Lectures
2004-2005 2005-2006 2006-2007 2007-2008
Public Lecture Series 2007: Human Rights in Mexico
- Jorge Fernández Souza, "Indigenous Rights: The Case of Chiapas"
May 21, 2007
Jorge Fernández Souza is Magistrate Judge, Professor of Law and former Dean of Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (México), former delegate of Delegación Miguel Hidalgo, and lawyer for Bishop Samuel Ruiz in the Chiapas negotiations (1994-1997). - Mariclaire Acosta, "The Modern Human Rights Movement in Mexico"
May 17, 2007
Mariclaire Acosta works for the Organization of American States, is co-founder of the Academia Mexicana de Derechos Humanos, founder of the Comisión Mexicana para la Promoción y Defensa de los Derechos Humanos, and former director of Human Rights in the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores. - Bertha Lujan, "Labor Rights: The Case of Ciudad Juárez"
May 3, 2007
Bertha Lujan is the Secretaría del Trabajo in the Gobierno "Legitimo" de México (de Andrés Manuel López Obrador), former Controlora de la Ciudad de México (2000-2006), and lead organizer of Frente Auténtico del Trabajo for over two decades. - Emilio Álvarez Icaza, "Impunity and Justice: The Cases of 1968 and 1971"
April 30, 2007
Emilio Álvarez Icaza is President of the Comisión de Derechos Humanos del Distrito Federal. - Friedrich Katz, "The Mexican Revolution and the Constitution of 1917"
April 9, 2007
Friedrich Katz is the Morton Hull Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Chicago. Click here to learn more about Professor Katz.
Renato González Mello (Columbia University), "Peasants, Archaeologists, Architects, and Painters: the Diego Rivera Collection and the Museum of Mexican Antiquities"
May 2, 2007
Renato González Mello obtained his PhD in Art History from UNAM in 1998. From 1989 to 1992 he acted as a curator for the collection of the Museo Carrillo Gil in Mexico City, which permitted him to specialize in the work of the Mexican muralist José Clemente Orozco. Currently a teacher and researcher at Mexico's National University, he was guest curator for the exhibition José Clemente Orozco in the United States, held at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College. In addition, his book La máquina de pintar: Rivera, Orozco y la invención de un lenguaje was published in 2002.
Alan Knight (Oxford University), "The Rise and Fall of the Myth of the Mexican Revolution"
April 3, 2007
Alan Knight is professor of Latin American history and Fellow of St. Antony's College. His chief interest is twentieth-century Latin American history, with a focus on Mexico, agrarian society, state-building and revolution. He is the author of The Mexican Revolution (2 vols, Cambridge, 1986) US-Mexican Relations, 1910-40 (San Diego, 1987); of the chapter on Mexico, 1930-1946, in The Cambridge History of Latin America (Vol. VII, 1990); and of two volumes of a three volume general history of Mexico, Mexico: From the Beginning to the Conquest, and Mexico: The Colonial Era (Cambridge, 2002).
Reverend Walter Coleman (Adalberto United Methodist Church) & Emma Lozano (Director of Sin Fronteras), "Elvira Arellano: Between Alien & Citizen"
February 20, 2007
In the aftermath of September 11, the Department of Homeland Security began looking for terrorists among airport employees across the country (Operation Tarmac), conducting sweeps that led only to the arrest of numerous immigrant workers and to the break-up or displacement of many families. One of those workers, Elvira Arellano, has waged a long struggle to remain in Chicago with her 7-year-old son Saúl, a U.S. citizen. Facing a deportation order which she and her many supporters regard as cruel and unjust, Arellano and her son have taken refuge in a Chicago-area church since August of 2006.
Miguel Ángel Berumen (Independent Scholar and Founder of the Publishing House Cuadroxcuadro), "Pancho Villa en Fotos"
February 6, 2007
Miguel Ángel Berumen Campos dirigió el departamento de cine de la Universidad Autónoma de ciudad Juárez y, de manera paralela la Muestra Permanente de Cine de Calidad (1995-2001). Fue el editor e investigador iconográfico del libro La mirada desenterrada (2000) y de la Enciclopedia escolar de México (2002-2003). Es coautor de 1911,La batalla de Ciudad Juárez (2003) y de La Misión de Guadalupe (2004). Se ha hecho acreedor en tres ocasiones al Southwest Book Award.
Alejandro Madrid (University of Illinois, Chicago), "Dancing with Desire: Cultural Embodiment and Negotiation in Nor-tec Music and Dance"
January 29, 2007
Alejandro L. Madrid holds a PhD in musicology and comparative cultural studies from Ohio State University. His research focuses on the intersection of modernity, tradition, globalization, and identity in popular and art music and expressive culture from Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico border. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Latin American and Latino studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Franc Contreras (Public Radio International Correspondent for Mexico), "Oaxaca in Mexico's Contemporary Political Context"
November 15, 2006
Franc Contreras has been reporting from Mexico City and around Latin America since 1996. Along with Public Radio International's program, The World, his stories have also been broadcast on NPR, the BBC, and CBC Radio in Toronto, among others.
Public Lecture Series: Mexico's Presidential Elections: Implications and Analyses
- Jean François Prud'homme, "The 2006 Mexican Presidential Elections & the Fragility of Democratic Institutions"
November 13, 2006
Jean-François Prud'homme is currently the General Academic coordinator of El Colegio de México. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from York University. He has worked on issues related to political parties, electoral reform and political participation in Mexico and Latin America. Among his recent publications are, with Guy Hermet and Ali Kazancigil, La gouvernance: un concept et ses applications (Karthala, Paris, 2005) and, with Guy Hermet and Soledad Loaeza, Del populismo de los antiguos al populismo de los modernos (El Colegio de Mexico, Mexico, 2001). - María Amparo Casar, "The 2006 Mexican Presidential Elections & Challenges for the New Government"
November 2, 2006
María Amparo Casar received her doctorate in Political and Social Sciences from the University of Cambridge, King's College, in 1977, and she now works as a Professor of Political Studies at el Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas A.C. (CIDE). She has worked as a central political adviser to the Secretary of Interior in Mexico and is editor of the newspaper Reforma and commentator on the radio programs Panorama Informativo and Zona Abierta. She received the King's College Prize from the University of Cambridge for the most outstanding student of her generation in 1979. - Lorenzo Meyer, "Right vs. Left and the New Born Mexican Democracy: Can the Three Survive?"
October 16 , 2006
Lorenzo Meyer is widely recognized as a prominent historian and political analyst in Mexico. After completing his post-doctoral studies at the University of Chicago, Meyer returned to Mexico to teach in the prestigious academic institution, El Colegio de México. Today, Meyer is also an editorialist at the prestigious national newspaper Reforma, and is the host of a political TV show in the nations' largest network. Since the late 1970's Meyer has published numerous books on Mexican history, politics, culture, including most recently, The Cactus and the Olive Tree: History of Mexico and Spain Relations in the 20th Century (Oceáno, 2002).
James Cockcroft (State University of New York), "The Magonistas' Relevance in Mexico's 2006 Political Warfare"
October 23, 2006
Professor James Cockcroft spoke on the Magonistas' relevance a century after the rebellion, as evidenced by the resurgence of their main programmatic points in the Zapatistas' "other campaign," the massive civic mobilization that honored López Obrador's presidential campaign, the wave of mining strikes, and the impressive "Oaxaca Commune" - all in 2006.
2005-2006
Alma Guillermoprieto (contributor to The New Yorker), "Mexico Today: A Conversation with Alma Guillermoprieto"
April 20, 2006
Award-winning journalist Alma Guillermoprieto, born in Mexico, has written about Latin America for more than twenty years. She is a frequent contributor to both The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker.
Jan Rus (Taller Tzotzil Maya Publishing Project-Chiapas and Latin American Perspectives) "Challenges Facing Chiapas' Indigenous People: Economics and Politics a Decade into the Zapatista Rebellion"
April 5, 2006
Jan Rus is the former co-chair for the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California, San Diego and former director of the Native Language Publishing Project, Instituto de Asesoría Antropológica para la Región Maya, A.C., San Cristóbal, Chiapas. He is also co-editor of Mayan lives, Mayan utopias : the indigenous peoples of Chiapas and the Zapatista rebellion (2003) published in Latin American Perspectives.
César Hernández (Centro de Investigación para el Desarrollo, A.C.), "Mexico's 2006 Elections: Trends and Scenarios"
November 16, 2005
Associate researcher for the Centro de Investigación para el Desarrollo, AC, (CIDAC), a non- profit think tank in Mexico.
Antonio Azuela (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), "Agrarian Communities and Natural Resources in Mexico"
October 26, 2005
Antonio Azuela is professor of sociology and urban-regional studies at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) and co- author of several works including Desarrollo Sustentable: Hacia una Política Ambiental (1993).
Francisco Gil Díaz (Mexico's Secretary of Finance and PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago), "Trends and Recent Developments in the Mexican Economy"
February 28, 2005
Fernando Escalante (El Colegio de México), "The Weakness of the State in Latin America"
February 22, 2005
Fernando Escalante is a historical sociologist, former Tinker Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago and professor at El Colegio de México. He is a frequent visiting professor at universities in Spain and France. Escalante is the author of six books among which is his study of civic culture in 19th century Mexico Imaginary Citizens, and other works including Political Terror and La Mirada de Dios .
Jesús Silva Herzog (Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de Mexico), "Mexico: Problems of a New Democracy"
October 21, 2004
Jesús Silva-Herzog Márquez, Professor of Law at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de Mexico (ITAM), is a renowned political commentator, an editorialist for the newspaper Reforma, and a member of the Editorial Board of the political magazine Nexos. Silva-Herzog was Comexi Scholar at the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars from January through March 2004, pursuing a research project on "The Democratic Problem" in Mexico." He is currently researching the changing role of civil society's involvement in the Mexican political system.
