Syllabus, History of the Mexican Revolution

Brandon Morgan

Published in

La Revolucion Mexicana

7 min readJun 22, 2021

Hist 466/566
Online, Summer 2023

Instructor Brandon Morgan (Brandon, he/him)

Text me at (385) 743–8515

WNMU email: morganb4@wnmu.edu
Other email: bmorgan19@cnm.edu

Virtual office hours: T 9:30–10:30; R 2:00–3:00, via this Zoom link, or by appointment.

Introduction

As Hans Kellner wrote, “historical events do not represent themselves, they are represented, they do not speak, they are spoken for” (Thomas Benjamin, “La Revolución). Such has especially been the case with the Mexican Revolution, arguably the twentieth century’s first social revolution. The historical literature on the Mexican Revolution is voluminous. In this class, we will narrow our investigation of the Revolution to an examination of the decade of civil war and subsequent two decades of state reconstruction (roughly the period between 1910 and 1940). The course will begin with an overview of the violent phase of the Revolution (1910–1920). Then, we will analyze the political, social, and cultural negotiations over the significance of the Revolution as the Mexican state reconstituted itself (1920–1940). Finally, through recent research on the legacies of myth-building and memory, our attention will turn to the way that the Revolution was institutionalized and mythologized to support the agenda of the ruling party, which came to be known as the Partido Revolucionario Institutional (PRI). Students will explore these topics through course readings as well as an individual project centered on Mariano Azuela’s novel, The Underdogs.

We will use Discord and Blogs as a jumping-off point from which to engage the readings and discuss their ideas and merits with one another. Graduate students (those of us enrolled in 566) will be expected to take leading roles in our online discussions, they will read an additional book over the course of the semester, and their final project will require more depth and direct engagement with primary sources.

Required Readings

Please do whatever you can to acquire these texts as inexpensively as possible. Many are available at libraries and in physical and digital formats.

Michael J. Gonzales. (2002) The Mexican Revolution, 1910–1940 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press) ISBN: 978–0826327802

Mark Wasserman. (2012) The Mexican Revolution: A Brief History with Documents (New York: Bedford) ISBN: 978–0312535049

J. Justin Castro. (2016) Radio in Revolution: Wireless Technology and State Power in Mexico, 1897–1938 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press) ISBN: 978–0803286788

Thomas Benjamin. (2000) La Revolución: Mexico’s Great Revolution as Memory, Myth, and History (Austin: University of Texas Press) ISBN: 978–0292708822

Mariano Azuela, trans. Gustavo Pellón. (2006). The Underdogs: With Related Texts (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company) ISBN: 978–0872208346

*Kelly Lytle Hernández. (2022) Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands (W.W. Norton) ISBN: 978–132406441

(* = required for graduate students [566] only)

Optional (for background on Mexican History):
John W. Sherman. (2020) Mexico: A Concise Illustrated History (Boulder: Rowman & Littlefield) ISBN: 978–1538137840

Coursework

The Mexican Revolution has been heralded by scholars and analysts as the first modern social revolution. As we’ll discuss in more detail, social revolutions are distinguished by the changes they bring to the vast majority of a nation’s populace. Since the close of the violent phase of the revolution in the early 1920s, historians and other academics have followed varying interpretive models in assessing the revolution’s gains and limitations. We’ll address that historiography early in the course and think about the ways that our understanding of the revolution’s impact on most Mexican people has changed over time.

To help us along the way, our class will focus on three guiding questions:

In what respects was (and is) the Mexican Revolution a true social revolution? In what ways has it fallen short in terms of providing true and lasting positive change for the majority of Mexicans?
How and why have historians’ interpretations of the Revolution changed over time?
What role has the mythic Revolution played in forming the Mexican state, and its people's relationship to it, since the early twentieth century?

The learning activities outlined below are designed to create spaces where we will explore these questions — particularly the first one. That’s where we’ll focus the majority of our attention this semester. As we complete the coursework, also keep in mind a fourth question: how can understanding the complexities of Mexico’s Revolution help us to better comprehend our neighbor to the south in ways that will allow us to engage meaningfully with ongoing public debates about thorny issues like immigration, narco- and human-trafficking, international travel, and commerce?

Although I’ve designated specific digital tools for the completion of each assignment we’ll complete, I realize that we have many different options for creating sharable knowledge online. If you would like to complete one of the assignments using a tool other than the one I’ve designated, please contact me so that we can discuss that possibility. I am a firm believer in Paulo Freire’s assertion that learning doesn’t come through the consumption of ideas, but by creating and recreating them. It’s okay to hack the class.

“Studies are not measured by the number of pages read in a night, nor by the number of books read in a semester. Studying is not an act of consuming ideas but of creating and recreating them.” — Paulo Freire

Our course will take place on Canvas, Discord, and Medium. You’ll also have the option to use a digital platform of your choice for the Final Project on The Underdogs. These tools are helpful for building community in an asynchronous, online environment — something that can be difficult to do. Tutorials and help for all of our course tools are available in Canvas and I practice what I preach in terms of flexibility and kindness: please let me know whenever you need help, are feeling lost or overwhelmed, or have questions.

Activities and Assignments

Discord Reading Comments: Our initial discussions of all of the assigned readings (see schedule below) will begin on Discord.

Blog Posts: Each of us will create several blog posts here on Medium over the course of the semester that evaluate the learning about revolutions that we’ve done up to that point.

Discussions: We will use the discussion board in Canvas to pose evaluative questions and think more deeply about the interpretive issues that we encounter through our study.

The Underdogs Final Project: This will be the final for our class. There are no quizzes or exams. To complete this project, you’ll read what has been called the quintessential novel of the Revolution, The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela. As you read, think about the ways that the novel portrays revolutionaries and their struggle. You’ll create a digital essay that draws on primary sources to place the novel in its historical context. See the link for full details.

I do accept late work with no penalty. Please recognize that due to the short length of our course, there may not be much time for catching up. I understand, however, that life happens as we’re taking classes and sometimes you’ll need to miss a deadline. When that’s the case, no need to worry. Please keep me posted about what’s going on and let me know what help you might need.

Public Work

Some of our work for the course will be created on publicly available and accessible platforms, including Medium, Tiki-Toki, Adobe Express, etc. Working publicly comes with both advantages and risks. Please think carefully about your digital identity and presence. If you would like to remain anonymous, I encourage you to use a pseudonym. If you’d rather not upload a photo, create an avatar for yourself or find an image that represents you. Think carefully about these choices and don’t hesitate to chat with me about them.

Plagiarism

In the digital realm, as well as in academia, authorship is a hotly debated topic. In literature, digital media, historical study, and even the social sciences, we are influenced by the ideas and insights of those who produced work on topics before we came to them. In this class, I encourage you to recognize the ideas (from authors, peers, internet sources, me, etc.) that have influenced your own thinking about the work you produce. You should feel confident in learning from others’ ideas and making them your own — this is the creation and recreation of knowledge that Paulo Freire was talking about. Make your learning your own by borrowing from others’ ideas and then breaking their assumptions — question them, turn them upside down, manipulate them, and apply them. This doesn’t mean that you can copy and paste wholesale someone else’s work and try to pass it off as your own. That’s just stealing.

Full disclosure: I borrowed and remixed these ideas from Jesse Stommel.

Philosophy on Teaching and Learning

First and foremost, teaching and learning are acts of love that beg our entire attention and our best efforts. For me, the purpose of teaching and learning in higher ed is to explore the contours of our humanity to better understand our role in constructing the society we live in. History, in particular, offers us the unique opportunity to build empathy and compassion for people who hold worldviews that differ from our own. In recognizing the diversity of perspectives on the past, the study of History emphasizes how we personally connect past and present. The study of past societies and cultures generates the power to put ourselves in others’ shoes and understand their viewpoints on their own terms. Will we put in the effort to do so?