This course is an introduction to colonial Latin American studies. It is organized around a series of important questions or problems that emerged with the so-called “discovery” (i.e. the conquest and colonization) of the so-called “New World” (i.e. the Americas). Central to the ideology of the Spanish empire, these overlapping questions involve the legitimacy of the conquest; the production of knowledge about the Americas and its inhabitants; and the exploitation of American people and resources. Although participants in these discussions drew on older discursive traditions and authoritative sources, they had to deploy them in ways that diverged fundamentally from prior usage. As a result, many scholars believe that the answers proposed to these questions established some of the paradigms that continue to structure the modern world. The course is organized thematically, and we will follow each problem and its implications chronologically over the course of the colonial period by reading texts produced in and about the Americas between the late fifteenth and the eighteenth centuries.

This class counts toward the Spanish major and as literature credit toward the Spanish minor.