Luis Valdez creates anomalous realities in two of his plays, "The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa" and "The Mummified Deer," in order to defy dominant expressions of reality as well as classifications of "Chicano" and "Mexican." The anomalous realities, represented primarily by a bodiless head in the first play and an eighty-four-year-old Yaqui…

This paper examines the historical relationship between education and globalisation in Latin America. This is no straightforward task. Hegel's vision of a continent without history and the rapacious expansion of Western culture from the sixteenth century profoundly transformed Latin America, and in turn stimulated a search for a distinctive…

Presents an historical perspective on the current hostilities over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands. The validity of British and Argentinian claims to the islands is evaluated. The social and political problems which motivated the Argentinian government to reclaim the islands by force are considered. (AM)

Proposes an analysis of the representations produced by the first generations of the Brazilian Republic about 19th-century Brazil. Presents a new direction for reading about the same period. (PA)

Traces the evolution of perspectives on Latin American underdevelopment to reveal the changing realities in Latin America as well as evolving world views. Covering the five centuries since Columbus discovered the West Indies, Topik concludes that the idea of underdevelopment is a European construct resulting from greater European progress and a…

Reports that between World War II and the Viet Nam era, leftist journalist Carleton Beals found it hard to get his writings condemning Central American dictators published in the United States. (FL)

In the 20 months that Isabel Peron served as the first female chief of state of a South American country, the mass media in Argentina underwent extreme stress. The Montoneros, a militant leftist organization, called for mass demonstrations against the orthodox Peronist people in their tabloid "La Causa Peronista." The tabloid's…

A broad, hemispheric approach to American history, called the Bolton thesis or a history of the Americas, can contribute something unique to a college curriculum formerly dependent on the more traditional surveys. It also poses some extraordinary challenges. Guidelines for teaching such a course are presented. (RM)

Holds that most U.S. books about Central America neglect or misrepresent the role and presence of Black people in that area and presents information to fill this gap. (GC)

Social urbanization denotes the socioeconomic transformation of space and the ideological extension of the urban system to former hinterlands. Social urbanization has occurred on the basis of large scale internal migration and has had a similar impact throughout Latin America. (Author/GC)

Describes the historical approaches to the decipherment of ancient Maya writing. Asserts that Mayan hieroglyphics are recognized as true writing because they represent the sounds and structure of spoken language. Discusses the history of Maya hieroglyphic writing and how it was used in that civilization. (PRA)

States that iconographic investigations of Olmec style art works have produced convincing evidence that rulership during the Early and Middle Formative Period of Mesoamerican prehistory was publicly legitimized by a visual charter. Shows that the charter's naturally derived symbols functioned within a system which stressed the human ruler's access…

Offers an overview of Later Formative period writing in Mesoamerica, and discusses recent findings. Asserts that analysis of the iconographic context of the script reveals considerable interdependence between text and context and provides a glimpse of the importance of cosmological considerations in the display of power. Discusses the importance…

Summarizes the nature of the pre-Hispanic pictorial communication system used by the Mixtec people of Mexico, who were creating manuscripts in which they recorded their histories, genealogies, and religious beliefs long before the Spanish reached the New World. Explains and illustrates the principal pictorial conventions. (PRA)

Professor George Sefa Dei has written and taught extensively in the fields of anti-colonialism and anti-racism. His latest work on the subject is "Anti-Colonialism and Education: The Politics of Resistance," co-edited with Arlo Kempf for Sense Publishers (2006). Dei and Kempf are also co-authoring a forthcoming volume on anti-colonial…