Katz Center Announcements
Instituto Cultural
Oaxaca, Mexico
Rethinking the Nation: Professor Mauricio Tenorio Trillo puts Mexico’s bicentennial celebration into perspective
Professor of Latin American History Mauricio Tenorio Trillo’s Historia y celebración: México y sus centenarios was published this summer by Tusquets Editores, in Mexico. In this series of essays reflecting on the year 2010, which will mark the bicentennial of Mexican Independence, and the centennial of the Mexican Revolution, Tenorio uses the 1910 centenary celebration of independence as a central point of departure.
A massive effort by the Porfirian government that took place over seven years, and incorporated the work of scientists, artists, politicians, and historians, this event marked one of the first national celebrations of its kind. The aesthetic centerpiece of the centenary was a series of visual representations of Mexico’s pre-Colombian and colonial past, and the revolutionary struggle; these displays fell in chronological order along Paseo de la Reforma, and led up to the Monumento de la Revolución. Tenorio uses this presentation of the nation as a way to see how Mexico envisioned its past, present, and future in this critical moment in the nation’s history.
Over the last hundred years, he asks, how has this image been preserved or realized? In what ways has it faded? Historia y celebración: México y sus centenarios examines presentations of national identity over time, the “mythification” of the nation’s past, and Mexico’s image in the international context, following an overarching conceptual thread which suggests that rather than celebration, the year 2010 may merit a careful rethinking of the nation.
Past Announcements
Adrián Lajous, former CEO of Pemex, on Mexican oil and gas policies
Former Pemex CEO and current chairman of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, Adrián Lajous came to campus last quarter to give a talk on oil and gas policies in contemporary Mexico. A 2003-04 Senior Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Mr. Lajous holds degrees in Economics from the UNAM and Cambridge University. A video recording of this lecture will soon be available on CHIASMOS! Check back soon to watch Mr. Lajous' presentation.
Mexican Seminar Series, Spring 2009
This spring, the Mexican Seminar Series will welcome speakers Professor Emeritus Friedrich Katz; Judith A. Boruchoff, a research associate at the Katz Center; Ariel Rodríguez Kuri, director of the Centro de Estudios Históricos at El Colegio de México; and John Tutino, Professor of History at Georgetown University. Click here to learn more about the Seminar Series this spring.
