Latin American History

Latin American history is well represented in the OSU Department of History. Professors Andrien, Guy and Smith are specialists, respectively, in Colonial Andean, Argentine and Mexican history. Professor Lilia Fernández teaches Latino/a history. Alcira Dueñas and Stanley Blake teach Latin American history at our branch campuses. Thematic emphases include economic history, gender and sexuality studies, race and ethnicity, and revolutionary societies.

Professor Ken Andrien, Professor and head of the History Department (2002-2006), has published several books and numerous articles on Andean history during the colonial period. He has served on the editorial boards of Colonial Latin American Review, Hispanic American Historical Review, The Americas, Anuario de Estudios Americanos.

Professor Stanley “Chip” Blake specializes in modern Brazilian and Latin American history. Dr. Blake’s research interests include race and national identity in Latin America, Latin American social and political history, and the history of medicine and public health in the Americas. He is currently completing revisions to his first book manuscript entitled “The Invention of the Nordestino: Race, Region, and the State, 1850-1945.” The project examines the development of a regional identity in northeastern Brazil and the ways in which this identity reflected the region’s changing economic and political position within the nation in the aftermath of the abolition of slavery. His most recent publication, “The Medicalization of Nordestinos: Public Health and Regional Identity in Northeastern Brazil 1889-1930,” appeared in The Americas. Dr. Blake teaches courses on colonial and modern Latin America, the history of Brazil, World history, and the social history of medicine. [Curriculum Vitae for Professor Blake]

Dr. Alcira Dueñas is an international scholar from Colombia teaching at the OSU Newark campus. She is an specialist in Latin American History, Colonial Latin American literature and Women’s history. She focuses on the cultural, intellectual, and social history of the marginalized groups in Latin America, particularly in the Andean region. Currently, Dr. Dueñas is finishing a book that reconstructs the history of indigenous and mestizo intellectuals in mid and late colonial Peru, and illuminates the writing practices and social agency of Andeans in their search for social change. Dr. Dueñas has published articles in academic journals in Colombia and Peru and articles in edited books in the United States. [Curriculum Vitae for Professor Dueñas]

Professor Lilia Fernández researches and teaches on the History of Latinas/os in the United States with a focus on the twentieth century.  She teaches History 577.01 Chicano History, Spanish Colonial Period to 1900 and History 577.02 Chicano History, 1900-present and will be teaching History 324, Introduction to U.S. Latina/o History beginning Fall 2009. Her scholarship focuses on immigration and community formation of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Chicago. In 2008-2009, she in on a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, revising her book manuscript, tentatively entitled Brown in the Windy City: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Chicago, 1945-1975.

Professor Donna Guy, a Distinguished Professor of Humanities in History, has published a series of books on Argentine economic and social history. She has also served on the editorial boards of the Hispanic American Historical Review, The Americas, Gender & History, and The Journal of Women's History where she was the Editor in 2003-2004. She has also been the President and Secretary of the Conference on Latin American History, the largest association of historians of Latin America. Her book Women Build the Welfare State:  Performing Charity Creating Rights in Argentina 1880-1955 is her most recent monograph.  She teaches the History of Latin America (172), the History of Argentina(534.04), The History of Women in Latin America (533.06), the Jewish Diaspora in Latin America (534.08) and graduate courses. [Curriculum Vitae for Professor Guy]

Professor Stephanie Smith is currently revising her book manuscript, "Engendering the Revolution: Women and State Formation in Yucatán, Mexico, 1872-1930." An American Association of University Women Dissertation Fellowship supported the writing of her dissertation research during the 2001-2002 academic year, and a Fulbright dissertation fellowship supported research in Mexico for her dissertation from 1999 to 2000.

Courses on Latin American history include the survey courses on Latin America (171-172), Colonial Latin American History (533.01), the history of Women in Latin America (533.04), the History of Mexico (534.03), the History of Argentina (534.04), and Chicano History from the Spanish Colonial to the Present Period (577.01, 577.02). Graduate courses include thematic Studies in Latin American History (751) and Seminar in Latin American History (851.01 and 851.02).

Link to all courses offered by the Department of History in Latin American History.

Content Owner: Donna Guy