Texts

We will be reading an interdisciplinary mix of texts: History, Anthropology, Novels, Poetry, Testimonio, Sociology, Political Theory…

Reading about Peru and the Andes in Peru itself will bring the texts to life.

For example, as we read José María Arguedas’s celebrated account of a young Indigenous boy’s visit to Cusco, in his novel Deep Rivers, we will be able to see the same sights, the same buildings and social architecture, that he describes.

The same goes, for instance, for Felipe Guaman Poma or Garcilaso de la Vega’s famous historical descriptions of Inca civilization.

NB we will not necessarily be reading the entirety of all the following texts.

Here are the books I would recommend you buy physical copies (from either Amazon or, better, Pulp Fiction), as a minimum:

  • The Peru Reader
  • The Lima Reader
  • Arguedas, Deep Rivers
  • Neruda, The Heights of Macchu Picchu
  • Vargas Llosa, Death in the Andes

It would be good if each pair of room-mates had these books.

But here is the full list…

  • Aguirre, Carlos, and Charles F. Walker, eds. The Lima Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017.
  • Arguedas, José María. Deep Rivers. Trans. Frances Horning Barraclough. Long Grove, IL: Waveland, 2002.
  • Blanco, Hugo. We the Indians: The Indigenous Peoples of Peru and the Struggle for Land. Trans. Lesley Ray. London: Merlin, 2018.
  • Condori Mamani, Gregorio, and Asunta Quispe Huamán. Andean Lives: Gregorio Condori Mamani and Asunta Quispe Huaman. Ed. Ricardo Valderrama Fernandez and Carmen Escalante Gutierrez. Trans. Paul H. Gelles and Gabriela Martinez Escobar. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996.
  • Dean, Carolyn. Inka Bodies and the Body of Christ: Corpus Christi in Colonial Cuzco, Peru. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.
  • Degregori, Carlos Iván. How Difficult it is to be God: Shining Path’s Politics of War in Peru, 1980-1999. Ed. Steve J. Stern. Trans. Nancy Appelbaum et. al. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2012.
  • de la Cadena, Marisol. Indigenous Mestizos: The Politics of Race and Culture in Cuzco, Peru, 1919–1991. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000.
  • Garcilaso de la Vega (el Inca). Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru. Abridged. Trans. Harold Livermore. Ed. Karen Spalding. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2006.
  • Guaman Poma de Ayala, Felipe. The First New Chronicle and Good Government, Abridged. Trans. David Frye. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett, 2006.
  • Mariátegui, José Carlos. Seven Interpretative Essays on Peruvian Reality. Trans. Marjory Urquidi. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971.
  • Neruda, Pablo. The Heights of Macchu Picchu. Trans. Nathaniel Tarn. London: Jonathan Cape, 1966.
  • Rama, Angel. The Lettered City. Trans. John Charles Chasteen. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996.
  • Rice, Mark. Making Machu Picchu: The Politics of Tourism in Twentieth-Century Peru. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2018.
  • Silverblatt, Irene. Modern Inquisitions: Peru and the Colonial Origins of the Civilized World. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004.
  • Starn, Orin, Robin Kirk, and Carlos Iván Degregori, eds. The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Second Edition, Revised and Updated. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005.
  • Vargas Llosa, Mario. Death in the Andes. Trans. Edith Grossman. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996.