Professor Fisher came to Carleton in 2003, as our first full-time Latin American historian. He offers surveys of Latin American colonial and post-colonial history, as well as seminars on Mesoamerican and Andean society and culture, Mexican nationalism, the Inquisition, and the African Diaspora in Latin America.

Professor Fisher’s research examines the transformation of Cuitlateca, Tepozteca, Nahua, and Purépecha peasant communities in the mid-Balsas Basin of Guerrero, Mexico under Spanish colonial rule (1521-1821). He traces how Hispanic, African, and indigenous migrants were assimilated into local communities, particularly through Catholic lay brotherhoods that were supported by shared agricultural pursuits and stock raising. Through these cultural practices, migrants were made into Indians, just as Indian collective identity and memory were transformed by these same outsiders. Along with numerous articles and chapters on this topic, he is also the co-editor of Imperial Subjects: Race and Identity in Colonial Latin America (Duke University Press, 2009).

Ph.D. from Northwestern. Teaches Forces of Nature, Women Writers in Latin American, Latin American Drama, Novels of Revolution and Dictatorship, and Recent Trends in Latin American Narrative: Testimony and Pop Culture. Her teaching and research focus on both contemporary Latin American narrative and theater with a strong interest in women's writings. She has published on authors such as Mayra Montero, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Luisa Valenzuela, and Griselda Gambaro. She is on the editorial board of Latin American Theater Review and a reader for other journals such as Letras Femeninas and Gestos. Becky has on occasion led the Spanish Winter Seminar in Mexico. Other travel experiences include Argentina, Guatemala, and Spain. Syllabi can be found at http://www.people.carleton.edu/~bboling/beckyboling.html

(PHD City University of New York) teaches twentieth century Peninsular Literature and Film at Carleton as well as Latin American Literature. His main areas of interest are literary theory, philosophy and aesthetics. His research focuses on the twentieth century Spanish essay and poetry: Unamuno, Ortega, Machado, Zambrano as well as Cuban literature: Casal, Lezama and Virgilio Piñera.

Since 2001. Jose Cerna-Bazan received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and studied Amerindian linguistics and cultural theory in his native Peru. He is particularly interested in the relation of literary experimentation and cultural discourses in contexts marked by social heterogeneity. He has published articles on contemporary Latin American poetry and narrative, and a book, Sujeto a cambio, on the work of César Vallejo. He is currently working on a project on society, politics, and representation in Peru (1960-2000).

Adriana Estill teaches courses on U.S. Latino/a literature and twentieth century American literature, especially poetry. She also teaches in the American Studies program. She has published essays on Sandra Cisneros and Ana Castillo and recently contributed to the Gale encyclopedia of Latino/a authors with scholarly entries on Sandra María Esteves and Giannina Braschi. Her interest in popular culture has led to published articles on Mexican telenovelas and their literary origins as well as to current research into the perceptions and constructions of Latina beauty in contemporary Latino literature and the mass media. Degrees: Stanford B.A.; Cornell, M.A., Ph.D.

Adrienne Falcon, Visiting Lecturer (University of Chicago, ABD) focuses on urban sociology, sociology of youth and community organizations, environmental sociology and ethnography of Latin America. She has conducted research on a diverse immigrant community in Chicago and on youth and education in Cuba and Ecuador. Her current work focuses on questions of power and social change through community organizing. She teaches courses in introductory sociology, urban sociology and ethnography of Latin America.

(anthropology) (M.Phil. Cambridge, Ph.D. Harvard) is interested in the ethnography of the Greater Southwest and Mesoamerica. In Mexico, he has conducted research among the Tarahumara (Rarámuri) of Chihuahua, and the Tzotzil of Chiapas. In the U.S., he has worked with indigenous peoples of southern California and on the Hopi-Navaho land dispute. His current research focuses on the politics of identity, symbolism, and interethnic relations in the Sierra Tarahumara of northwest Mexico. Jay teaches courses on the comparative history of native peoples and the state in Mexico, Canada, and the U.S.; ethnicity, gender, and exchange in Latin America; and anthropological approaches to the study of religion, economics, and indigenous rights.

(PhD from University of Minnesota) teaches XIX century Latin American literature at Carleton, as well as the Introductions to Latin American Studies and Latin American Literature. Her main areas of interest are literary and social modernity in Latin America, cultural and critical theory, and the Frankfurt School. Her research focuses on cultural theory and criticism and she has published articles on Adorno, Lukács, Benjamin, Garcia Canclini, Schwarz, Dalton and Argueta. Together with Christopher Chiappari, she translated Néstor Garcia Canclini's Hybrid Cultures: strategies for entering and leaving modernity. She edited a special issue of Cultural Critique (Fall 2001) titled Critical Theory in Latin America. Currently she is finishig a book of essays entitled Frankfurt Minima: essays in aesthetics and culture.

Alfred P. Montero received his Ph.D. at Columbia University. He is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the International Relations and Latin American Studies programs at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. 

His research focuses on the quality of subnational democratic governance in Brazil and the political economy of Latin America and Western Europe. He is the author of Shifting States in Global Markets: Subnational Industrial Policy in Contemporary Brazil and Spain (Penn State Press, 2002) and Brazilian Politics: Reforming a Democratic State in a Changing World (Polity, 2006). He is also co-editor with David Samuels of Decentralization and Democracy in Latin America. Prof. Montero has published articles in various peer-reviewed journals such as Comparative Politics, Journal of Politics in Latin America, West European Politics, Latin American Research Review, Studies in Comparative International Development, and Latin American Politics and Society. He teaches courses on Latin American politics and political economy, European and international political economy, and comparative democratization, authoritarianism and corruption. He is the director of Carleton's Latin American Studies program and also leads the off-campus seminar on European Political Economy based in Madrid, Spain and Maastricht, the Netherlands. Prof. Montero's web page: www.carleton.edu/~amontero

Beverly Nagel (sociology) received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Stanford University. Her research interests concern rural development, grassroots action, and social change in Latin America. Her current research focuses on agricultural development, ethnic relations, and social movements on
Paraguay's eastern frontier. She has also conducted research on rural development and migration patterns in Mexico, and has served as a consultant on both urban and rural development projects for the Inter-American Development Bank and the Fundación Intermon. In addition to introductory sociology, she teaches courses on social research methods, Third World development, population, social movements, and the ethnography of Latin America.

Yansi Pérez, Assistant Professor of Latin American Literature, received her Ph.D. from Princeton University. Her research and teaching interests are in the field of modern and contemporary Latin American cultural studies, literature, and film. Currently, she is working on a book manuscript that examines the many facets of history in the work of the Salvadoran poet Roque Dalton.  In this book, she revisits a series of debates and topics that were central to Latin American literature of the nineteen sixties and seventies and rethinks and questions the manner in which we read and understand contemporary Latin American literature with the perspectives offered by present critical debates.  The problems that she addresses include the relationship between literature, ethics and politics, the problematic relationship between the artistic and political avant-gardes, and the centrality of the concept of mourning in relation to memory and historical trauma.  She has published articles about Roque Dalton as well as more contemporary Central American authors such as Rodrigo Rey Rosa, Horacio Castellanos Moya, Anacristina Rossi and Jacinta Escudos. She offers courses about the detective novel in Latin America, Myth and History in Central America, Postwar Central American Literature and Culture, Race and Nation in the Caribbean, among others.