November
14 , 2003
Gudmundson
to Teach New Latin American Studies Course
Lowell Gudmundson, professor of Latin American studies and
history |
Vowell Gudmundson, professor of
Latin American studies and history, will offer a course this
spring on attitudes in Latin American countries toward people
of African descent as well as their unique historical experiences.
According to Gudmundson, these people have traditionally been
seen in their countries as part of the mixed-race majority
of Hispanic and mestizo heritage rather than being identified
based on their African heritage. Gudmundson’s own research
on Central America shows that a large portion, anywhere from
10 to 70 percent by region, of the non-Indian population is
of African descent. Gudmundson believes that ignoring the specific
contributions and experiences of this group was based not only
on early success in legislating full legal equality for those
of African descent, but also a desire to avoid discussions
of the legacies of slavery and the persistence of racism despite
these advances.
The course, Afro-Latin America: From Slavery to Invisibility,
is a one-time-only offering. It grew out of research
under a National Endowment for the Humanities collaborative
research grant awarded in 2001 to Gudmundson and two
Costa Rican colleagues. It closely follows a course he
taught last year to graduate students at the University
of Costa Rica. His students will examine a broad range
of materials from the independence era of the early nineteenth
century, when most Latin American countries abolished
slavery, through the mid-twentieth century. These include
contemporaneous tracts about race; census, economic, marriage, and criminal
records; and anthropological and autobiographical works.
In addition, Gudmundson said, “Some
of my own work from this project will no doubt filter in as well, dealing with
Guatemala and Nicaragua during this period and communities that have rarely
if ever been seen as ‘of African descent.’”
Julia Sorcinelli ’04 has been assisting Gudmundson with his research
and will be recording information about property ownership from copies of original
documents. “It’s an interesting experience to be able to see the
whole process from research to writing an article and then a book,” Sorcinelli
said.
Latin American studies is an interdisciplinary program that emphasizes critical
approaches to the culture, history, society, and political economy of the region.
Gudmundson believes that the LAS program is particularly strong “on the
history and culture of what some have called the Caribbean Basin,” and
also in terms of faculty whose work focuses on peoples of African descent in
the area, including Roberto Marquez, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Latin
American and Caribbean Studies, and Dorothy Mosby, assistant professor of Spanish. “This
topics course on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries dovetails with what
I am currently working on,” Gudmundson said, “but also seeks to
respond to persistent student questioning of what came after slavery and why
the seeming invisibility of Afro-Latin American populations, even in the Caribbean
where they constitute large minorities or even majorities.”
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