Nearly Everything You Need To Know About the Aztecs Can Be Found Within the Sacred Precinct.

This engaging video examines the most important part of the entire Aztec world: the literal center of the Universe: The Sacred Precinct of Mexico-Tenochtitlan. Now, nearly everything you need to know about the Aztecs can be found within this sacred space located in the center of its majestic city: Tenochtitlan. There’s about 78 structures, although all of them haven’t been found yet…. But these buildings can you teach you nearly everything… about the Culhua Mexica. You can learn about Aztec religion…. Social structure… architecture… engineering… sports… their cleanliness.

Model of Sacred Precinct is located at the Mexican National Museum of Anthropology and History.

This is the story of the Aztec’s historic 200+ year pilgrimage, as told from the 16th Century Primary source: The Codex Boturini.

The Aztecs came from a place in the north called: Aztlan, which means, “place of the White Heron.”

The Aztecs left their homeland Aztlan in about 1111 C.E. After more than 200 years of trials and tribulations, they stopped when they saw their sign from their god Huitzilopochtli: the eagle perched on the cactus. There, they would build one of the greatest cities in world history.

This is the story of their historic migration from Aztlan to Tenochtitlan in their own words.

This class looks at the birth and international expansion of an American industry of political marketing, with a special emphasis on Latin America. We will focus our attention on the cultural processes, sociopolitical contexts and moral utopias that shape the practice of political marketing in the U.S. and in different Latin American countries. By looking at the debates and expert practices at the core of the business of politics, we will explore how the “universal” concept of democracy is interpreted and reworked as it travels through space and time. Specifically, we will study how different groups experimenting with political marketing in different cultural contexts understand the role of citizens in a democracy.

Citizen participation is everywhere. Invoking it has become de rigueur when discussing cities and regions in the developing world. From the World Bank to the World Social Forum, the virtues of participation are extolled: From its capacity to “deepen democracy” to its ability to improve governance, there is no shortage to the benefits it can bring. While it is clear that participation cannot possibly “do” all that is claimed, it is also clear that citizen participation cannot be dismissed, and that there must be something to it. Figuring out what that something is — whether it is identifying the types of participation or the contexts in which it happens that bring about desirable outcomes — is the goal of the class.

This course centers on mechanisms of civilian control of the military. Relying on the influential texts of Lasswell, Huntington, and Finer, the first classes clarify the basic tensions between the military and civilians. A wide-ranging series of case studies follows. These cases are chosen to create a field of variation that includes states with stable civilian rule, states with stable military influence, and states exhibiting fluctuations between military and civilian control. The final three weeks of the course are devoted to the broader relationship between military and society.

The Codice Maya de Mexico has one primary story, it records the complex movements of the planet Venus across its 4 cycles. The 10-pages codex records 65 complete Venus Cycles, which takes a total of 104 years.

The Codice Maya of Mexico was written in 1,110 CE by a single Mayan scribe. It is the oldest book in all the Americas. This video will translate this 900 year old Maya Codex, page-by-page.

The book was found in the 1960s by looters, and it's taken more than 50 years to analyze and authenticate this book. But this Mexican book is 100% real.

Tiene como objetivo ser fuente de consulta amigable y visual para un público diverso, interesado en las expresiones sociales contemporáneas, particularmente para los estudiosos del tema que puedan poner en contexto la migración de los países latinoamericanos sin restringirla exclusivamente al cruce entre México, Centroamérica y los Estados Unidos.

[Translation:] "Dictionary of Immigration and Otherness in the Americas in the 21st Century"

Its aim is to be a friendly and visual source of reference for a diverse audience interested in contemporary social expressions, particularly for scholars of the subject who can contextualize the migration of Latin American countries without exclusively restricting it to the crossing between Mexico, Central America, and the United States.

In addition to terminology associated with migration and immigration, this Spanish-language dictionary contains profiles of all countries in the Americas, showing patterns of migration, summarizing immigration laws, and including an example of migration-related art or literature for each country.

Diego Rivera’s, “The History of Mexico: An Epic of the Mexican,” is one of his masterpieces. The fresco mural tells more than 2,000 years of Mexican History, but there’s an emphasis on the last 700 years of Mexican History. The mural discusses more than 230 historical figures and historical events within 554 meters at the north stairwell at the National Palace in Mexico City - Palacio Nacional.

This class explores the interrelationship between humans and natural environments. It does so by focusing on conflict over access to and use of the environment as well as ideas about “nature” in various parts of the world.

This class explores the interrelationship between humans and natural environments. It does so by focusing on conflict over access to and use of the environment as well as ideas about “nature” in various parts of the world.

Discerning the ethnic and racial dimensions of politics is considered by some indispensable to understanding contemporary world politics. This course seeks to answer fundamental questions about racial and ethnic politics. To begin, what are the bases of ethnic and racial identities? What accounts for political mobilization based upon such identities? What are the political claims and goals of such mobilization and is conflict between groups and/or with government forces inevitable? How do ethnic and racial identities intersect with other identities, such as gender and class, which are themselves the sources of social, political, and economic cleavages? Finally, how are domestic ethnic/racial politics connected to international human rights? To answer these questions, the course begins with an introduction to dominant theoretical approaches to racial and ethnic identity. The course then considers these approaches in light of current events in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and the United States.

Discerning the ethnic and racial dimensions of politics is considered by some indispensable to understanding contemporary world politics. This course seeks to answer fundamental questions about racial and ethnic politics. To begin, what are the bases of ethnic and racial identities? What accounts for political mobilization based upon such identities? What are the political claims and goals of such mobilization and is conflict between groups and/or with government forces inevitable? How do ethnic and racial identities intersect with other identities, such as gender and class, which are themselves the sources of social, political, and economic cleavages? Finally, how are domestic ethnic/racial politics connected to international human rights? To answer these questions, the course begins with an introduction to dominant theoretical approaches to racial and ethnic identity. The course then considers these approaches in light of current events in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and the United States.

The purpose of this seminar is to provide a context for understanding the challenges of urban food provisioning from a perspective of sustainability and social inclusion in cities of the global South. The seminar will be specifically geared towards preparing students for direct participation in urban markets and food policy project intervention in Cartagena, Colombia.

After decades of efforts to promote development, why is there so much poverty in the world? What are some of the root causes of inequality world-wide and why do poverty, economic transformations and development policies often have different consequences for women and men? This course explores these issues while also examining the history of development itself, its underlying assumptions, and its range of supporters and critics. It considers the various meanings given to development by women and men, primarily as residents of particular regions, but also as aid workers, policy makers and government officials. In considering how development projects and policies are experienced in daily life in urban and rural areas in Africa, Latin America, Asia and Melanesia, this course asks what are the underlying political, economic, social, and gender dynamics that make “development” an ongoing problem world-wide.

Latin America covers part of North America, South America, and the West Indies. It stretches from lifeless Atacama desert to rugged highlands and Alpine glaciers of the Andes mountains. The fertile plains of the Pampas are one of the world's richest agricultural regions. The Amazon Basin is the largest and wettest lowland in the world. Culturally, Latin America is a great mixture of European, indigenous and African cultures.

In this course, we will examine the peoples and places of Latin America from a geographical perspective. We will explore the geographical dimensions of economic, cultural, political, and physical forces influencing Latin America as a region. We will have a mixture of thematic and regional approaches to study the concepts and look into various physical and historical processes that have shaped dynamic and diverse cultural landscapes. We will study contemporary environmental and developmental issues, trends in migration, agricultural change, and globalization to understand Latin America's position in the global economy.

COURSE LEVEL LEARNING OUTCOMES

Define Latin America as a world region.
Identify the main physical and cultural features and characteristics of Latin America.
Interpret maps, graphs, and visuals as tools for analyzing the distribution patterns of phenomena and understanding their importance in the context of Latin America.
Explain the impacts of European colonialism in Latin America.
Evaluate how changing cultural, social, political, and economic characteristics of Latin American countries influence internal strife and external intervention.
Explain the complexities that contributed to the social inequality, political conflict, and environmental concerns prevalent in some Latin American countries.
Discuss the changing political and economic relationships between the United States and countries in Latin America.

15.389B Global Entrepreneurship Lab: Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa enables teams of students to work with the top management of global start-ups and gain experience in running, and consulting to, a new enterprise outside the United States. The focus is on start-ups operating in emerging markets throughout the world, with a special focus on Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. The course combines an internship in a growing firm with in-class discussions of the issues and policies that affect the climate for innovation and start-up success around the world.
Special Features
15.389B is part of a two-section course and includes materials that cover entrepreneurship in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. 15.389A Global Entrepreneurship Lab: Asia-Pacific is also available on OpenCourseWare and covers topics pertinent to these additional regions.

This course examines the opportunities and risks firms face in today’s global world. The course provides conceptual tools for analyzing how governments and a variety of social and economic institutions influence competition among firms embedded in different national settings. Public policies and institutions that shape competitive outcomes are examined through cases and analytic readings on different companies and industries operating in both developed and emerging markets.  In addition to traditional case/class discussions, this course will include some presentations by various guest speakers. The hope is that greater exposure to/interaction with these real-world practitioners will “bring to life” some of the issues discussed in the readings/cases. Whenever possible, informal dinners and/or coffees will be organized for small groups of students interested in meeting with our guest speakers.

This kit provides the materials and background information needed to engage students in a dynamic and constructive process of learning how global media perspectives differ based on country of production, media source, target audience, and political and social context. There are five lessons representing important issues and media documents from: Africa (news and documentary film clips about the food crisis), Latin America (editorial cartoons about immigration), Europe (news and documentary film clips about Islam and cultural identity), India (magazine covers about India's rise in the global economy), and Southeast Asia (websites concerning Islamic majorities and minorities).

This resource contains five excerpts from documents about indigenous women in Latin America and critical questions about these excerpts.

International Women’s Voices has several objectives. It introduces students to a variety of works by contemporary women writers from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and North America. The emphasis is on non-western writers. The readings are chosen to encourage students to think about how each author’s work reflects a distinct cultural heritage and to what extent, if any, we can identify a female voice that transcends national cultures. In lectures and readings distributed in class, students learn about the history and culture of each of the countries these authors represent. The way in which colonialism, religion, nation formation and language influence each writer is a major concern of this course. In addition, students examine the patterns of socialization of women in patriarchal cultures, and how, in the imaginary world, authors resolve or understand the relationship of the characters to love, work, identity, sex roles, marriage, and politics.