History and Politics of Latin America c.1930 to the Present (AMER0074)

Latin America confounds observers. It is familiar and yet alien, alluring and yet unsettling, dionysian and yet dystopian. Once the ‘land of tomorrow’ now some view it as a ‘forgotten continent’. The great British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm called Latin America a ‘laboratory of historical change’, a place where processes familiar to him, such as the emergence of labour movements, the rise of fascism, the triumph and decline of revolutions, appeared tweaked by factors yet to be uncovered in ways yet to be explained. This survey is an introduction to the history of Latin America in the twentieth century. We will examine processes common to the region, the experiences of specific countries, and Latin America’s relations with the rest of the world. Beyond this, like Hobsbawm, we will consider how Latin America can help us think about the history of wider world.

This course addresses conceptions of the human body as constructed by artisanal practice, focussing on processes of making and materials: their affordances,...

Cutting a Figure: Making and Shaping the Body c. 1400-1550 (HART0176)

This course addresses conceptions of the human body as constructed by artisanal practice, focussing on processes of making and materials: their affordances, associations and the effects that are drawn from them. Focussing on the late medieval to Early Modern period, it explores an expanded field of crafted objects (tableware to armour) as well as some canonical sculptures and paintings, all works that variously represent, stand in for, dress, contain or serve the body.  Continuities with earlier periods as well as changing technologies of making, and developments like the emergence of the ideal ‘nude’ and forms of self-fashioning will be brought into view. Placing our objects of study in relation to wider social and political practices or beliefs, we discuss period discourses and ask how often-unstated constructions of difference (cultures, gender, appearance…) are at play. 

Each week the class will address a different theme in the making of the body with reference to one or more materials of making. The properties, working and effects of materials - from modelled clay to cloth of gold - will be analysed to gauge the ways they respond to and effect function, meaning and temporality. In a period in which durability and weight were often pre-requisites of crafted bodies, we also recognise fragility and how time remakes the body.