Alfonso Salgado Munoz

Not only will you learn a lot, but you will also be challenged by the professor during class to think deeply about your comments. Definitely take this course, you learn about Latin American Civ but from varying perspectives. He also gives really good constructive feedback and is always available for office hours. 1 Columbia University: Arts & Sciences Fall 2024 Course: LACVUN1020_002_2024_3-PRIMTEXTSOFLATINAMERCIV : LACVUN1020_002_2024_3 - PRIM TEXTS OF LATIN AMER CIV Instructor: Alfonso Salgado Munoz

A general overview of the history of Latin America, covers the Haitian Revolution up to the 21st-Century

I learned a ton about fundamental texts and thought in Latin America over a wide variety of topics and time periods. From Columbus to Afro-Peruvian mystics to Guevara, I learned about many individuals who have impacted Latin American in one way or another. I learned how to better deep dive into primary sources with a critical eye and while applying different lenses. I learned about a general chronology of certain events in Latin America and background information to those events.

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.

Latin American society as it developed throughout colonization and decolonization.

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.

One skill I developed in this class would have to be critical-thinking. To be very honest, anything involving history or politics has never been my biggest interest, so it definitely took more attention from me to really understand and analyze these historical events/movements/leadership in a way that someone who has great interest for these topics would. I think we were constantly pushed or encourage to challenge our beliefs and take in the social and historical contexts we were learning about to provide some sort of rationale behind why things might have occurred/or been ineffective. For me personally, this thought process was more internal than external--in the sense that I often found myself just trying to process these ideas in a more nuanced way, rather than simply sharing a very obvious interpretation of the texts we dealt with.

A general timeline of events in Latin American history, and some theory about historiography.

The course helped me trace some of the primary themes that have shaped thought and history in Latin America since the time of Christopher Columbus to the present day. I also encountered many of the key texts in Latin American intellectual history, many of them for the first time. For the ones that I'd read before, the course was also very valuable in developing new perspectives or opening new avenues of thought within already-familiar texts. Overall, I leave the course feeling like I have a better grasp of the primary thought currents that have shaped Latin America and feeling like I've gotten a chance to prod them, while simultaneously interrogating narratives of "global history" that seem to only focus on the West.

I learned about modern Latin American history through a wide variety of informative and thorough angles.