Rutgers College Honors Seminar
Course Description

1. Objectives

• The purpose of this course is to approach critically certain images of the Amazon that pervade and influence current conceptualizations of the region in different media (movies, television, travel writing, tourism, Internet, etc.). Images such as El Dorado (or the myth of sudden and easy wealth), Last Frontier, Great Adventure, Second Eden, Paradise Lost, and Green Hell underlie our perceptions as well as our responses to Amazonian environmental issues.
  
• Our objective is to study the origins of these notions in fundamental travel writings by European travelers from the 16th to the 19th century.
  
• Our critical perspective will consist on interpreting these texts under the assumption that these representations of the Amazon were responses to the encounter with the region as much as to cultural traditions and historical circumstances in the Western world. In other words, the basic questions that we will address regarding these texts are:
  
  1. what are the categories and presuppositions upon which the Amazon has been depicted in these texts (notions such as "culture/nature," "civilization/wilderness," "modern/primitive," "city/forest," "frontier," and "New World")?
     
  2. how do they relate to the historical circumstances in which these texts were produced, especially the circumstances regarding the policies and forces that were shaping the Amazon at the same period

2. Texts

Primary sources

1. Fray Gaspar de Carvajal, The Discovery of the Amazon [1542]. [Descubrimiento del río de las Amazonas, (1895)].
2. Cristóbal de Acuña, New Discovery of the Great River of the Amazons [1638-39]. [Nuevo descubrimiento del gran río de las Amazonas, (1641)].
3. Samuel Fritz, Journal of the Travels and Labours of Father Samuel Fritz in the River of the Amazons [1686-1723]. ["Misión de los Omaguas, Yurimaguas, Aizuares, Ibanomas y otras naciones desde Napo al rio Negro" in Pablo Maroni's Noticias auténticas del famoso río Marañón, (1738)]
4. Charles Marie de La Condamine, A Succinct Abridgement of a Voyage Made Within the Inland Parts of South-America [1735-45]. [Relation abrégée d'un voyage fait dans l'interieur de l'Amérique meridionale, (1745)].
5. Alexander von Humboldt, Views of Nature [1799-1804], (1808, 26, 49).
6. Alfred Russel Wallace, A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro [1848-1852], (1853).

Movies and Videos

• The Emerald Forest. Dir. John Boorman. Perf. Powers Boothe, Charley Boorman, and Meg Foster. Written by Rospo Pallenberg. 1985. Videocassette. Embassy, 1985. [113 min]
• In the Name of Progress. Dir. Katherine Carpenter. Santa Barbara, CA: Intellimation, c1990.
• The Kayapo: Out of the Forest. Dir. Mike Beckham. Chicago: Films Incorporated, c1991.
• At Play in the Fields of the Lord. Dir. Hector Babenco. Perf. Tom Berenger, Aidan Quinn, John Lithgow, Daryl Hannah, Tom Waits, and Kathy Bates. Saul Zaentz, 1991. Videocasstte. MCA, 1992.
• Medicine Man. Dir. John McTiernan. Perf. Sean Connery and Lorraine Bracco. Cinergi, 1992. Videocassette. Buena Vista.
• Amazon Journal. Dir. Geoffrey O'Connor. New York: Filmmaker Library, c1995.

Theory-oriented readings and other secondary historical sources

• Gerbi, Antonello. The Dispute of the New World: The History of a Polemic. Pittsburgh UP, 1983 [1955].
• ---. Nature in the New World: From Christopher Columbus to Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo. Pittsburgh UP, 1985.
• O'Gorman, Edmundo. The Invention of America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1961.
• Honour, Hugh. The New Golden Land: European Images of America from the Discovery to the Present Time. New York: Pantheon, 1975.
• Gheerbrant, Alain. The Amazon: Past, Present, and Future. New York: Abrams, 1992 [1988].
• Goodman, Edward J. The Explorers of South America. New York: Macmillan, 1972.
• Harrison, Robert Pogues. Forests: The Shadow of Civilization. U of Chicago P, 1992.
• Hecht, Susanna and Alexander Cockburn. The Fate of the Forest: Developers, Destroyers and Defenders of the Amazon. London: Verso, 1990.
• Hennessy, Alistair. The Frontier in Latin American History. London: Arnold, 1978.
• Oelschalaeger, Max. The Idea of Wilderness: From Prehistory to the Age of Ecology. New Haven: Yale UP, 1991.
• Padgen, Anthony. European Encounters with the New World. New Haven: Yale UP, 1993.
• Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. New York: Routledge, 1992.
• Taussig, Michael. Shamanism, Colonialism and the Wild Man: A Study in Terror and Healing. U of Chicago P, 1987.
• Weber, David and Jane Rausch (eds.). Where Cultures Meet: Frontiers in Latin American History. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1994.
• Greenblatt, Stephen. Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World. U of Chicago P, 1991.

3. Activities and grading

• Students will write one twelve to fifteen-pages term paper on the representation of Amazonia within the primary sources mentioned above (accordingly to the MLA guidelines for writing research papers). The essay must be an original reflection on the comparison and evolution of the different images of the Amazon studied in class and on how these images relate to current ecological problems in the Amazon. We will be publishing this papers in the WWW. (50%)
  
• Each student will be asked, several times along the semester, to summarize and comment on the assigned readings, as well as to propose topics for discussion. (20%)
  
• The in-class work of the course will be based on the discussion of the primary sources, theory-oriented readings on the encounter between Europe and the New World, the notions of "nature" and "wilderness", as well as with secondary historical sources on the exploration of the Amazon basin. (10%)
  
• There will be a mid-term exam. (20%)
  
• Students are required to open an e-mail account, if they have not done so yet, and subscribe to the course discussion group.

4. Calendar

September

• Thurs 5: Introduction
• Mon 9: Overview of Images of the Amazon.
• Thurs 12: Discoveries and Explorations of the Amazon Valley.
• Mon 16: Discoveries and Explorations of the Amazon Valley.
• Thurs 19: Contemporary Amazonian Issues.
• Mon 23: Contemporary Amazonian Issues.
• Thurs 26: In the Name of Progress (documentary). Fray Gaspar de Carvajal, The Discovery of the Amazon.
• Mon 30: Fray Gaspar de Carvajal (cont).

October

• Thurs 3: The Kayapo: Out of the Forest (documentary). Cristóbal de Acuña, New Discovery of the Great River of the Amazons.
• Mon 7: Cristóbal de Acuña (cont.).
• Thurs 10: Amazon Journal (documentary). Samuel Fritz, Journal fo the Travels and Labours of Father Samuel Fritz in the River of the Amazons.
• Mon 14: Samuel Fritz (cont.).
• Thurs 17: Mid-term exam.
• Mon 21: The Emerald Forest (motion picture).
• Thurs 24: The Emerald Forest (cont.).
• Mon 28: Charles Marie de La Condamine, A Succint Abridgement of a Voyage Made Within the Inland Parts of South-America.
• Thurs 31: Charles Marie de La Condamine (cont.).

• Mon 4: The Dispute of the New World.
• Thurs 7: No classes. Latin American Studies Conference: "Dialogue of the Americas".
• Mon 11: 8:30 am. At Play in the Fields of the Lord (motion picture).
• Thurs 14: 8:30 am. At Play in the Fields of the Lord. (cont.)
• Mon 18: Alexander von Humboldt, Views of Nature.
• Thurs 21: Alexander von Humboldt (cont.).
• Mon 25: Medicine Man (motion picture).
• Tues 26: Medicine Man. (cont.) (Thursday classes)

Thanksgiving break

December

• Mon 2:Alfred Russell Wallace, A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.
• Thurs 5: Alfred Russell Wallace (cont.).
• Mon 9: Conclusions. Final paper.

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