In the late 1960s, in the context of a rapid growth of area studies in U.S. higher education, the Department of History at the University of Maryland initiated a graduate program in Latin American history. The program remained modestly-sized through the early 1990s, principally training a handful of master of arts students in various historical topics in Mesoamerica, Venezuela, the Caribbean, and the Southern Cone.
After new faculty hires and programmatic investments in the mid-to-late 1990s, the graduate program in Latin American history has emerged as one of the top in the United States, led by nationally-ranked faculty who have been able to attract highly qualified students from throughout the Americas. The students' success includes several major external fellowships awarded in support of innovative doctoral research. The program's most recent doctoral recipients are employed in tenure-track jobs or related work of their choice.
The program is structured around a comprehensive sequence of historiographies, methodological, and research and writing seminars that prepare students to choose a research focus from a range of geographic regions, nation-states, and time periods. The program encourages transnational, comparative, and interdisciplinary approaches.
In Fall 2006, the program numbers thirteen doctoral students, whose undergraduate training ranges from small liberal arts colleges to major research institutions in the United States, Latin America, and Canada. Six of the students are international.
Research of current students and recent graduates focuses on Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Cuba and covers themes as diverse as the transition from slave to free labor in Rio de Janeiro commerce, urban planning and development in Rio and Buenos Aires, middle class formation in Mexico and Colombia, the political culture of cartooning in revolutionary Cuba, film and politics in Argentina and Brazil, the histories of African cultures in Mexico and Brazil, and the impact of the Cold War on national history and patrimony in Mexico. The most recent arrivals are developing research interests in the history of the African Diaspora in Latin America and the politics of the left in modern Mexico.
In the summer 2006, two students participated in the Oaxaca Institute in Modern Mexican history while others worked on predissertation and dissertation research in Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires.
A wide range of departmental, campus, and regional resources enrich graduate 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 graduate 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.
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.
Graduate courses taught by the Department of History that are appropriate for the study of Latin America include:
HIST 408: Enslavement and Emancipation in the Americas
HIST 471 History of Brazil
HIST 473 History of the Caribbean
HIST 474 History of Argentina
HIST 475 History of the Mexican Revolution
HIST 608 General Seminar: Colonial Latin America
HIST 608 General Seminar: 19th-Century Latin America
HIST 608 General Seminar: 20th-Century Latin America
HIST 619 Gender and Nation
HIST 619 Modern Mexico
HIST 619 Women in the Modern Americas
HIST619D Readings in the History of the Black Atlantic
HIST 619X Research Methods and Sources in Latin American History
HIST 778 Readings in Latin American History
HIST 829 Seminar in Latin American History
Graduate Course Catalog | Current Course Offerings [Testudo]
In addition to our Maryland affiliate faculty, the Latin American program at Maryland has developed special relationships with the curatorial staff at the Oliveira Lima Library, a superb repository of Luso-Brazilian materials housed at the Catholic University of America, as well with the history faculty at a number of Latin American institutions of higher education and research, including the Laboratório de História Oral e Imagem (LABHOI) of the Universidade Federal Fluminense (Niterói, Brazil) and the Centro de Estudos Afro-Asiáticos (CEAA) of the Universidade Cândido Mendes (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), and the Benmerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla (Puebla, Mexico).
Last updated: October 6, 2007