Latin Americanists?

[Encomendero]

I see a lot of US and Europeanists here. Is anyone out there a Latin Americanist? If so, what do you study and where did you apply?

I do early colonial borderlands and the Indigenous...

[TMP]

I see a lot of US and Europeanists here. Is anyone out there a Latin Americanist? If so, what do you study and where did you apply?

I do early colonial borderlands and the Indigenous...

I was actually told to do Latin America instead of US history when I spoke to potential professors after I told them that I studied Spanish when they asked for my languages. I freaked out because I hadn't spent much time reading up Latin America in time to write the SOPs! But maybe I'll pick it up while in the program... or *ahem* for the next round.

Except for Yale unless I learn Portugese.

I love Latin American history, especially Argentina in the 1950s and 1960s.

[eponymous]

I do Cold War US-Latin American relations. I've focused primarily on US modernization/devleopment programs in Venezuela. I just finished an interdisciplinary MA at NYU and have applied both as an American historian and a Latin Americanist, depending on the program.

I applied to Duke, Rutgers, Fordham, WashU, Princeton, Rice and NYU.

[jz83]

I'm focusing on issues of European colonization, land, and the Mapuche in late 19th and early 20th century Chile. I'm also really interested in slavery and emancipation in the Circum Caribbean.

I applied to Virgina, Maryland, Yale, Indiana and NYU

[Encomendero]

I forgot to mention I applied to Ohio State, Penn State, Houston, Florida International, and New Mexico.

I am working on slavery too. Mostly indian slavery on the Spanish Main.

[ChibaCityBlues]

Just to get this straight. There is no one here applying to work with Lillian Guerra at Yale, Rebecca Scott at Michigan, or Ada Ferrer at NYU on anything to do with any aspect of the Spanish Caribbean?

[jz83]

Just to get this straight. There is no one here applying to work with Lillian Guerra at Yale, Rebecca Scott at Michigan, or Ada Ferrer at NYU on anything to do with any aspect of the Spanish Caribbean?

I'd like to study in the same departments as Lillian Guerra and Ada Ferrer, but not necessarily have them as advisers. If I get into NYU I imagine I'd probably work with Sinclair Thomson and at Yale either Gilbert Joseph or Stuart Schwartz.

[jz83]

Though in my heart of hearts I'd work with Karin Rosemblatt at UMD or Tom Klubock at Virginia.

[TMP]

I'd like to study in the same departments as Lillian Guerra and Ada Ferrer, but not necessarily have them as advisers. If I get into NYU I imagine I'd probably work with Sinclair Thomson and at Yale either Gilbert Joseph or Stuart Schwartz.

I know Gilbert Joseph personally... he's so wonderful! And a real human being... as in actually has social skills. That's what I meant up there about knowing Portuguese- if I knew some, he'd take me on as a student even if our thematic interests are different.

[jz83]

I know Gilbert Joseph personally... he's so wonderful! And a real human being... as in actually has social skills. That's what I meant up there about knowing Portuguese- if I knew some, he'd take me on as a student even if our thematic interests are different.

Yeah, I don't speak/read Portuguese yet. I figured it would be a crash course once i get into a program or something. Hopefully it's not too much of a bar to admission.

[Encomendero]

I understand that unless you are working on Brazil as a primary field, learning Portuguese comes later in the academic career. As long as your Spanish is usable there shouldnt be an issue. In the colonial field, programs expect that you will have little to no knowledge of Quechua or Nahuatl when you start...

[jz83]

I understand that unless you are working on Brazil as a primary field, learning Portuguese comes later in the academic career. As long as your Spanish is usable there shouldnt be an issue. In the colonial field, programs expect that you will have little to no knowledge of Quechua or Nahuatl when you start...

That's what I figured.

[thenon]

Latin Americanist here. Modern LA, Andean Region. Focus is cocaine.

[StrangeLight]

thenon, are you applying to work with mary roldan? she was lovely over the phone when i spoke with her last year, but she left cornell and i never found out which school she moved to.

and for the people working on colonial borderlands or the mapuche, have any of you read "bárbaros" by david weber? really, really brilliant book about the frontierlands of the spanish colonial empire during the bourbon era. he's at southern methodist university, which of course doesn't sound as fancy as yale or nyu, but his book is one of my favourites. highly recommended.

i study ethnicity, communal land rights, and radical politics in the anglophone caribbean (including caribbean central america) in the late 20th century. i'm primarily looking at nicaragua and either grenada or honduras (once i stop waffling).

applied last year to pittsburgh, NYU, cornell, upenn, texas, michigan, miami, carnegie mellon, and princeton.

i should have applied to pittsburgh, indiana, tulane, texas (for anthropology, not history), michigan, carnegie mellon, NYU, and iowa. none of the ivies were even remotely good fits for my interests. it's weird to think how different my list would be this time around, but i think i'd still end up in the same place.

[jmhc]

I applied to Wisconsin to work with James Sweet, Florida because my sister is in the grad program there, JHU to work with Ben Vinson, Columbia to work with Christopher Brown, BU to work with John Thornton, and Harvard because I wanted a second school in the Boston area and Bernard Bailyn encouraged me to (though having not been admitted, I am questioning my judgment on that $105 application).

If you're familiar with any of those names, then you know them probably as people just as qualified in African History as in Latin American History. Thornton has been my undergraduate adviser here since I was a freshman. He put me in contact with all of the professors I wanted to work with at grad school. I also contacted Jane Landers at Vanderbilt, but for some reason that now escapes me decided against applying there despite the fact that it is much closer to home than anywhere else I applied. For some reason, I got a number 6 in my head and that was all the grad schools I wanted to apply to. If I had it to do over, I would drop the Harvard application and add Vanderbilt, Texas-Austin, and Berkeley and possibly Tulane or UCLA. As it was, I only applied to schools where Prof. Thornton specifically told me someone to contact (minus Florida, which was entirely to be near my sister).

[thenon]

thenon, are you applying to work with mary roldan? she was lovely over the phone when i spoke with her last year, but she left cornell and i never found out which school she moved to.

Damnit, I forgot about her. I just looked her up, couldn't track her down, possibly gone to Hunter College, which wouldn't work for me. I've read her work on Colombia, but my focus is more on Peru and Bolivia.

We'll see where I get in, don't wanna jinx it!

[jz83]

and for the people working on colonial borderlands or the mapuche, have any of you read "bárbaros" by david weber? really, really brilliant book about the frontierlands of the spanish colonial empire during the bourbon era. he's at southern methodist university, which of course doesn't sound as fancy as yale or nyu, but his book is one of my favourites. highly recommended.

I actually focus on the Mapuche and the Chilean state after independence, especially issues of land rights and colonization. Bárbaros looks really interesting. Have you read Florencia Mallon's Courage Tastes of Blood? She was my UG thesis advisory and it is an excellent history of the Mapuche during the 20th century.

[Encomendero]

Is any one planning some archival research this summer?

[StrangeLight]

i am this year, but i'm already in a program. for what it's worth, i spent my summer last year reading secondary sources and working on my spanish.

[Encomendero]

i am this year, but i'm already in a program. for what it's worth, i spent my summer last year reading secondary sources and working on my spanish.

Where are you going? I am going to work in Bogota for 12 weeks.

[StrangeLight]

belize, honduras, and nicaragua. more specifically, belize city, belmopan, san pedro sula, la ceiba, tegucigalpa, managua, and bluefields. only seven weeks total, but it's just my MA research. going in june/july. i LOVE being in the caribbean for hurricane season. love it.

[Encomendero]

belize, honduras, and nicaragua. more specifically, belize city, belmopan, san pedro sula, la ceiba, tegucigalpa, managua, and bluefields. only seven weeks total, but it's just my MA research. going in june/july. i LOVE being in the caribbean for hurricane season. love it.

I was born and raised on the Gulf Coast, I feel your pain.

[StrangeLight]

yeah. hopefully the central american coast doesn't get hit this season. there are worse things than being stranded there, but i'm worried about running out of money if i get stuck.

going to bogota sounds exciting. most of my weekends will be spent traveling from one location to another, but since you're only in one city, it seems like you'd get the opportunity to explore a bit. i'm a little jealous.

[Boogs]

Roldan is 100% at Hunter College/CUNY. From what I understand she's on leave this year. I met her at a talk she gave at NYU, she's great. As for me, I work on political economy and race in 19th and 20th century Brazil. Strangelight, how have you found Reid Andrews?

[StrangeLight]

Strangelight, how have you found Reid Andrews?

reid is one of my favourite people, period. had a seminar with him last semester and it was easily the best seminar i've ever had, as an undergraduate or grad student. he can be tough and he has high expectations. i would freak out a little bit before turning in papers because i didn't want to disappoint him. as an academic, i really love his work. i had read "blacks in sao paolo" before coming to pitt and read "afro-latin america" while i was here, and i'm all about what he's trying to do. as a human being, he is just lovely. witty, kind, patient, thoughtful. very humble guy, too, which is not easy to say about an academic as widely read as he is. i don't have a bad word to say about him, truly.

the other latin americanists at pitt are great, too (lara putnam and alejandro de la fuente). my advisor, prof. putnam, beyond being a really nice person, definitely puts me through my paces and challenges me to push myself conceptually. in the short time that i have worked with her and with reid, i can easily say it's made me a stronger historian. very rigorous expectations but also very approachable. we've got a strong cohort of latin americanist grad students, too. i'd say at least a third of all the grad students here, possibly more, study latin america or the caribbean.