This seminar presents a multi-disciplinary perspective on the modern transformation of the countryside of the world. The rise of a capitalist mode of production as the engine of a world economy, the emergence of a contentious international polity of nation-states, and the propagation of rationalizing religions and standardizing education are three distinct yet intersecting processes in the modern transformation of the world since the 1500s. These processes have not been inevitable, nor irreversible, nor complete. However, they have been compelling, in so far as they have come to frame both our acceptance of and resistance to the modern order in which we find ourselves.

“Peasant studies” is a rubric for the loosely-bounded, interdisciplinary exploration of the initial modernization of the European countryside and the subsequent engagement and ongoing incorporation of the countryside of Asia, Africa, and the Americas into this modern order. At its most precocious, it tries to comprehend the intrusive thrusts of nation-state formation, capitalist production, and the rationalization of belief into the most distant agrarian regions of the world. At its most instructive, it insists that people everywhere have confronted those forces with their particular histories and distinctive, local configurations of environment, society, and culture. Everywhere, the encounters of old and new ways of viewing the world and organizing activities have been fitful and frightful, always metamorphic, but never uniform. Animating peasant studies has been the concern to demonstrate the varied ways in which peasants have shared in the making of the modern world that has in turn transformed their lives.

We intend this to be an introductory seminar. That is, we assume you may be ignorant of much of the basic literature. We also assume that you work hard and learn fast. Although the varying backgrounds of students and faculty require us to be somewhat eclectic, we hope that the seminar will prove foundational in an interdisciplinary sense for subsequent work on agrarian issues in any discipline. We encourage you, in your writing and discussion, to make vigorous efforts to be understood across disciplinary boundaries.

Seminar meetings combine lectures and discussions. We expect regular attendance; please notify us in advance if you are unable to come to a session. We regard participation in discussions to be a gauge of students’ completion and comprehension of the assigned readings. We will evaluate your performance in the seminar on the basis of this participation and on the quality and timeliness of the writing assignments.

Beginning in the third week, designated students will be asked to take formal responsibility for organizing the discussion of the readings. Such responsibility will be shared as equitably as possible. As far as writing assignments are concerned, there are two. First, students are required to submit short (3-page) essays on three weekly themes/readings of their choice. They may want to link these essays to themes for which they have some responsibility in organizing the discussion.

A second paper is due at the end of the course. This may be either a research paper on a topic related to the course concerns or a theoretical discussion or synthesis of some of the analytical readings we have covered. In either case, it should be negotiated with one of the instructors.

All assigned readings for the seminar are on reserve at the Social Science or Cross Campus Libraries. Copies of all assigned books are available for purchase at Labyrinth. In addition, we have placed a collection of all assigned articles on file at the office of the Program on Agrarian Studies Office (204 Prospect Street, Room 204). Students may choose to have a copy of this file made for their purchase and use.

---

to top 

No Reading

---

to top 

---

to top 

Readings:

A.V. Chayanov. 1986. The Theory of Peasant Economy. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Pp. xi-xxiii, 1-24, 35-117 (Labyrinth)

Donald Donham. 1981. Beyond the domestic mode of production. Man 16:515-41. (Reading Packet)

Lecture:

---

to top 

Readings:

J. Hector St. John de Crevecour. 1957. Letters from an American Farmer. New York: E.P. Dutton. Letter II, “On the Situations, Feelings, and Pleasures of an American Farmer,” pp.17–35. (Reading Packet)

Deborah Fitzgerald. 2003. Every Farm a Factory. New Haven:Yale University Press. Chapter 1, “The Industrial Ideal in American Agriculture,” pp.10–32. (Reading Packet)

Kathryn Marie Dudley. 2000. Debt and Dispossession. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Labyrinth)

Michael Pollan. 2006. The Omnivore’s Dilemma. London: Penguin Press. “Industrial Corn,” pp.1–122. (Labyrinth)

Eric Schlosser. 2003. Reefer Madness. New York: Houghton Mifflin. “In the Strawberry Fields,” pp.75–109. (Reading Packet)

Lecture:

Property Rights

---

to top 

Rebellion/Revolution

Readings: John Womack. 1970. Zapata and the Mexican Revolution. Knopf. (Labyrinth) John Steinbeck. 1975. Zapata. Penguin Books (screenplay). (Labyrinth) Lecture: The Sociology of Revolution: North and South Vietnam, Northern and Southern Mexico

---

to top 

---

to top 

---

to top 

---

to top 

---

to top 

---

to top