonial mining city, to peasant political activists in the twentieth century and a child soldier in Peru’s internal war. We will also examine archeological evidence and popular media representations, films, and documentaries. Students will complete two short papers, a midterm, a final, and a series of other activities. This course is an excellent fit for those interested in learning more about Peru, the Andes, and Latin America more generally as well as those interested in history, international studies, Indigenous studies, anthropology, and archeology.
Please contact the instructor at awarren2@uw.edu should you have any questions.