HI6040 - Nicaragua in Revolution, 1979-1990

You will learn on this module by attending lectures and seminars. The lectures will introduce you to the module’s core themes and key historiographical debates related to the subject area. For the weekly seminars, you will be expected to undertake the required reading (available via the electronic reading list) and sample the recommended reading. You will build on your independent reading by contributing ideas and arguments to seminar discussions with your peers. Seminar discussions will incorporate both large and small group discussions, built around focused questions on relevant themes and topics. Seminars will also include significant engagement with carefully selected primary sources. You will receive formative feedback throughout the learning process and summative assessment will match your learning against the learning outcomes for the module.

Your academic development will be supported through your module tutor, engagement with your peers, and through the programme leader. The module tutor will be accessible within publicised Feedback and Consultation hours and via email. Your peers will provide you with a collaborative learning environment, and your programme leader will guide you through the requirements and expectations of your degree programme, of which this module is part. You will also be supported through individual engagement with the academic literature, lectures, and resources available on the eLP. Formative feedback will be on-going through seminar activities and assessment tasks.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

Knowledge & Understanding:
• Knowledge and understanding of the history of twentieth-century Nicaragua, and particularly the ways in which war and revolution shaped Nicaraguan history.
• Display an understanding of the changing relationship between Nicaragua, the United States and other countries in the Cold War period.

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:
• Demonstrate a range of transferable skills, including the ability to make independent critical judgements, to critically evaluate sources, to summarise the research of others, and to present arguments in a cogent and persuasive way.

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):
• Awareness of the historical origins of Nicaragua’s current challenges.
• Curiosity about the nature of evidence on which our knowledge of the past, and therefore our understandings of the present, depend.

You will write two essays of 3,000 words each. Each assignment will make up half of your overall grade. The first essay will be dedicated to Nicaraguan national and/or regional history, (MLO 1, 3, 4, 5), while the second essay will deal with Nicaragua’s relationships with other countries (MLO 1-5).

Formative feedback for each assessment will be provided in seminars. Verbal and written feedback will be given on all summative assessed work. Feedback on initial summative assessments will enable you to improve on later ones.

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In July 1979 a broad-based opposition movement led by a small group of young guerrillas - the ‘Sandinistas’ - overthrew the Somoza dictatorship which had ruled Nicaragua for 43 years. The euphoria of triumph quickly soured, as the new Sandinista government faced division at home and aggression from overseas, in the form of a US-funded proxy conflict known as the ‘Contra War’. In this module, you will learn how ordinary Nicaraguans experienced the revolutionary decade by working with a wide range of sources, including memoirs, poetry, and murals. You will draw on testimonios and oral histories to critically evaluate the impact of the revolution’s programmes in education, agrarian reform, and women’s rights; and you will explore the Contra War in the context of the wider Cold War struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States.