Teaching North America: Learning from an Emerging Continental Polity.

We live, as all of us here by virtue of our interest in politics know, in a time when completely contrary movements seem to simultaneously gather strength, including globalization and nationalism. So, to speak about North American studies is immediately to bring to mind such disturbing and valid challenges to historical ecumenicism as the demands for recognition of those struggling for autonomy in Quebec and Chiapas, of native peoples throughout the continent, and of strong but still frustrated movements for the overdue revision of the historical record to include women, gays, and ethnic groups. In meeting such aspirations we are still, to paraphrase Winston Churchill on World War II, not at the end but perhaps at the end of the beginning.The authors, with considerable experience in teaching courses on North American studies in a leading Mexican university, argue that for success, such a program should be thematic and problem oriented. In addition the cultural implications of the North American Free Trade Agreement should be analyzed closely. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]