POLITICS AND THE CITY IN LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY (G57.

2803) New York University Department of History Professor: Alejandro Velasco Office: 1 Washington Pl, Rm. 506 Hours: Tue 2:00-5:00PM, Wed. 9:00AM-2:00PM Contact: av48@nyu.edu, 212-992-9834 Course Description Gazing on such wonderful sights, we did not know what to say, or whether what appeared before us was real, for on the land there were great cities, and in the lake ever so many more, and in front of us stood the great city of Mexico (Bernal Diaz, 1518). When Europeans set foot on the New World they found a continent deeply shaped by an urban experience. Bustling metropolises in Tenochtitln, Yucatn, and Cusco congregated people and power at the head of sprawling and complex political systems. Yet urban life in Latin America, and the political dynamics that characterize it, have been seen as recent phenomena, the consequence of post-war industrialization and lingering dreams of Eurocentric modernity. But faced with a now thoroughly urban continent peppered with megacities from Mexico to Lima to Buenos Aires historians have more and more turned their attention to the continents deep urban history in search of clues to reshape our understandings of Latin Americas past, and of its future. This course has two aims. On one hand it introduces students to key readings, concepts, and debates on the interplay of politics and urban life, tracing the development of the literature on urban political theory from its origins in turn of the 19th century psychoanalyses of urban society and politics, to the most recent interventions on the rise of global cities and their impact on the nation-state. On the other hand it offers a sweeping account of Latin American history as seen through several of its major urban centers, from pre-Columbian Tenochtitln to contemporary La Paz. We assess how developments in urban theory have shaped understanding of politics in the region, for instance considering changes and continuities in state policy toward cities and their citizens, from Inca Cusco to republican Rio de Janeiro to modern Braslia. We consider how the emergence of electoral politics interfaced with urbanization to help give rise to populism. We examine the cultural turn as seen through the prism of urban life, considering the interplay of race and gender in shaping private and public life in the city. And we explore the meta-politics of Latin American cities, as sites where imagined order and modernity chafe against the reality of inequality and informality to make of the urban landscape a fitting window into the larger tensions of a continents history. Assignments and Expectations All students will be responsible for and graded on the basis of: Active participation in class discussion. This of course includes attending all scheduled classes. Should you need to miss because of an exceptional circumstance, and if possible, please notify instructor before class meets. Fall 2010: Term KJCC 527: Location Thu 9:30AM-12:15PM: Time

Weekly reactions to the readings. These reactions should be roughly 300 words in length, and should be posted as text on the Discussion Board section of the course website sometime before class (ideally by midnight so that the rest of the class may have a chance to read them). Reactions need not be polished, but they should attempt to draw out relevant connections between the various readings for each week (and among different weeks) or register insightful questions or thoughts on the materials as they relate to work and literatures in your area. One classroom presentation. Students will select one week of readings, and will be responsible for designing discussion questions and helping to lead discussion based on their reading of the material. One formal 4-5 page book review. For the week students select to present, they will also submit a formal, polished book review of the major text assigned that week. You should submit these reviews no more than one week following your presentation in order to take advantage of the ideas generated during discussion. By formal, polished review you should understand a review that one would find in an academic journal, a review that draws out a texts key arguments and conceptual framing, assesses the quality of sources employed and their use, considers weaknesses or flaws, and provides context in order to locate the book within a larger literature (for instance, your own research area). You should consider these pieces an opportunity to develop the skill of review writing, which is a key part of the academic profession. Final Paper. Students will coordinate with the instructor a final written assignment most pertinent to the student (given their location in the program). For instance, first year students should consider writing a 15-18 page historiographical essay, consisting of a carefully documented and argued intervention on the development and state of the field of urban political history perceived lacunae, developing trends, potential paths ahead based on the readings covered in the course. Second year students may want to submit an extended 15-18 page review essay of several key books in the course, or in one of their major qualifying exam fields, as they relate to the readings/debates addressed this semester. More advanced students may considering submitting dissertation quality chapters that incorporate research they have conducted in light of the readings/themes addressed in this course. We will meet during the first couple of weeks of class to discuss the specific shape and expectations of this final assignment. Readings You are responsible for acquiring the following books, which we will read in full and in the order they appear below. Please plan accordingly. Some helpful used book e-stores include: www.half.com, www.bookfinder.com, www.alibris.com, www.amazon.com. 1. Angel Rama, The Lettered City. Durham: Duke U Press, 1996. 2. James Holston, The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Braslia. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1989.

3. Herbert Braun, The Assassination of Gaitn: Public Life and Urban Violence in Colombia. Madison: U of Wisconsin Press, 2003. 4. Diane Davis, Urban Leviathan: Mexico City in the Twentieth Century. Philadelphia: Temple U Press, 1994. 5. Gerd Schnwalder, Linking Civil Society and the State: Urban Popular Politics, the Left, and Local Government in Peru, 1980-1992. University Park: Penn State U Press, 2004. 6. Joo Jos Reis, Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U Press, 1995. 7. Elaine Bliss, Compromised Positions: Prostitution, Public Health, and Gender Politics in Revolutionary Mexico City. University Park: Penn State Press, 2001. 8. Marie Francois, A Culture of Everyday Credit: Housekeeping, Pawnbroking, and Governance in Mexico City, 1750-1920. Lincoln: U of Nebraska Press, 2006. 9. Sian Lazar, El Alto, Reb City: Self and Citizenship in Andean Bolivia. Durham: Duke U Press, 2008. 10. Brodwyn Fischer, A Poverty of Rights: Citizenship and Inequality in Twentieth Century Rio de Janeiro. Palo Alto: Stanford U Press, 2008. (NOTE: Hardcover only; my apologies. If you do not anticipate being able to acquire a copy, alert the instructor) 11. Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof, Tale of Two Cities: New York and Santo Domingo after 1950. Princeton: Princeton U Press, 2007. (NOTE: Paperback edition available in October!) We will read significant portions of the books below. For your benefit they will be available on Course Reserves, but you may also wish to acquire copies of your own. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Max Weber, The City. New York: Free Press, 1968. Inga Clendinnen, The Aztecs: An Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge U Press, 2000. Henri Lefebvre, Writings on Cities. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 1996. Henri Lefebvre, State, Space, World: Selected Essays. Minneapolis: U of Minn Press, 2009. Lewis Mumford, The Culture of Cities. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1981. James Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Have: Yale U Press, 1999.

Additional readings, including book chapters and journal articles, will be available on EReserves and Blackboard, as indicated in the weekly schedule. Weekly Schedule 1. Part One: Approaches to Politics and the City a. 9 September: Introduction i. 1903 Georg Simmel, The Metropolis and Mental Life in Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson, eds. The City Reader. Malden: Blackwell, 2002. ii. 1938 Louis Wirth, Urbanism as a Way of Life in Richard Legates, ed. The City Reader. London: Routledge, 2003. (Blackboard) iii. 1961 Jane Jacobs, The Uses of City Neighborhoods, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Modern Library, 1993. (Blackboard)

iv. 1996 Charles Tilly, What Good Is Urban History? Journal of Urban History 22 (1996): 702-19 (E-reserves) v. Recommended 1. 1972 Richard Morse, A Prolegomenon to Latin American Urban History, Hispanic American Historical Review 52, no. 3 (Aug 1972): 359-94. (E-reserves) 2. 1998 Diego Armus and John Lear, The trajectory of Latin American urban history, Journal of Urban History 24 (1998): 291301 3. 2001 Michael Derham, "How Green Was My Valley? Urban History in Latin America," Journal of Urban History 28, no. 2 (2001): 278-91. b. 16 September: Urban Primacy i. 1922 Max Weber, The City. New York: Free Press, 1968. (Parts 1, 4, 5) ii. 1998 Brian Bauer, The Social Organization of Cusco and its Ceque System, The Sacred Landscape of the Inca: The Cusco Ceque System. Austin: U of Texas Press, 1998. (Blackboard) iii. 2000 Inga Clendinnen, Part One: The City, The Aztecs: An Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. iv. Recommended 1. 1958 Richard Morse, From Community to Metropolis: A Biography of So Paulo. Gainesville: U of Florida Press, 1958. 2. 1967 Glenn Beyer, The Urban Explosion in L America: A Continent in the Process of Modernization. Ithaca: Cornell U Press, 1967. 3. 1974 James Scobie, Buenos Aires: Plaza to Suburb, 1870-1910. Oxford: Oxford U Press, 1992. 4. 1978 David Myers, Caracas: The Politics of Intensifying Primacy, in Wayne Cornelius and Robert Kemper, Latin American Urban Research. Beverly Hills: Sage, 1978. 2. Part Two: Urban Metapolitics a. 23 September: The City as Chaos i. 1968 Henri Lefebvre, Right to the City, in Eleanor Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas, eds. Writings on Cities. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 1996. ii. 1970s-80s Henri Lefebvre, State, Space, World: Selected Essays. Neil Brenner and Stuart Elden, eds. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota Press, 2009. (Chapters 5, 7-11, 14-15) iii. 1994 - Gareth Jones, The Latin American city as contested space: A manifesto, Bulletin of Latin American Research 13 (1994): 1-12. (E-reserves)

iv. Recommended: 1. 2000 Anton Rosenthal, Spectacle, Fear, and Protest: A Guide to the History of Urban Public Space in Latin America, Social Science History 24, no. 1 (2000): 33-73. (E-reserves) 2. 2005 Jay Kinsbruner, The Colonial Spanish-American City: Urban Life in the Age of Atlantic Capitalism. Austin: U of Texas Press, 2005. 3. 2008 David Harvey, The Right to the City, New Left Review 53 (Sept-Oct 2008): 23-40. b. 30 September: The City as Order i. 1938 Lewis Mumford, Social Basis of the New Urban Order, The Culture of Cities. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1981. ii. 1984 Angel Rama, The Lettered City. Durham: Duke U Press, 1996. iii. 2003 Setha Low, The cultural meaning of the plaza: The history of the Spanish-American gridplan-plaza urban design in Robert Rotenberg and Gary McDonogh, eds. The Cultural Meaning of Urban Space. Westport: Bergin and Garvey, 2003. (Blackboard) iv. Recommended 1. 2000 Setha Low, On the Plaza: The Politics of Public Space and Culture. Austin: U of Texas Press, 2000. 2. 2005 David S. Parker Middle-Class Mobilization and the Language of Orders in Urban Latin America: From Caste to Category in Early Twentieth-Century Lima Journal of Urban History 31 (Mar 2005): 367-81. 3. 2008 Christina M. Jimnez, From the Lettered City to the Sellers City: Vendor Politics and Public Space in Urban Mxico, 1880-1926 in Gyan Prakash, ed. The Spaces of the Modern City: Imaginaries, Politics, and Everyday Life. Princeton: Princeton U Press, 2008. c. 7 October: The City as Aspiration i. 1929 Le Corbusier, City of Tomorrow and its Planning in Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson, eds. The City Reader. Malden: Blackwell, 2002. (Blackboard) ii. 1989 James Holston, The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Braslia. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1989. (Chapters 1-6) iii. 1998 James Scott, Cities, People, and Language and Authoritarian High Modernism, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Have: Yale U Press, 1999. iv. Recommended 1. 1967 Francis Violich and Juan Astica, Community Development and the Urban Planning Process in Latin America. Los Angeles: U of California, 1967.

2. 1998 James Scott, The High Modernist City: An Experiment and a Critique, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Have: Yale U Press, 1999. 3. 1999 Arturo Almandoz, Transfer of Urban Ideas: The Emergence of Venezuelan Urbanism in the Proposals for 1930s Caracas, International Planning Studies 4, no 1 (Feb 1999): 79-95. 4. 2005 Richard J. Williams, Modernist Civic Space and the Case of Braslia Journal of Urban History 32 (Nov 2005): 120-137. 3. Part Three: Urbanization and Mass Politics a. 14 October: Urban Populism i. 1972 Manuel Castells Urbanization and The Urban Ideology in Ida Susser, ed. The Castells Reader on Cities and Social Theory. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2002. (Blackboard) ii. 1985 Herbert Braun, The Assassination of Gaitn: Public Life and Urban Violence in Colombia. Madison: U of Wisconsin Press, 2003. iii. Recommended 1. 1975 Jorge Hardoy, Urbanization in Latin America: Approaches and Issues. Garden City: Anchor Press, 1975. 2. 1981 Douglas Butterworth and John Chance, Latin American Urbanization. Cambridge: Cambridge U Press, 1981. 3. 1987 Jeffrey Needell, A Tropical Belle Epoque: Elite Culture and Society in Turn of the Century Rio de Janeiro. Cambridge: Cambridge U Press, 1987. 4. 1995 Christopher G. Boone Streetcars and Politics in Rio de Janeiro: Private Enterprise versus Municipal Government in the Provision of Mass Transit 1903-1920 Journal of Latin American Studies 27, no 2 (May 1995): 343-65. 5. 2001 Hilda Sbato, The Many and the Few: Political Participation in Republican Buenos Aires. Palo Alto: Stanford U Press, 2001. b. 21 October: Electoral Politics in the City i. 1994 John Mollenkopf, How to Study Urban Politics, A Phoenix in the Ashes: The Rise and Fall of the Koch Coalition in New York City Politics. Princeton: Princeton U Press, 1994. (Blackboard) ii. 1994 Diane Davis, Urban Leviathan: Mexico City in the Twentieth Century. Philadelphia: Temple U Press, 1994. iii. Recommended 1. 1971 Donald Hodges, ed. Philosophy of the Urban Guerrilla: The Revolutionary Writings of Abraham Guilln. New York: William Morrow, 1973.

2. 1976 Alejandro Portes and John Walton, Urban Latin America: The Political Condition from Above and Below. Austin: U of Texas Press, 1976. 3. 1987 J Logan and H Molotch, The City as a Growth Machine, Urban Fortunes. Berkeley: U of California Press, 1987. 4. 1993 Richard Walter, Politics and Urban Growth in Buenos Aires, 1910-1942. Cambridge: Cambridge U Press, 2003. 5. 2002 Leonardo Avritzer, Democracy and the Public Space in Latin America. Princeton: Princeton U Press, 2002. c. 28 October: Urban Politics in the Neoliberal Era i. 1978 Manuel Castells, Collective Consumption and Urban Contradictions in Advanced Capitalism, City, Class, and Power. London: Macmillan, 1978. (Blackboard) ii. 2004 Gerd Schnwalder, Linking Civil Society and the State: Urban Popular Politics, the Left, and Local Government in Peru, 1980-1992. University Park: Penn State U Press, 2004. iii. Recommended 1. 2000 Javier Auyero, The Hyper Shantytown: Neo-Liberal Violence(s) in the Argentine Slum, Ethnography 1, no. 1 (July 2000): 93-116. 2. 2003 Tim Campbell, The Quiet Revolution: Decentralization and the Rise of Political Participation in Latin American Cities. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburg Press, 2003. 3. 2004 Alan Gilbert, Love in the Time of Enhanced Capital Flows: Reflections on the Links between Liberalization and Informality, in Nezar Alsayyad and Ananya Roy, eds. Urban Informality: Transnational Perspectives from the Middle East, Latin America, and South Asia. Oxford: Lexington Books, 2004. 4. 2005 Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Militants and Citizens: The Politics of Participatory Democracy in Porto Alegre. Palo Alto: Stanford U Press, 2005. 5. 2008 Kathleen Bruhn, Urban Protest in Mexico and Brazil. Cambridge: Cambridge U Press, 2008. 4. Part Four: Cultural Politics in the City a. 4 November: Urban Racial and Ethnic Politics i. 1995 Michael Keith, Identity and the Spaces of Authenticity, Social Identities 1, no. 2 (Aug 1995): 297-315. (E-reserves) ii. 1997 Stuart Hall, Old and New Identities, Old and New Ethnicities, in Anthony King, ed. Culture, Globalization, and the World-System:

Contemporary Conditions for the Representation of Identity. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota Press, 1997. (Blackboard) iii. 1995 Joo Jos Reis, Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U Press, 1995. iv. Recommended 1. 1991 George Reid Andrews, Blacks and Whites in So Paulo, Brazil, 1888-1988. Madison: U of Wisconsin Press, 1991. 2. 1993 Howard Winant, The Theoretical Status of the Concept of Race in Les Back and J. Solomos, eds. Theories of Race and Racism. London: Routledge, 2000. 3. 1997 Teresa Meade. Civilizing Rio: Reform and Resistance in a Brazilian City, 18891930. University Park: Penn State Press, 1997. b. 11 November: Gendered Space in the City i. 1992 Jean Franco Going public: Reinhabiting the private in Mary Louise Pratt and Kathleen Newman, eds. Critical Passions: Selected Essays. Durham: Duke U Press, 1999. (Blackboard) ii. 2001 Elaine Bliss, Compromised Positions: Prostitution, Public Health, and Gender Politics in Revolutionary Mexico City. University Park: Penn State Press, 2001. iii. Recommended 1. 1991 Donna Guy, Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family, and Nation in Argentina. Lincoln: U of Nebraska Press, 1991. 2. 1994 Lilia Rodriguez, Barrio Women: Between the Urban and the Feminist Movement, L American Perspectives 21, no. 3 (Sum 1994) 3. 1996 Matthew Guttmann, The Meanings of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico City. Berkeley: U of California Press, 1996. 4. 1998 Jane Jacobs, Staging Difference: Aestheticization and the Politics of Difference in Contemporary Cities in Jane Jacobs and Ruth Fincher, eds. Cities of Difference. New York: Guilford Press, 1998. (Blackboard) 5. 2005 Jane Mangan, Trading Roles: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Urban Economy in Colonial Potos. Durham: Duke U Press, 2005. 5. Part Five: Informal Politics in the City a. 18 November: The Marginality Debate i. 1989 Cristbal Kay, Marginality: Social Relations and Capital Accumulation, Latin American Theories of Development and Underdevelopment. London: Routledge, 1989. (Blackboard) ii. 2004 Janice Perlman, Marginality: From Myth to Reality in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro, 1969-2002 in Nezar Alsayyad and Ananya Roy, eds. Urban

Informality: Transnational Perspectives from the Middle East, Latin America, and South Asia. Oxford: Lexington Books, 2004. (Blackboard) iii. 2006 Marie Francois, A Culture of Everyday Credit: Housekeeping, Pawnbroking, and Governance in Mexico City, 1750-1920. Lincoln: U of Nebraska Press, 2006. iv. Recommended 1. 1960 Carolina Maria de Jesus, Child of the Dark: The Diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus. New York: Penguin, 1963. 2. 1976 Janice Perlman, The Myth of Marginality: Urban Poverty and Politics in Rio de Janeiro. Berkeley: U of California Press, 1976. 3. 1983 Manuel Castells, The City and the Grassroots: A CrossCultural Theory of Urban Social Movements. Berkeley: U of California Press, 1983. 4. 1993 Thomas Holloway, Policing Rio de Janeiro: Repression and Resistance in a 19th Century City. Palo Alto: Stanford U Press, 1993. 5. 2006 Mike Davis, Planet of Slums. London: Verso, 2006. b. 2 December: From Marginality to Periphery i. 1989 James Holston, The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Braslia. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1989. (Chapters 7-8) ii. 1996 Elizabeth Leeds, Cocaine and Parallel Polities in the Brazilian Urban Periphery: Constraints on local level democratization. Latin American Research Review 31, no. 3 (1996) iii. 2008 Sian Lazar, El Alto, Reb City: Self and Citizenship in Andean Bolivia. Durham: Duke U Press, 2008. iv. Recommended 1. 1995 Cathy Schneider, Shantytown Protest in Pinochets Chile. Philadelphia: Temple U Press, 1995. 2. 2004 - Partha Chaterjee, The Politics of the Governed, The Politics of the Governed: Reflections on Popular Politics in Most of the World. New York: Columbia U Press, 2004. (Blackboard) 3. 2004 Christina M. Jimnez Popular Organizing for Public Services: Residents Modernize Morelia, Mexico, 1880-1920 Journal of Urban History, May (2004); vol. 30: pp. 495 - 518. 4. 2010 Alejandro Velasco, A Weapon as Powerful as the Vote: Urban Protest and Electoral Politics in Venezuela, 1978-1983, Hispanic American Historical Review 90, no 4 (Nov 2010): 661-95. c. 9 December: From Periphery to Informality i. 2007 James Holston, Citizenship in Disjunctive Democracies, in Joseph Tulchin and Meg Ruthenburg, eds. Citizenship in Latin America. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2007. (Blackboard)

ii. 2004 Nezar Alsayyad, Urban Informality as a New Way of Life, in Nezar Alsayyad and Ananya Roy, eds. Urban Informality: Transnational Perspectives from the Middle East, Latin America, and South Asia. Oxford: Lexington Books, 2004. (Blackboard) iii. 2008 Brodwyn Fischer, A Poverty of Rights: Citizenship and Inequality in Twentieth Century Rio de Janeiro. Palo Alto: Stanford U Press, 2008. (Intro, Parts I, II, and IV) iv. Recommended 1. 2001 Teresa Caldeira, City of Walls: Crime, Segregation, and Citizenship in So Paulo. Berkeley: U of California Press, 2001. 2. 2004 Ton Salman Apocryphal Citizenship: Anthropologizing the Citizenship Debate in Latin America Journal of Urban History 30 (Sep 2004): 853-873. (E-reserves) 3. 2004 Daniel Goldstein, The Spectacular City: Violence and Performance in Urban Bolivia. Durham: Duke U Press, 2004. 4. 2007 James Holston, Insurgent Citizenship: Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil. Princeton: Princeton U Press, 2007. 6. Part Six: Urban Geopolitics a. TUESDAY 14 December: Urban Flows of People/Capital/Politics i. 2006 Saskia Sassen, National and Transnational Urban Systems and The New Urban Economy, Cities in a World Economy. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 2006. (Blackboard) ii. 2007 Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof, Tale of Two Cities: New York and Santo Domingo after 1950. Princeton: Princeton U Press, 2007. iii. Recommended 1. 1999 - Samuel Baily. Immigrants in the Lands of Promise: Italians in Buenos Aires and NYC, 18701914. Ithaca: Cornell U Press, 1999. 2. 2003 - George Ydice, The Funkification of Rio, The Expediency of Cultures: Uses of Culture in the Global Era. Durham: Duke U Press, 2003.