affiliates
Department of African American Studies | Department of Anthropology |Department of Art History | Department of Communication Studies | Department of English | Department of French & Italian | Department of History | School of Music | Department of Performance Studies | Department of Political Science | Department of Sociology | Department of Spanish and Portuguese | Department of Theatre
Beatriz Badikian-Gartler, Adjunct Lecturer, Program in Latin American & Caribbean Studies.
Beatriz Badikian-Gartler earned her doctorate in creative writing from the University of Illinois at Chicago and has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants in the language arts.
Department of African American Studies
Sherwin Bryant, Assistant Professor, Department of African American Studies, Department of History.
Sherwin K. Bryant specializes in colonial Latin American history with a particular emphasis upon slavery and emancipation, race and difference, free black life in the Americas, and the modern African Diaspora.
John D. Márquez, Assistant Professor, Department of African American Studies and Latino/a Studies.
Professor Márquez's research interests include black-Latino/a relations, racial violence, anti-racist activism, critical race theory, globalization.
Ana Aparicio, Assistant Professor.
Ana Aparicio, (PhD The Graduate School and University Center, CUNY 2004) is a cultural anthropologist primarily concerned with the ways in which people navigate, contest, and transform systems of social and racial inequality.
Elizabeth Brumfiel, Professor.
Professor Brumfiel's research interests include Mesoamerican archaeology and ethnohistory, gender studies, class and factional dynamics in prehistoric societies, and the Aztec region. Current projects are "A role for Archaeology in Feminist and Gender Studies" and "Kinship and State Organization at Postclassic Xaltocan, Mexico."
Timothy Earle, Professor.
Professor Earle's research interests include archaeology, ecological anthropology, and prehistoric economics; his expertise in the Latin American field focuses on the Andes.
William Leonard, Professor and Department Chair.
Professor Leonard's research interests include biological anthropology, adaptability, growth and development and nutrition, in South America, Asia and the United States.
Cynthia Robin, Assistant Professor.
Professor Robin's research interests include archaeology, households and settlements, social organization, gender and class, and Mesoamerica. Since 2001, Professor Robin has researched the ancient Maya agrarian village of Chan in Belize , as a case study to explore the daily lives and importance of ordinary people in ancient Maya society.
Monica Russel y Rodriguez, Lecturer.
Professor Russel y Rodriguez's interests include cultural anthropology, race & mestizaje, Chicana feminist theory; US, Latino communities.
Mary Weismantel, Professor, Department of Anthropology, Program in Latin American and Caribbean Studies.
Professor Weismantel's research areas and interests include cultural anthropology, sex/gender, and race; her area of research and teaching expertise is Latin America generally and the Andean region in particular. Professor Weismantel is currently writing about sexuality, death, and the relationship between humans and animals as themes in the art of the ancient Moche, who created thousands of remarkable ceramics on the north coast of Peru between 200 and 800 C.E.
Krista A. Thompson, Assistant Professor.
Krista A. Thompson (Ph.D., Emory University 2002) is an independent curator. She teaches courses on race and representation, arts of the African diaspora, visual cultures of colonialism, and slavery in the visual imagination.
Department of Communication Studies
Pablo J. Boczkowski, Associate Professor.
Pablo Boczkowski's research program examines the transformation of the social and political institutions of print culture in the digital age.
Paul Breslin, Professor.
Professor Breslin teaches and researches Modern and Contemporary American Poetry and West Indian Literature. Author of The Psycho-Political Muse: American Poetry since the Fifties (Chicago, 1987); You Are Here (poems, TriQuarterly Books, Fall 2000); Nobody's Nation: Reading Derek Walcott (Chicago, 2001), Professor Breslin has extensive magazine publication as poet, literary essayist, and reviewer. He is a faculty affiliate of the Ph.D. track in Postcolonial and Diaspora Studies.
Department of French & Italian
Doris Garraway, Assistant Professor.
Professor Garraway's research interests include narratives of French colonialism in the Caribbean , Francophone Caribbean literature and Haitian literature; her current project examines legacies of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic world.
Josef Barton, Associate Professor, Chair of the Department of Spanish & Portuguese.
Professor Barton specializes in U.S. ethnic "immigration" and labor history and also in comparative and social history. The author of Peasants and Strangers: Italians, Romanians, and Slovaks in an American City, 1890-1950, and recipient of American Council of Learned Societies, NEH, and Fulbright fellowships, he is writing a book on capitalism and the persistence of community in Mexico and the Southwest, 1880-1930.
Brodwyn Fischer, Assistant Professor.
Professor Fischer specializes in modern Brazil and Latin America, with an emphasis on histories of law, urban transformation and social inequality. Her dissertation, "The Poverty of Law: Rio de Janero, 1930 - 1964," a study of the legal bases of urban inequity in 20th century Brazil, received awards from Harvard University and from the New England Council of Latin American Studies. A recipient of grants from the Fulbright Commission, the Social Science Research Council, and the Mellon Foundation, Fischer is currently revising her dissertation for publication. Her recent work includes articles on the influence of racial discrimination on Brazilian legal practice and research on the evolution of shantytowns and property rights in urban Brazil and Mexico .
Regina Grafe, Assistant Professor.
Regina Grafe (PhD London School of Economics and Political Science 2001) is a historian of early modern Spain with a special interest in economic history.
Sarah Osten, Postdoctoral Fellow.
Sarah Osten (Ph.D., The University of Chicago, 2010) studies modern Latin America, with a focus on twentieth century Mexico. She is particularly interested in political parties, campaigns and elections, the legislation of citizenship and political rights, women’s suffrage, and the interactions between states and opposition political movements. The book she is currently writing, based on her dissertation, examines political institutionalization and party formation in Mexico in the years immediately following the Mexican Revolution. It demonstrates that the political innovations of the Socialist parties of southeastern states of Chiapas, Tabasco and Yucatán in the 1920s served as crucial precedents for the subsequent rise of the modern Mexican political system. Osten has also published several articles about politics in southeastern Mexico during the 1920s. Her current and planned future research further explores Mexican national politics during the immediate post-revolutionary period. Osten was a recipient of a Fulbright Hays dissertation fellowship in 2006-7, and has also received grants for her research from the Doris G. Quinn Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Tinker Foundation.
Frank Safford, Gerald and Marjorie Fitzgerald Professor of Economic History.
Professor Safford is an historian of 19th-century Latin America, with particular emphasis on Colombia and on patterns of entrepreneurship, political alignment, and ideology. He has twice won awards from the Social Science Research Council. He has written The Ideal of the Practical: Colombia 's Struggle to Form a Technical Elite, as well as volumes of essays on Colombian and Latin American history, and is completing a book on the social and economic history of Colombia from pre-Columbian times to the present.
Drew Edward Davies, Assistant Professor, Musicology.
Professor Davies (PhD, University of Chicago) is a specialist in 17th- and 18th-century musics of Latin America and Iberia.
Department of Performance Studies
Ramón H. Rivera-Servera, Assistant Professor.
Professor Rivera-Servera's research and teaching focuses on contemporary Latina/o American public cultures with special emphasis on the ways categories of race, gender and sexuality are negotiated in the process of migration.
Department of Political Science
Victoria Maria DeFrancesco Soto, Assistant Professor.
Professor DeFrancesco Soto’s work focuses on campaigns and elections underpinned by the intersection of political psychology and race and ethnic politics.
Jaime Dominguez, Lecturer, WCAS Advisor.
Professor Dominguez research interests include race and ethnicity, urban and Latino and minority politics.
Edward Gibson, Associate Professor.
Professor Gibson's interests include comparative politics, political development, democratization, and Latin American politics, especially Argentina and Mexico; his recent scholarly work has focused on class and conservative parties in Argentina, party politics and democratization in Latin America and his current research deals with the structures and dynamics of federalism in Latin America (i.e., Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela).
Dévora Grynspan, Director of the Office of International Program Development and Co-director of the Global Helath Minor.
James Mahoney, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science and Department of Sociology
Professor Mahoney's interests include comparative-historical research and national development, political regimes, and qualitative methodology.
Reuel Rogers, Associate Professor
Professor Rogers' (PhD, Princeton University) main interests are in American politics. His research and teaching focus primarily on race, ethnicity, immigration, urban politics, political behavior, and African-American politics.
Ben Ross Schneider, Professor and Chair.
Professor Schneider's teaching and research interests fall within the general fields of comparative politics, political economy, and Latin American politics; his current research dealing with Latin America focuses on the institutional foundations of capitalist development in Latin America.
Jason Seawright, Assistant Professor.
Professor Seawright’s research interests include comparative politics, with an emphasis on comparative political parties and on comparative political behavior; and methodology, with foci on the interface between qualitative and quantitative methods and on problems of causal inference in statistical analysis.
Alberto Palloni, Board of Trustees Professor, Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research.
Alberto Palloni is a demographer and sociologist who works on health and mortality, socioeconomic inequality, aging in developing countries, criminology and applications of statistical and mathematical models for the spread of illnesses.
Juan Onesimo Sandoval, Assistant Professor and Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research.
Professor Sandoval's (Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 2002) primary research interests include spatial econometrics and spatial demography, poverty and social welfare; urban sociology, race relations, urban planning, and transportation policy.
Department of Spanish & Portuguese
Elisa Baena Ph.D. University of Illinois, Chicago; Lecturer
Elisa Baena teaches Spanish 201-2, Reading and Speaking II, and 202-1, Reading and Writing I. She is also currently developing the Spanish Writing Center.
Nathalie Bouzaglou, Assistant Professor.
Nathalie Bouzaglou (Ph.D. New York University) specializes in 19th- and early 20th- century Latin American Literature.
Cesar Braga-Pinto, Associate Professor
Cesar Braga-Pinto (Ph.D. UC Berkeley) specializes in Brazilian and Lusophone African cultures and literatures.
Francisco Castro, Lecturer.
Francisco Castro (Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin) teaches 200-level Spanish language courses, and coordinates Spanish 102-3 in Fall. He also teaches Spanish 301, Topics in Language.
Chyi Chung, M.A. Loyola University, Chicago; M.S. Tamkang University, Taiwan Senior Lecturer.
Chyi Chung teaches and coordinates Spanish 102-1, 2, 3; Intermediate Spanish. She is also the Placement Coordinator for the Spanish Language Program.
Heather Colburn, Senior Lecturer.
Heather Colburn (Ph.D. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) is the Acting Director of the Spanish Language Program. She teaches and coordinates Spanish 202-1, Reading and Writing I.
Rifka Cook, Senior Lecturer.
Rifka Cook (M.A. Universidad Pedagógica Libertador) teaches first- and second-year Spanish language courses. She lived in a Caribbean Island (Margarita) for 20 years and was very involved with the insular community-- both Jewish and non-Jewish groups.
Jorge Coronado, Assistant Professor.
Professor Coronado's field of specialization is twentieth-century Latin American literature, with an emphasis on Latin American intellectual history, poetics, and literary and cultural criticism.
Anna Diakow, Ph.D. University of Chicago; Lecturer
Anna Diakow teaches and coordinates Spanish 202-2, Reading and Writing II. She also teaches Spanish 301, Topics in Language.
Gonzalo Díaz-Migoyo, Professor.
Professor Díaz-Migoyo specializes in the literature and culture of Spain and Spanish America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and in twentieth-century Hispanic narrative. He is currently working on a project about "morisco" life in Northern Castile.
Penny Nichols Fahey Ph.D. University of Wisconsin at Madison; Lecturer
Penny Nichols Fahey teaches and coordinates Spanish 201-1, Reading and Speaking I. She also teaches a Freshman Seminar and serves as a Freshman Adviser.
Jill Felten, Lecturer.
Jill Felten ( M.A. University of Wisconsin at Madison) teaches first- and second-year Spanish language courses.
Darío Fernández-Morera, Associate Professor.
Professor Fernández-Morera's main fields are Comparative Literature and Golden Age Spanish literature. He has published books and articles in English and Spanish in the United States, England, and Spain on cultural issues and theory, Cervantes, sixteenth and seventeenth-century Spanish prose and fiction, modern Spanish poetry, the encounter between Europeans and Amerindians, Modernism, and contemporary political events in Latin America.
Jeannie Jacob, Lecturer.
Jeannie Jacob (M.A. University of Illinois, Chicago) teaches intermediate Spanish language courses, and is currently redesigning Spanish 207, Spanish for Heritage Speakers. She also is a WCAS College Adviser.
Lucille Kerr, Herman and Beulah Pearce Miller Research Professor.
Professor Kerr's area of research is modern Latin American literature, with emphasis on narrative fiction, the Boom and post-Boom eras, literary history, and literary theory. She is the author of Suspended Fictions: Reading Novels by Manuel Puig (University of Illinois Press) and Reclaiming the Author: Figures and Fictions from Spanish America (Duke University Press).
Shannon Millikin, Lecturer.
Shannon Millikin ( M.A., University of Illinois, Chicago) teaches first- and second-year Spanish language courses.
Yarí Pérez Marín, Assistant Professor.
Professor Pérez Marín specializes in colonial Latin American literature and culture. Her research interests also include Caribbean literature, the history of science and women's writing.
Benay Stein, Lecturer.
Benay Stein (M.B.A. DePaul University, Chicago) teaches first year Spanish, 101 and the accelerated course 115. She is also the Coordinator for Spanish 115. Benay is currently developing a course entitled, Spanish for Professions-Business: Spanish 206-0, which will be offered in Spring, 2009.
Vera R. Teixeira, M.Phil. Yale University; Distinguished Senior Lecturer.
Vera R. Teixeira is the Portuguese Language Program Administrator and she teaches the Intensive Portuguese 111/112-1, 2, 3 ; Portuguese 210- “Icons, Legends and Myths in Brazil”, and Portuguese 303 “Topics in Advanced Portuguese.”
Ana C Thomé-Williams, Senior Lecturer.
Ana Thomé-Williams (PhD University of São Paulo, Brazil) teaches Portuguese 111-112, 201 and Portuguese 397 – “Topics in Brazilian Culture: Popu;ar Festivities and Celebrations in Brazil.”
Alejandra Uslenghi, Assistant Professor.
Alejandra Uslenghi (Phd in Comparative Literature, New York University) specializes in 19th and 20th century Latin American Literature and Visual Culture.
Ana Puga, Assistant Professor.
Ana Puga received her B.A. from the University of Chicago and her M.F.A. and Doctorate in Fine Arts from the Yale School of Drama. She specializes in contemporary Latin American theatre. Besides literature and criticism, her interests include dramaturgy, translation, and performance. Her doctoral dissertation, Stages of Resistance: Three South American Playwrights, focuses on theatrical attempts to oppose dictatorship in Argentina , Uruguay , and Chile.
