For those of you eagerly awaiting a lengthy 5,000 word epic tale of the exhibiting of heroism, the rescuing of damsels in distress, and the escaping by a whisker of the death's clutches that was our trip to Granada and Córdoba, you're just going to have to wait a bit longer. That dramatic tale will come, and now that I've hyped it up so much, it will be nothing but disappointment. Today, however, I want to talk about the first real class at The Universidad de Málaga (UMA).
In comparison to heroic tales, it may seem boring, but I assure you, my three readers, that it was anything but. In fact, it was actually somewhat interesting. Well, on a small scale, I didn't find the subject matter that interesting today, but on a big scale it was very interesting because it indicates the way the course is going to be taught.
As many of you know, the course I am taking at UMA is Historia de América en la Edad Moderna or History of America in the Modern Era. The study proceeds from the pre-Colombian civilizations up to, but not including the Bolivarian revolutions in the early 19th century. Any interesting time, to be certain, and one with which I'm not particularly familiar.
Well, naturally, to enter directly into the highly advanced ancient civilization would be to forget an explanation of how they came to be. Therefore, we began the first content-based course with theories about how the western hemisphere came to be populated. Were we discussing modern day theories based on archaeological and anthropological evidence? No. Rather, we were discussing 15th and 16th century theories about how there came to be people in the western hemisphere - everything from "they originated here" to "they're descended from Vikings."
Well, these theories might be interesting, but it seems to confuse to the focus of the course, no? The theme of the course is the western hemisphere. There could be some purpose to explaining the different theories that obtained in Europe at this time about the populating of the western hemisphere - for example, how this influenced different explorers' interactions with the indigenous peoples. However, not only was this not mentioned, but come the last 15 minutes of the class, we said goodbye to all these theories, and talked about the currently accepted entry via Bering Strait theory.
So then what purpose did the introduction of these now debunked theories serve for the course as whole? It served the purpose of removing the indigenous people as the focus by replacing them with the European elite. The course focuses on the regions with which Spain had contact. The book that is to provide complementary reading for the course is titled something like América Española y América Portuguesa. Great, then why did we spend 15 minutes talking about Leif Ericson, Erik the Red, and Thorvald, and their journeys conquering Scotland, Iceland, Greenland, and their entry into Quebec? I mean, Thorvald's kind of a cool name, but the dude's influence on the western hemisphere has to be said to be minimal.
On top of all of this, there was the constant problem of lexicon. I mean, in the United States, any semi-respectable historian has stopped talking about the "discovery" of the western hemisphere. Not here. Here, Cristóbal Colón descubrió el Nuevo Mundo en 1492. And the rhetoric surrounding what is commonly referred to as the Colombian exchange by enlightened American historians is even worse. For example, in the PowerPoint presentation our professor used throughout the class, the phrases "razas avanzadas" and "culturas civilizadas" (advanced races and civilized cultures) appeared with frequency to refer to Europeans. The obvious problem is that when these phrases are used as characterizations, it implies the opposite of the people against whom the Europeans are being defined.
Perhaps among center-right to rightist historians in the United States (of which there aren't a whole lot), this type of phrasing is acceptable. From my leftist cultural relativist perspective this is akin to making a normative judgment about the worth of the lives of people based on their ethnicity alone. It implies the thinking Europeans better, Amerindians worse. Hence the reason why I wish I had understood less of the Spanish - then I wouldn't have been so frustrated with what I already deem to be a racist teaching of American (total) history. Perhaps it will improve, perhaps not. Vamos a ver.
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