Latin American Studies

Regional Resources

A wide range of departmental, campus, and regional resources enrich student life and learning. The Universities Libraries have invested in the Latin American history collection over the past decade, targeting collection development in themes of greatest interest to graduate students in the Department of History. By 2007, these targeted acquisitions will include a substantial collection of microfilmed periodicals published in Rio de Janeiro during the nineteenth century.

The Nathan and Jeanette Miller Center for Historical Studies, housed within the Department of History, engages professors and students in dialogue with leading international scholars in seminars and conferences organized annually around a theme In recent years, the Miller Center's annual themes have included globalization, religion, visuality and history, empire, and the body and body politic. Of particular interest to Latin Americanists have been recent conferences on the body and body politic in Latin America, the colonial and the visual, the middle class as a global phenomenon, and the cultures of dictatorship in post-1964 Brazil. The Miller Center provides funding for conferences and workshops organized by the graduate students themselves, both within the History Department and across departments and campuses.

Students also make use of excellent departmental course offerings in African and African American history, women and gender, the environment and technology, and courses in other departments, such as Spanish and Portuguese and Women's Studies. In addition, students have many opportunities to interact with the Latin American Studies Center, the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora, and the Consortium on Race, Gender & Ethnicity, all of which sponsor outside speakers and conferences and offer interdisciplinary dialogue and resources for graduate students.  

The Baltimore-Washington region houses invaluable archival resources for student research in the history and cultures of the Americas. In addition to the College Park facility of the National Archives and Records Administration, located minutes away from campus, Latin Americanists have ready access to the vast multidisciplinary holdings of the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution; the museum and library of the Organization of American States; specialized holdings of the National Agricultural Library in Greenbelt, the National Medical Library in Bethesda, the George Meany Center for Labor Studies in Silver Spring; as well as other regional institutions including and the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection and the Interamerican Development Bank.

Funding Opportunities

Each year the graduate program awards multiyear funding packages to outstanding applicants. A multiyear package typically includes four or five years of guaranteed support, including a stipend, tuition remission, and a health benefits option. The Latin American program has direct control over two award packages, and nominates promising applicants for other packages made available through the Department of History and the College of Arts and Humanities. All qualified applicants will be considered for teaching and graduate assistantships.

Once enrolled in the program all students in good standing may apply for research and travel awards, summer support for the development of the dissertation prospectus, and dissertation research and writing awards. Students in the Latin American history program have taken advantage of opportunities for summer study in Brazil and Mexico and for predoctoral research in the Latin American country of their choice. They have also been successful at winning major external awards and fellowships, including dissertation awards from the Fulbright-IIE and Fulbright-Hays doctoral programs, the Mellon Fellowship for Dissertation Research in Original Sources program, and the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Through June 2007, the University of Maryland hosts the editorial offices of the Hispanic American Historical Review, flagship English-language journal in Latin American history. The History graduate program offers a rotating graduate assistantship at the journal through which Maryland students gain greater familiarity with editing and peer reviewing processes and as well as with the most recent scholarly trends.

In order to be considered for financial support, students must submit all required application materials no later than December 15. Applicants to the doctoral program receive highest priority in funding decisions.

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