History of Ibero-American culture. Part II: Latin America and expanding Europe

general courses

The lecture is directed especially to students interested in interculturalism, anthropology, history and American studies.

The lecture discusses the history of expansion of the European culture in the colonial age and issues of culture contact and intercultural communication. It aims at presenting the complicated process of emergence, on the American continent, of a new culture that transformed both the cultural imports from Europe and the heritage of the indigenous civilizations going back to the second millennium B.C.E. The lecture covers also the influence of the colonization of the New World on the cultural and social changes occurring in the Old World. Taking into consideration both European and Indigenous points of view, Ibero-American culture is shown in a temporal perspective from the 16th century till the end of the colonial period, and it introduces the issues of formation of the Latin American civilization. Participation in the lecture does not require having completed the first course, since each of them can be treated as a separate whole.

The lecture discusses the history of the transatlantic expansion of the European culture in the Age of Discovery and colonization, especially to the issues of culture contact and intercultural communication and to the formation of the new civilization on the American continent. While discussing various forms of expansion of the Mediterranean culture and European transatlantic empires, as well as the issues of inter-cultural transfer, the lecture draws examples from the different regions of the American continent, both during the first contacts and the conquest and the subsequent centuries-long colonization. At the same time, it aims at presenting the complicated process in which an entirely new culture arose on the American continent as a result of the encounters between the Old and the New Worlds, a culture that transformed both the cultural imports from Europe and the heritage of the indigenous civilizations going back to the second millennium B.C.E.

This history of „intercultural encounters” will also cover relevant European literature (including selected works of belles-lettres) from the 15th-18th centuries and an extensive corpus of native sources, especially those originating within the central Mexican Nahua culture. Taking into consideration both European and Indigenous points of view, Ibero-American culture is shown in a temporal perspective spanning from the sixteenth century up to the end of the colonial period, and it introduces the issues of formation of the Latin American civilization.

The proposed approach allows for showing the twofoldness and the parallelism in key cultural processes, as well as discussing multidirectional influences between the Mediterranean and the Indigenous worlds.

Thanks to the proposed approach to the subject, the classes will cover both the European and native viewpoints, show the dual course and parallelism of key cultural processes, compare mutual reactions and also perception and understanding. This will also open the way to a discussion on the multi-directional mutual influences between the Mediterranean and native worlds, transforming the culture not only of the New, but also the Old Continent. The topics will be divided into two separate lecture cycles (part 1. and 2.), the first being more general and introductory. Participation in the lecture, however, does not require having completed the first course, since each of them can be treated as a separate whole.

Supplementary reading:

 H. Boone, Stories in Red and Black, University of Texas Press, Austin 2000

 E. H. Boone, T. Cummins eds., Native Traditions in the Postconquest World, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C. 1998 (online: http://www.doaks.org/BONTC.html)

 H. Cortés, Listy o zdobyciu Meksyku, Novus Orbis, Gdańsk 1997

 A. Durston, Pastoral Quechua: The History of Christian Translation in Colonial Peru, 1550-1650, University of Notre Dame Press, 2007.

 K. Deagan, Colonial Transformation: Euro-American Cultural Genesis in the Early Spanish-American Colonies, Journal of Anthropological Research, Vol. 52, No. 2. (Summer, 1996), s. 135-160

 Ch. Gibson, The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule. A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico 1519-1810, Stanford. Cal.: Stanford University Press 1964.

 S. Gruzinski, La pensée métisse, Paris: Fayard 1999 or: The Mestizo Mind: The Intellectual Dynamics of Colonization and Globalization, Routledge 2002

 S. Gruzinski The Conquest of Mexico: The Incorporation of Indian Societies into the Western World, 16th-18th Centuries, Polity Press 1993.

 John Hemming, The Conquest of the Incas, 1973.

 M. Jansen, L. Reyes García Códices, Caciques y Comunidades. Cuadernos, Asociación de Historiadores Latinoamericanistas Europeas, Leiden 1997 http://www.ahila.nl/publicaciones/cuadernos.html

 G. Lamana, Domination Without Dominance. Inca-Spanish Encounter in Early Colonial Peru. Durham and London, Duke University Press 2008.

 M. León-Portilla, Have We Really Translated the Mesoamerican „Ancient Word, [w:] B. Swann (ed.), On the Translation of Native American Literature, Washington-London: Smithsonian Institution Press 1992, s. 313-338.

 M. León-Portilla, Sánchez-Albornoz (red.), América Latina en la época colonial: Economía y sociedad, Barcelona 1990.

 J. Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest. A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, Sixteenth Through Eighteenth Centuries, Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press 1992

 J. Lockhart, We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico, Wipf & Stock Publishers 2004.

 S. Mac Cormac, Religion in the Andes. Vision and Imagination in Early Colonial Peru, Princetow Uniwersity Press 1991.

 J. Olko Między obrazem a tekstem. Relacje o przeszłości w przedhiszpańskim i kolonialnym Meksyku, w: Narracja, historia, fikcja. Dawne kultury w historiografii i literaturze, red. Łukasz Grutzmacher, IBI AL UW i Wydawnictwo Trio, Warszawa 2009, s. 35-48.

 J. Olko Native Pictorial Genealogies of Central Mexico: Tracing Pre-Hispanic Roots in a Colonial Genre, publikacja internetowa w ramach Mapas Project, Wired Humanities Project, University of Oregon, 2008 http://vma.uoregon.edu/articles/OlkoGenealogies.pdf

 J. Olko i J. Źrałka, W krainie czerni i czewieni. Kultury prekolumbijskiej Mezoameryki, Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, Warszawa 2008.

 J. Olko, Meksyk przed konkwista, PIW, Warszawa 2010.

 A. Pagden, European Encounters with the New World: From Renaissance to Romanticism, Yale University Press 1994.

 B.C. Peña, Imágenes Contra el Olvido. El Perú en las ilustraciones de Juan Diego de Ocaña, Lima, PUCP 2011.

 P. Pizarro, Relacja o odkryciu i podboju Królestwa Peru, Gdańsk 1995.

 P.Prządka-Giersz, Supervivencia de las tradiciones prehispánicas en la sociedad colonial del Perú: Testamentos de mujeres indígenas de la élite y clase media del siglo XVI y XVII, Temas Americanistas 34 (2015): 124-138.

 M. Rostworowska, Historia Państwa Inków, PIW, Warszawa 2006.

 Steve J. Stern, Peru's Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest: Huamanga to 1640, University of Wisconsin Press 1992.

 J. Szemiński, M. Ziółkowski, Mity rytuały i polityka Inków, PIW Warszawa 2006.

 J. Szemiński, O Inkach uwagi prawdziwe. Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, (tłum. J. Szemiński), Trio, Warszawa 2000.

 T. Todorov, Podbój Ameryki. Problem innego, tłum. J. Wojcieszak, Warszawa: Fundacja Aletheia 1996.

 R. Tomicki, Ludzie i bogowie. Indianie meksykańscy wobec Hiszpanów we wczesnej fazie konkwisty, Ossolineum, Wrocław 1990

 R. Tomicki, Między Scyllą pogaństwa a Charybdą chrześcijaństwa: indiańscy arystokraci z Tetzcoco (Nowa Hiszpania) w 1539 roku. Studium mikroetnohistoryczne, Etnografia Polska, 1998, t. 42, s. 107-140.

 R. Tomicki, Synowie Słońca, synowie Boga. „Zderzenie języków” podczas podboju Meksyku, w: Między drzewem życia a drzewem poznania. Księga ku czci prof. Andrzej Wiercińskiego, wyd. M. Ziółkowski, A. Sołtysiak, Warszawa-Kielce: Uniwersytet Warszawski i Akademia Świętokrzyska 2002, s. 251-269.

 S. Wood, Transcending Conquest. Nahua Views of Spanish Colonial Mexico, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press 2003.

 M. Zuloaga Rada, La conquista negociada: guarangas, autoridades coloniales, Peru (1532-1610). Lima IFEA 2012.

Knowledge:

- basic knowledge on the types and specificity of the object of study and methodology involved in studies on culture, especially with reference to the area of Spanish colonization in the New World;

- knowing the basic terminology of literary studies and cultural studies;

- knowing the basic terminology of art history with reference to colonial America;

- organized knowledge on the given Mediterranean culture and language across the ocean;

- organized knowledge on a discipline that is relatively unknown in Poland but is of great importance for the contemporary humanities;

- knowing the problems of culture clash and intercultural dialogue and transfer, cultural metissage, and also basic knowledge on the cultures of Mesoamerica after the Spanish conquest and on the Ibero-American colonial culture in a broad sense;

- familiarity with the topics making it easier to acquire more in-depth and detailed knowledge and to expand it to include other cultural regions of the American continent;

- knowing the main challenges of studying relations between civilizations;

- understanding the correlation between the development of culture and social changes;

- learning about the course teacher’s experience of criticism and analysis of sources (historical texts and documents, works of art) and about evaluating common views and hypotheses, which will make it easier for students to work on sources and build their own interpretations as well as to develop critical, independent thinking skills.

Skills:

- ability to interpret basic literary and historical texts regarding the colonization of the New World;

- ability to interpret works of visual art, also in the context of other sources from the epoch;

- basic research abilities allowing for formulating and solving research problems regarding the subject of the course; ability to conduce basic analysis using interdisciplinary methods and research tools;

Social competences:

- awareness of the dynamic development of culture and emergence of new research methods and paradigms;

- understanding the importance of preserving richness, integrity and awareness of the cultural heritage, including particular traditions of the Mediterranean and the New World.

- knowledge and understanding of fundamental challenges related to study of culture and intercivilizational relations.

Students will be required to master the knowledge presented during the lectures, including the cultural processes and changes discussed in class, being able to correlate facts and key issues for the topics involved, as well as having read an item of their choice from the list of supplementary reading. The oral exam takes place after the second semester of the course. Students are allowed two unexcused absences per semester.