Course Content:

The nations of Latin America & the Caribbean are richly diverse within and between each other, but they share a common ancient, colonial, and postcolonial historical experience, and today face many common challenges and opportunities. As a unified sociocultural region it belongs to the world's so-called South, integrated for five centuries now to the modern capitalist world order - an order which unfortunately remains very much still structured to sustain, defend, and expand the interests and privileges of the world's so-called North, despite repeated attempts at redistributing global wealth and power more equitably. Latin America's national economic elites have long been invariably acquiescent - when not openly champions - of this persistently unbalanced global structural arrangement, so despite almost two centuries since independence from European colonialism, Latin America has been and remains the world's most socially unequal region. In contrast, Latin America's political regimes exhibit a much wider range of politics and types, reflecting the fierce social struggles in the region, external intervention (mostly U.S.) and the periodic strong popular resistance to the successively discredited imported models of development and modernity. The intense cultural and social dynamics in this region have thus been profoundly contradictory and exceptionally complex.

This course therefore explores the contemporary and historical conditions of this fascinating region of the modern world-system from three interrelated angles of vision: (a) first, at the broadest level, and representative of the unequal world order within which Latin America has had to exist since its incorporation into the modern world, we explore the highly problematic core-periphery relation between the U.S. and Latin America over the last century; (b) then, at the regional structural level, we analyze the economic, political, social and cultural transformations associated with the impact of globalization on Latin America and its difficult, often frustrated, search for its own modernity and enhanced peoples' livelihoods; and (c) finally, at the grassroots level, we conclude the course identifying and analyzing some of the social movements, and the creative cultural activities they constantly rely on as Latin Americans seek social justice and to redefine modernity in their own ways.

Research Project: Each of the groups will design, research, and write a final research project on any relevant sociohistorical topic related to the course. The subject matter and the time frame chosen may be as broad or narrow as each group wishes, involving all Latin American nations, or a few, or just one; it may cover a time frame of centuries, a few decades, or merely the contemporary scene. The subject matter may be divided up among the students chronologically, thematically, or in comparative fashion between peoples, but it ultimately must be historically grounded and sociologically oriented. The students must obtain pre approval from Dr. Santos for both their overall group topic and for their individual subtopics by Friday, February 16. Students may consult with Dr. Santos during his office hours - no emails on this topic, please.

Each student will individually write his or her own paper, between 6 and 8 pages in length (apart from the bibliography), double-spaced, font 12, with one-inch margins. Students must submit their individual papers electronically (in Word, please) and their assembled research project volume in paper. The volumes must be bound, have a title page, a table of contents listing each individual title and student author, and the actual papers; continuous page numbering between papers and a single, common volume bibliography are unnecessary and are actually discouraged (so as to not waste time); each paper should start with the paper title and author at the top, be independently numbered, and have a bibliography at the end.

Each individual paper should have a well stated, well focused research hypothesis, research topic, or question, a variety of citations from the scholarly literature consulted, if need be descriptive data (charts, graphs, maps, etc.), and a strong critical analysis section leading to a conclusion. Papers will be graded for clarity and organization, quality of analysis, accuracy, and relevance of assembled data.

For guidelines on how to write a good research term paper, citations & bibliographic styles, etc., please go to the following URL: http://www.csub.edu/~gsantos/Guide-Paper.html.

GST 126 - Researching the Electronic Library (2 units)
Introduces students to effective research techniques using Library electronic resources. Emphasis will be placed upon skills necessary for the identification, retrieval, and evaluation of information for general and specific topics. Students will acquire the competencies necessary to develop an effective search strategy and find research materials, including references to journal articles, full text articles in electronic format, government publications, books, and Internet resources.

 GST 153 - Research on the Internet (2 units)
Introduces students to the information resources available on the Internet for research purposes Students will develop general knowledge of the Internet, navigation skills, effective search strategy skills, familiarity with Internet finding tools, evaluation methodologies and other Internet research skills.

Contact: Ms. Christy Gavin
Librarian, Walter W. Stiern Library
cgavin@csub.edu
661-664-3237

Plagiarism: To prevent students from wittingly or unwittingly engaging in plagiarism, Dr. Santos strongly recommends students to carefully read and abide by the document CSUB Classifications of Plagiarism found at: http://www.csub.edu/tlc/options/resources/plagiarism/4plagiarimclassifications.htm.

My Group #: ______

The dates & selection I present on:                                                                                                        .

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