Approaches to Teaching the Writings of Bartolome De Las Casas - 9780873529457

For specialists, nonspecialists, and graduate students teaching undergraduate and graduate courses, Arias (Spanish, U. of Kansas) and Merediz (Spanish, U. of Maryland, College Park) assemble 26 essays that introduce and describe different ways to teach the work of sixteenth-century Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas. They discuss how to incorporate his work in the interdisciplinary classroom; teach his views of colonial violence as described in Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies); and teach students about his letters, treatises, petitions to the Crown, and historical accounts defending native populations of colonized regions. They also describe the connections that can be made between his views and independence movements in Latin America, inter-European politics, the slave trade, human rights issues, and within the context of his contemporaries, and teaching his work with colonial figures such as Christopher Columbus and in literature curricula. Contributors are scholars of Spanish, history, languages and literatures, religion, and anthropology in the US and Canada. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)