After
many years in the classroom, Teresa Meade, professor of history and director of the Women's Studies
Program, pretty much knew which books cause her students' eyes to glaze over.
“Because
I've done so much teaching, I know what is wrong with a book that I have
assigned.” Her most recent book, A Brief History of Brazil, was easy for
her to write because she knew what the role of the textbook should be.
Meade's
earlier book, Civilizing Rio: Reform and Resistance in a Brazilian City,
prompted Facts on File publishing to ask her to write a textbook, A Brief
History of Brazil.
“I
really enjoyed the process of writing a textbook because I had done so much
teaching,” she said. Many textbooks on Latin America can be, Meade explained, “horrendously
political.” That is, they go on monotonously “from one president to the next,
or one military coup to the next, or one strongman to the next.” Meade said
such texts don't deal with the material from the bottom up, which makes the
historical connections easier for students to comprehend.
Meade
discovered that her classroom technique for presenting the material also works
in writing a textbook. In the classroom, she tries to make the connections from
the land to the people; from day-to-day life to broader political and economic
events, and from small events to larger historical changes.
Another
characteristic absent from most texts, she continued, is the “assumption that
the world is made up of men and women.” Textbooks are, on the whole, written as
if there are “no women in society.” Meade quoted historian Joan Scott, who
argued in a famous essay that “Gender is the field upon which history is
played.” Patriarchy, law, inheritance and many aspects of history have revolved
around women, said Meade. “The narrative is incomplete if we omit gender from
the analysis,” she said.
Another
goal in her writing is to present the role of popular culture in forming
peoples' identities. Brazilians take tremendous national pride in their soccer
prowess and as a repeated World Cup winner. Surprisingly, soap operas, which
are telecast in the evenings, are viewed by men and women. The scripts
regularly incorporate major political events in well-written and lively
portrayals. What transpired on the previous night's novela is often the
next day's topic of conversation. And of course, Brazil is famous for the yearly pre-Lenten
carnival and its year-round musical culture.
Meade
emphasized that the country has a long tradition linking politics and the arts.
People who are major writers might also have played important roles as
ambassadors, she said, often acting as spokesmen for their country and very
involved in political affairs.
Meade's
third book, A Companion to Gender History, is now in press. It is a
reference book and part of Blackwell Publishers Companions to History
series. Visit http://www.union.edu/PUBLIC/HSTDEPT/meadet.html#Research
for details.