HIST. 371J/b Crime, Punishment and Law in Latin America

Transcription

1 HIST. 371J/b Crime, Punishment and Law in Latin America Spring 2012 Time: 3:30pm 5:20pm Location: TBA Instructor: Ezer Vierba Office Hours: Thursday, 1pm-3pm, Hall of Graduate Studies (HGS) Required Texts Caulfield, Sueann. In Defense of Honor: Sexual Morality, Modernity, and Nation in Early Twentieth Century Brazil. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison. 1st American ed. New York: Pantheon Books, Gootenberg, Paul. Andean Cocaine: The Making of a Global Drug (UNC Press, 2008) Hobsbawm, E. J. Bandits. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Huggins, Martha. Political Policing: The United States and Latin America (1998) Salvatore, Ricardo Donato, Carlos Aguirre, and G. M. Joseph. Crime and Punishment in Latin America: Law and Society Since Late Colonial Times. Durham: Duke University Press, [Available as an e-book through Orbis] Slatta, Richard W. Bandidos: The Varieties of Latin American Banditry. Vol. 14, Contributions in Criminology and Penology. New York, Westport Connecticut, London: Greenwood Press, All other readings will be available online, through your Classes v2 server. Films will be on reserve at the Film Study Center, located downstairs, on 53 Wall Street. We will schedule group viewings of the films, but you can choose to view them on your own. Structure and Aims of the Seminar

2 Crime, punishment, sensational trials and legislative reforms are all hot issues in Latin America. Indeed, watching the news in the United States, it sometimes seems like nothing but drug cartels exists south of Texas an everlasting cycle of blood, cocaine and cash. As historians have come to see, however, beyond sensationalism and deep anxieties, the serious study of crime, punishment and the law opens up issues at the heart of Latin American societies. While public interest in crime has been constant, intellectual discussions erupted in several waves since Independence. Often, the debate was in the hands of those helping the public to solve the problem criminologist, penologists, jurists, psychologists and politicians. A series of European works like those of Michel Foucault have sparked a renewed interest among scholars from the humanities and social sciences. Among historians of Latin America, owing to various historical circumstances, the debate has only been renewed in the last twenty years. But now that the debate is alive again, it is clear that it touches on questions that are at the heart of Latin America s most urgent problems: political authority, social cohesion, the weakness of the state and the enormous gaps between rich and poor. The seminar will open up this vast field, and through it, will allow students to get a better view of Latin America. Some work with primary sources will be integrated into the reading assignment itself; and we will discuss the different ways in which historians use legal sources. You will get a chance to use these methodological sensibilities in the paper you write, which will be based on primary material available at Yale. A central issue we will grapple with in the seminar is the connection of knowledge and power. We will start by examining Foucault s thesis, and will return to the question from various angles. Finally, we will deal with representation as a problem to be understood historically; and will examine the ways in which we can problematize our own representation of the past in the papers we write. Requirements The success of the seminar depends on the level of your reading and participation. To help you read actively and engage both texts and films critically, you will be asked to keep a journal of your work. In the journal, you can make any comment that comes to mind while you prepare for class, reflect on the films we watch or note events or items outside the course (news, talks and films, for example). What is important, however, is that you bring together these different texts and show how they connect into a larger debate. I will ask you to share your entries with others on the seminar s Classes v2 forum on five different weeks during the course. And I will review your journal twice, in week 6 and in the last week of class. You will also write a page paper. This paper will allow you to widen your understanding of a specific topic on which we have touched, using more secondary readings, as well as primary

3 material available at Yale. You should talk to me about this topic and the materials you are using by week 8 (though I strongly encourage you to do so earlier). The paper will be worth 50% of your grade, the journal 30%, and class participation 20%. Tentative Schedule Week 1 Introduction Salvatore, Ricardo Donato, Carlos Aguirre, and G. M. Joseph. Crime and Punishment in Latin America: Law and Society Since Late Colonial Times. [Introduction] Week 2 The New Penal Systems Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison. [Part I and II] Diana Paton, The Penalties of Freedom: Punishment in Postemancipation Jamaica. In Crime and Punishment in Latin America, pp Week 3 The New Penal Systems Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison. [Last two parts] Steven Palmer, Confinement, Policing and the Emergence of Social Policy in Costa Rica, [Classes v2] Film: Prisioneiro da grade de ferro [documentary]. Paulo Sacramento, dir. Brazil, Week 4 The Social Bandit Thesis Hobsbawm, E. J. Bandits. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Film: The Harder they Come. Perry Henzell, dir. Jamaica, Week 5 Bandits in Latin America

4 Slatta, Richard W. Bandidos: The Varieties of Latin American Banditry. Vol. 14, Contributions in Criminology and Penology. New York, Westport Connecticut, London: Greenwood Press, Joseph, Gilbert M., On the Trail of Latin American Bandits: A Reexamination of Peasant Resistance. In Latin American Research Review, Vol. 25, No. 3, [Classes v2] Week 6 Criminals and the Social Construction of Crime Charles F. Walker, Crime in the Time of the Great Fear: Indians and the State in the Peruvian Southern Andes, In Crime and Punishment in Latin America, pp Cristina Rivera-Garza, The Criminalization of the Syphilitic Body: Prostitutes, Health Crimes, and Society in Mexico City, In Crime and Punishment in Latin America, pp Pablo Picatto, Cuidado con los rateros: the Making of Criminals in Modern Mexico City. In Crime and Punishment in Latin America, p Film: Pixote: a lei do mais fraco. Hector Babenco, dir. Brazil, Note: Journals due for review. Week 7 The Law Dain Borges, Healing and Mischief: Witchcraft in Brazilian Law and Literature, In Crime and Punishment in Latin America, pp David Parker, Law, Honor, and Impunity in Spanish America: The Debate over Dueling, In Law and History Review, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Summer, 2001), pp [On Classes v2]. Week 8 Gender in Court Caulfield, Sueann. In Defense of Honor: Sexual Morality, Modernity, and Nation in Early Twentieth Century Brazil. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, Film: Maria Full of Grace (María, llena eres de gracia). Joshua Marston, dir. Colombia, 2004.

5 Note: By this date students should have confirmed their paper topic with me. Week 9 Public Trials Chase, Michelle, The Trials: Violence and Justice in the Aftermath of the Cuban Revolution in Greg Grandin and Gilbert M. Joseph, A Century of Revolution: Insurgent and Counterinsurgent Violence during Latin America s Long Cold War. [Classes v2] Assorted reports by the U.S. Embassy in Panamá and the 470 th MI Brigade on the Remón Affair (Panamá, 1955) [Classes v2]. Week 10 The Empire and the Policing of the Dirty Wars Huggins, Martha. Political Policing: The United States and Latin America (1998) Assorted documents, USAID Office of Public Safety, Panamá (various years, 1950s and 60s) [In Classes v2] Week 11 Market Substance Gootenberg, Paul. Andean Cocaine: The Making of a Global Drug (UNC Press, 2008) Week 12 Organized Crime and Disorganized States Alma Guillermoprieto, Medellín, In Carlos Aguirre and Robert Buffington, eds. Reconstructing Criminality in Latin America [Classes v2]. Hylton, Forrest, The Cold War that Didn t End: Paramilitary Modernization in Medellín, Colombia. In Greg Grandin and Gilbert M. Joseph, A Century of Revolution: Insurgent and Counterinsurgent Violence during Latin America s Long Cold War. [on Classes v2] Donna DeCesare, The Children of War: Street Gangs in El Salvador. In NACLA Report, July/August 1998, Vol 32. Issue 1. [Classes v2]. Film: Rodrigo D: No Future (Rodrigo D: no futuro). Gaviria, Victor, dir. Colombia, 1989.

6 Week 13 Representation and its Discontents Carlos Aguirre, Disputed Views of Incarceration in Lima, : The Prisoners Agenda for Prison Reform. In Crime and Punishment in Latin America, pp Lila Caimari, Remembring Freedom: Life as Seen from the Prison Cell. In Crime and Punishment in Latin America, pp Leal, William Carillo, and David Mond. "From My Prison Cell: Time and Space in Prison in Colombia, an Ethnographic Approach." Latin American Perspectives 28, no. 1 (2001): [on Classes v2]. Film: City of God (Cidade de Deus). Meirelles, Fernando, dir. Brazil, Note: Paper due the following week.