When the Whip Comes Down

[I wrote this post a few days ago, just before internet access from the ship went down. We're on our third day in Acapulco now. I'll try to post about all that soon.]

Finally, a chance to write a post. It turns out that life is quite intense here on the Explorer. Happily, my schedule is no longer crowded with pointless meetings (although I have one this afternoon that has potential), but with conversation and classes. Brian, our friendly neighborhood Latin American historian, is in charge of a course called “Latin America Today,” which is required of everyone on the voyage, not just the students, but the faculty too. Brian has done an admirable job of designing an intensive introduction to Latin American studies which is supposed to pull together everyone’s experiences in individual courses and in shore visits. His first lecture set the tone: inquiry, engagement, and intellectual seriousness were to be the order of the day. Today, he modeled it for everyone when he displaced the planned lecture with a debate between him and Ray, our colonial art historian. Ray had disagreed with the treatment Brian had given of the United States and its hegemonic culture in his opening lecture, and Brian suggested that instead of talking it out privately, they do so in public.

What emerged, in effect, was a discussion of the continued viability of the nation-state as a category of understanding (Not in so many words: this is my interpretation of the conversation). Ray emphasized the internal differences of American, and of Mexican, society, their multicultural character, and the porosity of their borders. He contended that Brian had said things about American hegemony that failed to give due consideration to these important aspects of American life in his lecture, that he had presented the United States as a culturally monolithic entity. Brian defended the usefulness of the nation-state as a category of understanding, and the reality of its impact in our lives, by pointing out the ways in which marginalized groups within the US conceived of themselves and their objectives in specifically American ways. US Latinos, for example, advocate for themselves without necessarily conceiving their advocacy as a facet of a larger, global picture. For them, as for Anglos, the US is an island: the outside world is not taken into account.

The students were listening, and they responded. All around the room, faces looked attentive, and hands shot up when the official colloquy was over. The whip has come down, and it seems that a considerable number of students have responded by engaging, by participating, by reading, and by thinking. Today at the pool, everyone I saw was reading a book assigned for a class. Sure, there are boneheads out there who are here for the party, but, for now, they don’t seem to be all that much in evidence . . . We’ll see what happens in Acapulco tomorrow.

I’m delighted with my classes. I’ve pared down the novel course, and reorganized the 1492 course. Both have small enrollments by S@S standards (11 and 17, respectively), which means, I think, that I have students who are interested, and willing to do the work. Today, most if not all students arrived prepared, with books full of underlining and marginal remarks. In the novel course, we ended up fastening on the gender dynamics in the portrayal of 2 male characters in Los de abajo (Gustavo, you have been very much on my mind!), and in the 1492 course, we talked about the cultural and ideological dimensions of “discovery.” I also popped into Ray’s art history course and learned about Asian-Novohispanic transculturation in colonial art. Not a bad day, huh?

Tonight is our “logistical preport,” the big meeting where they give us all the nitty gritty we need to know for our arrival in Acapulco tomorrow. Until then, there’s time to unwind, and have some dinner. Zoë is very relaxed, having spent almost the entire afternoon at the pool with the Kid, and the Kid is tanning nicely. She’s at Spanish class now, and he’s playing with Leggo’s in a friend’s cabin. Life is good.