The Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and the Department of History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaig

Present

CELEBRATING 100 YEARS OF LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, 1909 - 2009

TWO EVENTS COMMEMORATING THE ARRIVAL OF WILLIAM SPENCE ROBERTSON TO CAMPUS:

1. Keynote Address:

"Latin America 1810-1825: Revolutions or Wars of Independence in Historical Memory" by Eric Van Young, Dept. of History, University of California at San Diego

Opening remarks by Ruth Watkins, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Thursday, October 29, 7:30 pm, 319 Gregory Hall (810 S. Wright St. Urbana); Followed by a Reception

Eric Van Young is perhaps the leading historian of colonial Mexico in the United States, with prize winning books on society and economy of the late colonial Guadalajara region and the Mexican revolution of independence from the perspective of indigenous and mestizo farmers, ranchers and crafts people. The topic of his lecture was the subject of W.S. Robertson's most important publications and is once again a hot topic due to the impending bicentenary of Latin America's revolutions of independence.

2. Roundtable Discussion:

"From 'Making the World Safe For Democracy' to 'Decentering Europe'? Changing Historical Perspectives on Latin America and Other 'Non-Western' World Regions Over the Past Century."

Participants:

Jovita Baber, History, UIUC, on Colonial Latin America

James Brennan, History, UIUC, on Africa

Behrooz Ghamari Tabrizi, History/Sociology, UIUC, on the Middle East

Nils Jacobsen, History, UIUC, on Post-Colonial Latin America

Eric Van Young, History, UCSD, Comments

Friday, October 30, 10-12 am, 319 Gregory Hall (809 S. Wright St., Urbana)

This year the Dept. of History celebrates 100 years of teaching and researching history other than that of the US and Europe. In 1909, Latin Americanist William Spence Robertson (Ph.D., Yale University, 1903) joined the department. He went on to a distinguished scholarly career (some of his books are still available through Amazon), and served as department chair between 1937 and 1941. Illinois thus became one of less than ten universities in the US that could boast active scholarship in Latin American history before World War I.

Please join us to celebrate this important first step in "globalizing" the subject of history taught at the University of Ilinois.

Co sponsored by the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities and the Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese