Lands and Peoples of Latin America (GEOG/LAST 357)

Summer 2017 Brasília (DF), Manaus (AM) and Boa Vista (RR)

Course Description:

GEOG/LAST 357: Lands and Peoples of Latin America is an interdisciplinary course that introduces the student to the Brazilian Amazon, its challenges and the struggles the government and community-based organizations have undergone to promote sustainable regional change. Drawing on the power that social movements in have had in engaging international awareness about the Amazon, this course helps build the intellectual and experiential knowledge that students need for understanding: a. the meaning of the continued international interest in the region; b. the Brazilian government’s responses to the pressure for sustainable land use and regional growth; c. the increased role of bottom-up communities in the Amazon; and d. the centrality of the Amazon to the .

This course thrives on the tenet that student learning works best when academic practice is integrated with curricular and co-curricular experiences. Thus learning and teaching in GEOG/LAST 357 will converge through a series of visits to physical or cultural sites (i.e., libraries, research institutes, government offices, and ecological ).

Curricular Activities GEOG/LAST 357 is a 3-unit, upper division course which gives students an opportunity to develop academic and professional skills while immersed in intensive contact with people, places and cultural patterns of a region (the Brazilian Amazon). As an on-site, faculty-led course, the curricular program will start in Brasília, Brazil’s capital, and a modernist inaugurated in 1960.

Course Materials In order to get the most of this cross-disciplinary journey, students will gain exposure to key research on the region which would help the whole class to quickly immerse itself into the main themes of GEOG/LAST 357. James Holton’s (1989) book, “The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasília,” provides the knowledge students would need for grasping Brazil’s aggressive modernist push for paving the way to steadier control of the Amazon. In Susanna Hecht & Alexander Cockburn’s (2010) book, “The Fate of the : Developers, Destroyers, and Defenders of the Amazon,” the class will be introduced to environmental and nationalist land use policies which would help students frame the “Amazonian problems” and the challenges the “modernist project” posed. All required readings we will be supplied by the instructor via online access.

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Co-curricular Program Site Visit Highlights

a. Brasília (D.F.): Brasília was designed as the gateway to the country’s vast interior, including the Amazon. While in Brasília, the class will visit: The National Library (Biblioteca Nacional); University of Brasília; JK Memorial; The Government Palace; the Metropolitan Cathedral; Indigenous Peoples’ Memorial; Cultural Complex of the Republic; Brasília’s National ; House of Representatives and the Brazilian Senate. This initial context-building experience is one step further into building historical background for a meaningful understanding of the political culture that has driven Amazonian development.

Next, the class will travel to Amazon proper: of Manaus (AM) and Boa Vista (RR), where the remainder of the course will be conducted.

b. Manaus (AM): Amazon House; Adolpho Lisboa Municipal Market; Federal University of Amazons; Brazil’s National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA); Amazon, Negro and Solimões Rivers; Local indigenous community; Manaus Botanical Gardens.

c. Boa Vista (RR): Federal University of (UFR); “Taba Lascada” Indigenous Community; The Viruá National Park. City landscapes: Culture Palace; Handcraft Center; Carlos Gomes Theater; Pioneers Monument; Anauá Park; Taumann Promenade.

The Faculty

Dr. Quirino de Brito (CSU, Chico’s Department of International Languages, Literatures and Cultures) is a native of Brazil, and lived in the Amazon region for over seventeen years. Dr. de Brito has conducted research both in Brazil and the United States, and earned a Ph.D. in from UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Currently, Dr. de Brito coordinates California State University’s (Chico) International Forum, and teaches International studies and Portuguese.

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