History of Colonial Latin America as Experienced Through the Arts

INSTRUCTOR: Javier Mendoza

SECTION: U56

SCHEDULE: Tuesday, Thursday, 9:30AM-10:45AM

This course is a survey of the history of Latin America from 1500-1800 through music written and performed in Latin America, visual art created in Latin America, and Literature/Poetry. Serious classical and liturgical music is covered along with known folk traditions. History is taught through the music, visual art, literature, and social construction. Priests accompanied the first conquistadors to the New World in the 15th and 16th centuries. These priests carried choir books with them. Details like these are not typically covered in a Latin American History course, nor in a course covering Western Music History. A class covering the arts of colonial Latin America broadens our understanding of the history and the circumstances of the colonial New World, while providing broader context to art created in Europe.

This course provides a visual landscape and soundscape to accompany the history that we may already know, painting a more complete picture of the culture and society of the time. The nature of the Spanish conquest, and the mixing of cultures created a new society in the New World. The arts were an important part of that society, and served as a vehicle for social construction to the government and church establishments. Social construction is a common theme in this course. The various roles of the arts in the viceregal situation will be discussed. Colonial Latin American music will also be presented with the intent of broadening our understanding of the established canon of western music, while also shedding light on our understanding of the Spanish conquest of the Americas.