Supernatural Latin America: Readings on Witchcraft, Shamanism, and Popular Religion
HIST(LACS) 4230/6230
3 hours
Supernatural Latin America: Readings on Witchcraft, Shamanism, and Popular Religion
Course Description
Exploration of the history of popular religions in Latin America
since Pre-Columbian times. Readings include issues such as
religion in the Andes, witchcraft and cult of the saints, African
religions in Brazil, and shamanism in the Amazon. Analysis of the
social, political, and gender dimensions of the religious experience.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students: Students are expected to produce an independent 20-page research
paper, an anotated bibliography on the topic selected for
research, and a lecture/discussion presentation.
Athena Title
Supernatural Latin America
Prerequisite
Any HIST course or ENGL 1101 or ENGL 1101E or ENGL 1101S or ENGL 1102 or ENGL 1102E or ENGL 1102S or POLS 1101 or POLS 1101E or POLS 1101H or POLS 1101S
Semester Course Offered
Offered spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, students will be able to arrive at conclusions about the history of the supernatural in Latin America gathering and weighing evidence, logical argument, and listening to counter argument.
By the end of this course, students will be able to write stylistically appropriate papers and essays. Students will be able to analyze ideas and evidence, organize their thoughts, and revise and edit their finished essays.
By the end of this course, students will be able to identify how the history of religion in Latin America has shaped social and cultural identities and attitudes toward faith and the supernatural, divinity and the afterlife, and ritual and meaning, encouraging them to understand diverse worldviews and experiences.
By the end of this course, students will be able to apply appropriate methodological approaches to their analysis of primary sources and to organize their evidence to show historical continuities and discontinuities.
By the end of this course, students will be able to generate their own research question or topic, locate suitable primary and secondary sources, and synthesize their ideas in novel ways.
By the end of this course, students will be able to initiate, manage, complete, and evaluate their independent research projects in stages and to give and receive constructive feedback through the peer review process.
Topical Outline
1. Introducing Latin America, regions, ethnicity, chronology
2. Defining popular religion
3. Introduction to the concepts of magic, witchcraft, shamanism, cult of the saints, cult of the death
4. Functionalism, Phenomenology, Structuralism, and Interpretative Symbolism
5. Society and religion in Pre-colonial Mesoamerica and Andes
6. The Iberian conquest and the meanings of conversion
7. Popular Catholicism and Indigenous resistance in Colonial Mexico and Peru
8. African religions in colonial Latin America: Creolization and African cultural survival
9. The Amazonian cultures: shamanism and supernatural interaction between societies and nature
10. Modernization and millenarianism in Mexico and Brazil
11. Popular Saints, cult of the death, and Spiritism in contemporary Latin America
12. Expansion of African-derived in Brazil and Spanish America
