Promising Cocaine, Delivering Sugar: Commodity History and Thematic Approaches to Latin American History

Among the five courses I have put through faculty governance at Western Connecticut State University since arriving in the fall of 2006 are, “Conquest and Survival in Latin America, 1492-1812;” “Revolution and Resistance in Latin America, 1812 to the present;” and “From Salt to Cocaine: Commodities in Latin America.” The first two are attempts to move away from the traditional regional surveys both in name and in practice. The titles, which are intended to appeal to students unfamiliar with Latin America, were intended to signal the thematic nature of the courses. In each I have eschewed lectures for discussions based on primary source reading. Breaking from traditional lectures and breaking with chronology has allowed me to move beyond lectures intended to “cover” different periods or regions, and focus on a semester discussion that is wide ranging yet focused and cohesive. My commodity class was a result of my own interests, the wealth of scholarly and popular works on commodity history published in the past decade, my experience as a world history instructor, and my dissatisfaction with my previous attempts at national history. I have always resisted what I consider sensational topics though my students consistently want to write about the movies Scarface or Blow; and to read Killing Pablo. As a part of reevaluating what and how I teach I realized that this was a rather foolish self-imposed limitation. New studies on Coca and Cocaine have underscored both the legitimacy of the topic and its timeliness as a classroom subject; its appeal to undergraduates is an opportunity to engage them in this literature and thinking they would ignore if not for a title with some glitz.