Latin American Civilization II · History
A general overview of the history of Latin America, covers the Haitian Revolution up to the 21st-Century
I enjoyed going to this class, but the work was tedious. We spent a great deal of time reading novel-length case studies and learning seemingly basic writing skills (admittedly, I took this class as a second semester senior who had no interest in learning a new way to write a paper). My TAs graded harshly, perhaps because the material is fairly straightforward.
No work. Just write the essay weeks before and go to the TAs because they have a particular style of writing- and follow it!! The exam prep is about 2-3 hrs of solid prep for a week. Memorize broad concepts but also be able to recall details. I did not flashcard but took copious notes and debriefed them every class with a friend. So, make friends and take good notes what you missed might be covered by your friend and form study groups. Pay more attention to the lectures than on the readings.
Learned about political and historical concepts and patterns that have influenced Latin America over the last 200+ years. In section, learned how to get the most out of academic readings and participate more fully in group discussion.
A great overview of contemporary Latin American history. Special attention to South America (good or bad, depending on your perspective), but Milanich also makes an effort to delve into some more obscure topics that are generally overshadowed by Mexico, Argentina and Chile. Milanich is very intelligent and thorough--though sometimes comically wordy (you get a lot of "errrrm....illustrative of the countervailing vicissitudes..errmm..". That bothered a lot of folks). She emphasizes social history, so you pay a lot of attention to slavery and gender.
Dr. Moya is a funny engaging professor. His course is basically a lecture based course where he goes over the powerpoints until the class time runs out. During his lectures he will have tangents that exemplify Latin American politics, social structure, and mainly culture (UNESCO world heritage sites). His lectures can be dry at the details/years/history- as a pre-med I found economics portion to be difficult to understand. He is very well receiving in office hours and clarifies many doubts you may have in the course. That said, the TA I had Schwartz was hard. He does do his best to keep the discussions going but overall the TA was a very hard grader. So discussions are huge portion of this class (20%) and basically they go over readings for the week. Mind you that the readings are almost never tested on the exam- even if they are, they would be very broad concept to make sure you have done the reading. So, my only regret is that the discussion sections should have a review on the lectures covered that week/previous week. The TA grades the essays harsh- I mean literally the max he gave for the essays (25%) was an A- because he "doesn't believe in As." I don't know how he graded the discussion class in general but generally everyone did well in A-range. Now the elephant in the room. The multiple choice based midterm and final....... The midterm is (25%) and is 100 Multiple choic…
I found this course to be very useful and I have a better understanding of the broad social and political trends in Latin America during this time period.
A general timeline of events in Latin American history, and some theory about historiography.
I wanted to write a review for this professor given that she does not yet have a silver nugget. Honestly, I wish we had Professor Milanich teaching at Columbia College. She is professional, poised, and pointed in lecture. I am not even a History major, but this class was my favorite course last semester. Prof. Milanich was always prepared to teach and made Latin American history relevant and fascinating for all, even notifying us of pertinent campus lectures throughout the term. I came into her class expecting to just fulfill a Global Core, but I left with a new idea for interdepartmental research. Do yourself a favor, and take this class.
I learned about modern Latin American history through a wide variety of informative and thorough angles.