Roger Thayer Stone Center For Latin American Studies

Tulane University

History

Tulane University is a liberal arts institution founded in 1834. Its academic mission has been identified historically with its region. The latter includes the Mississippi River and Gulf-Caribbean basins as well as the Atlantic and Pacific Worlds linked at the isthmus in Panama. Tulane’s programs have evolved as partnerships with these regional neighbors linked by history and shared inheritances.

Tulane has a long-standing special strength in the study of Central America and Mexico. This concentration originated in a turn-of-the-century gift of a large Mesoamerican library, which became the foundation for the Latin American Library’s holdings of resource materials on Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Mexico, which are internationally distinguished.

In the early part of the century, one of Tulane’s first internationally prestigious program was the Middle American Research Institute, which was founded in 1924 to conduct “advanced research into the archaeology, history, tropical botany, and natural resources and products of countries facing New Orleans across the waters of the south.” Tulane’s identity and destiny were to become one with this early exemplar of its institutional leaders’ commitments to create knowledge and provide service to a region whose boundaries transcended the geopolitical frontiers of the United States. Archaeology, anthropology, history, political science, literature, biology, and earth sciences formed the core disciplines in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, while the Schools of Law, Business, Engineering, Medicine, and Public Health developed truly Pan-American programs in the early twentieth century.

Although Tulane expanded its scope to all of Latin America after World War II, the Mesoamerican strength remains and the Stone Center acts as a sort of brokerage for relations between Mesoamerica and the United States. A steady stream of Mexicans and Central Americans come to Tulane for training, as Fulbright Professors and to use our library. Specialists on the region can be found in most departments and the university has produced several hundred dissertations and theses on Mesoamerican subjects. Every summer there are well over 100 Tulane faculty and students at work in the region, whether in archaeological excavations, Maya intensive language program in Guatemala, or dozens of National Resource Center-financed individual research projects.

Our program is today comprehensive with faculty in almost every region and discipline essential to understanding Latin America. The Mississippi-Gulf-Caribbean region is the epicenter of cultural and historical converging and radiating flows of a vast cultural and geographic network embracing Europe, Africa, the Pacific Rim, and North and South America. Today, Tulane University has active programs in African and African Diaspora Studies, the Atlantic World, Comparative Southern Studies, and Cuban, Brazilian, and Francophone Caribbean Studies. The Payson Institute for Applied Development and Technology Transfer offers courses on its New Orleans and Washington D.C. campuses and operates a federally-funded third world disaster center. Our Schools of Law, Business and Public Health and Tropical Medicine operate field programs in every region of Latin America.

Nationally, few institutions of Tulane’s size compare in the number of faculty, graduate students, undergraduate majors, library holdings, and support for research dedicated to the support of Latin American studies across the university. When viewed in relationship to the percentage of the relatively small available pool of institutional resources—e.g. faculty, students, library holdings, and budget—Tulane’s commitment to Latin American Studies is comparable or superior to institutions such as Stanford and Duke, among private universities, and to the University of Texas and the University of California at Los Angeles, among large public universities, whose faculties and student bodies are three to five times larger.

Tulane is also a top producer of graduate degrees that focus on Latin America. Since the mid-l960s, over 300 students have graduated with an interdisciplinary M.A. degrees in Latin American Studies and have gone on to positions in the public and private sectors, and for additional training in the disciplines and professions. Almost forty have graduated with the interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Latin American Studies since the late l970s. Virtually every one of these graduates is working or has worked in the field. A few placements include University of New Mexico, University of Texas, Smith College, Middlebury College, Banco de Bilbao, Harvard University, U.S. Agency for International Development, and some seven Mexican universities.

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Upcoming Events

Rethinking State-Society Relations in Contemporary Latin America

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The emergence, crisis, and collapse of neoliberalism gave way to new types of political regimes that set themselves the task of redefining state-society relationships to promote more socially inclusive polities. The accomplishments and shortcomings of those processes need yet to be evaluated, particularly from an encompassing, historically-informed perspective that is not afraid of challenging established assumptions and mainstream understandings of Latin America to do justice to current developments. What are the continuities/ discontinuities in terms of state-society linkages that the various processes of change experienced since the return to democracy introduced in the Latin American landscape? Is Latin America moving towards a more democratic and inclusive society? What is the nature of the new patterns of state-society interaction? Have they drastically altered the legacy of populism, bureaucratic-authoritarianism, and neoliberalism?, in which specific ways? Are emerging regimes promoting new patterns of exclusion or novel forms of authoritarianism?

A group of scholars from different disciplines, country expertise drawn from Latin America, the US and Europe will meet on May 24th at Tulane University to debate empirically and theoretically informed articles that address these questions.

SCHEDULE
10:00 AM-10:15 AM – Introduction and welcoming

10:15 AM-10.45 AM – Justice and politics: the dialogic alternative by Roberto Gargarella

10:45 AM-11:15 AM – The political economy of post-neoliberal Latin America: Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay development regimes by Christopher Wylde

11:15 AM-11:45 AM – The impact of taxes and social spending on inequality and poverty in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico and Peru: a synthesis of results by Nora Lustig, George Gray-Molina, Sean Higgins, Miguel Jaramillo, Wilson Jiménez, Veronica Paz, Claudiney Pereira, Carola Pessino, John Scott, and Ernesto Yañez

12:00 PM -1:30 PM – LUNCH

1:45 PM -2:15 PM – Participatory developments and democratic representation in South America by Leonardo Avritzer and Enrique Peruzzotti

2:15 PM -2:45 PM – The second wave of incorporation and territorialized politics in Argentina and Brazil by Federico M. Rossi

2:45 PM -3:15 PM – Indigenous-state relations in Ecuador and Bolivia: challenges and opportunities by Roberta Rice

3:15 PM-3:30 PM – COFFEE BREAK

3:30 PM -4:00 PM – Gender, power, and women's political inclusion in Argentina and Chile by Susan Franceschet

4:00 PM -4:30 PM – Viral politics, the post-liberal imaginary and #Yosoy132 in Mexico by Benjamín Arditi

Summer K-12 Teacher Institute - Exploring Brazil: A Window into the Language & Culture of a Country on the Rise

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The University of Georgia, Tulane University, and Vanderbilt University will collaborate to offer a Summer Institute on Brazilian Culture and Portuguese Language. K-12 educators of any discipline and grade-level are welcome to apply to attend this 4 day institute. The goal of this institute is to encourage and promote the teaching of Portuguese and the culture of Brazil through film, literature, service learning, and technology in any K-12 classroom. The institute will focus on the language, history, and geography of Brazil. Sessions will include Portuguese language instruction and participants will explore the culture, history, and geography of Brazil. Film screenings and other presentations will be incorporated into the institute to highlight contemporary and engaging cultural content for the K-12 classroom. During the week, educators will work in teams to develop interdisciplinary units that address applicable state learning standards, which they will bring back to their schools to teach and share with colleagues. Educators may receive a certificate of completion for 20 hours of professional development if desired.

Sponsored in part through a Portuguese Flagship Program at the University of Georgia and through a Title VI U.S. Department of Education National Resource Center grant on Latin America awarded to Tulane University’s Stone Center for Latin American Studies and Vanderbilt University’s Center for Latin American Studies.

Registration Information Below:

  • Base Registration ($50) includes all materials, parking and registration to entire program with no meals or housing included. You are responsible for making your own housing and dining accommodations.
  • Registration with Base Housing ($150) includes everything above as well as breakfast and lunch, and a double room on campus in dormitory housing.
  • Registration with Private Housing ($225) includes everything above and assures a private room and bath in dormitory housing.
  • Add $50 to registration if interested in receiving Georgia Department of Education approved Professional Learning Units (PLUs)

For more information contact:

Denise Woltering (Tulane University), 504.862.3143, dwolteri@tulane.edu
Kathleen Schmaltz (University of Georgia), 706.583.0388, schmaltz@uga.edu
Claire Gonzalez (Vanderbilt University), 615.343.1837, claire.p.gonzalez@vanderbilt.edu

Two-week Public Service summer program in Ecuador

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Center for Public Service: International Programs
Ecuador: Tropical Field Biology and Conservation
Chocó Rainforest, Ecuador | Tentative dates: August 9 – August 23, 2013

Application deadline: January 28, 2013
Deadline extended!

All majors are welcome to apply to spend two weeks in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador. Ecuador: Tropical Field Biology and Conservation gives students the opportunity to apply the theory and knowledge they have acquired in the classroom to the real world. Students will travel with Dr. Karubian and Dr. Duraes to Ecuador for a two-week intensive field course. While on the course, students will experience first-hand the challenges and rewards of conducting field research and implementing conservation activities in tropical environments. These activities will take place within a context of community engagement based on active collaboration and interaction with Ecuadorian local residents in a variety of contexts.

For more information, click here to visit the Center for Public Service’s page on this program.

Call for Papers: Radical Caribbeans

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Read the official Call for Papers here.

We welcome papers that address any facet of the Caribbean radicalis and radical approaches to Caribbean identity, culture and social practices. Papers may focus on one country or invoke comparative strategies of any regions contained in the greater Caribbean, beyond the confines of the Caribbean sea, northeast of the Florida straits and into the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans, and south, along the Atlantic coast, past Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil. Papers may be in English, Spanish, French or Portuguese, though English is preferred.

If you are interested in participating, please send a 250 word abstract as an attachment to either of the email addresses listed below by June 15th, 2013. Include the title of your paper, your name (and the names of any co-presenters), institutional affiliation, phone number, mailing and email address. Papers for presentation should be no more than than 20 minutes and may be considered for publication. If submitting a panel for consideration, please include a top sheet with panel title, participant names and a brief abstract of the panel topic in addition to the individual paper proposals.
Notification of acceptance to the conference will be made by July 5, 2013.
For more information on the conference, location and arrangements, visit the Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute website for updates at cuba.tulane.edu.

Submit abstracts by June 15 to:
lopez_AT_tulane.edu
icaballe_AT_tulane.edu