HIST 383: Soccer in Latin America (Aguirre)

HIST 383: Soccer and Society in Modern Latin America

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Course Description

Soccer--known as fútbol in Spanish or futebol in Portuguese--is, without doubt, the single most popular sport in the world. In most countries of Latin America it has become the national pastime, the only exceptions being the Caribbean countries of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Venezuela, where baseball occupies that place. This course will offer students the opportunity to explore and understand the complexities of Latin American societies using soccer as a cultural and sociological window. At a more general level, it will also allow them to think critically about the social, cultural, and political implications of sports and entertainment in contemporary societies. We will discuss, among other issues, the reasons why soccer captured the imagination of Latin American peoples; the relationship between the dissemination of soccer and patterns of cultural, political, and economic change; the connections between soccer and the shaping of national identities in the region; the manipulation of soccer by military regimes in the 1970s; the racial, class, and gender dynamics behind soccer as a practice and a spectacle; the appearance of violent soccer fans and their connections with contemporary economic and social trends such as the spread of neo-liberalism and the forces of globalization; and the use of soccer as a marker of identity by Latin American immigrants in the United States.

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