A little over one year ago, I began reading for my PhD comprehensive exams – a process that involved reading nearly 200 texts over the course of several months for four different fields of study, writing several syllabi and an historiographical paper, and being orally examined by four professors on what I had read. It was, as almost any PhD student will tell you, an incredibly stressful, tiring, and at-times dispiriting part of the PhD process. The last months of the entire ordeal were perhaps some of the most difficult – mentally and emotionally – of my many years in school due to the way that the comprehensive exam process is structured in the North American academy. But once I felt I had recovered from that time, I wanted to take what I had done and turn it into something (hopefully) useful to others. The syllabus found below is in part built out of and serves as a response to the comprehensive exam process (which I successfully completed in November 2018!), in hopes that I can share the knowledge and intellectual resources that I have acquired throughout my PhD program so far. Where possible, I have linked to the source directly.
One of my minor comprehensive exam fields was “History of Modern México,” which I designed in collaboration with my examiner for the field, Professor Gilbert M. Joseph. The syllabus that you will find below is an edited and adapted version of what I handed in as my written component for the field, and I hope that it may serve as an introductory English-language guide for those who are new to thinking about the history of modern México or who are simply looking for some reading recommendations. Although I am not an historian of modern México in any strict sense, as someone who studies the transnational migration and community formations of Mexicans in the U.S. I feel that it is necessary to understand the history of México in order to do this work rigorously and ethically. For me, Mexican history does not stop at the borders (whether its northern border shared with the U.S. or southern border shared with Guatemala and Belize), just as Mexican migrant history does not start at the U.S.-México border either. I hope that this syllabus can serve some use to those who are curious about Mexican history. Beyond that initial curiosity, though, I hope that this syllabus can help us begin to make sense of the long histories of colonialism, imperialism, white supremacy, cisheteropatriarchy, and violence that continue to haunt this continent. From the Mexican state continuing to work in concert with the violence of U.S. immigration policies; to the targeted murders of Indigenous land protectors and environmental activists; to the ongoing femicide crisis that has left thousands upon thousands of Mexican women dead over the last several decades, all of these horrors have their roots in modern Mexican history. Consider this syllabus a starting place and an offering. ~ M Reading List Themes:
COLONIAL PERIOD AND INDEPENDENCE: FOUNDATIONS OF THE MEXICAN NATION
MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE AND ITS AFTERMATHS
FORGING THE NATION IN THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY: INDIGENOUS PEOPLES, LAND, LABOUR, AND THE STATE
BLACKNESS, INDIGENEITY, AND THE U.S.-MÉXICO BORDERLANDS IN THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY
CULTURAL AND GENDERED DYNAMICS OF MEXICAN MODERNITY UNDER EL PORFIRIATO
THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION PT. I: UNDERSTANDING ORIGINS IN EL PORFIRIATO
THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION PT. II: ENTANGLEMENTS AND CLASHES BETWEEN THE MEXICAN STATE AND THE MEXICAN NATION
THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION PT. III: CULTURAL NATIONALISM
(RE)FORGING A MESTIZO NATION IN POST-REVOLUTIONARY MÉXICO
GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND CITIZENSHIP IN REVOLUTIONARY AND POST-REVOLUTIONARY MÉXICO
MESTIZAJE AND CHINESE MEXICANS: FROM CHINESE EXCLUSION TO THE COLD WAR
FROM COLD WAR TO DIRTY WAR: THE LONG ARC OF THE COLD WAR IN MÉXICO/THE MEXICAN COLD WAR
YOUTH MOVEMENTS IN COLD WAR MÉXICO: STUDENT CULTURES, THE MEXICAN MIDDLE CLASS, AND 1968
THE RISE OF NEOLIBERALISM: MEXICAN MODERNITY AND THE EZLN
TRANSNATIONAL WAR ON DRUGS IN THE TWENTIETH- AND TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURIES
TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY FEMINICIDIOS AT THE U.S.-MÉXICO BORDER/FRONTERA
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