Center for Latin American Studies

 

Philip J. Williams

Director, Center for Latin American Studies
Professor, Political Science
319 Grinter Hall
P.O. Box 115530
Gainesville, FL 32611-5530
Tel: 352-273-4702
Fax: 352-392-7682
E-mail: PJW@latam.ufl.edu
follow me on twitter

Research Interests

Religion and politics, transnational migration, democratization, social movements, and civil-military relations.

Geographic Expertise

Central America, Peru, Comparative

Curriculum Vitae

Courses

LAS 4935/CPO 4722/LAS 6938 Latin American and Caribbean Migration to the United States
CPO 6307 Latin American Politics

Background

Philip Williams is Director of the Center for Latin American Studies and Professor of Political Science. Williams received his M.Phil in Latin American Studies and D.Phil in Politics from the University of Oxford in 1986.

He is author of The Catholic Church and Politics in Nicaragua and Costa Rica (Macmillan 1989), Militarization and Demilitarization in El Salvador's Transition to Democracy (University of Pittsburgh 1997), and co-editor of Christianity, Globalization, and Social Change in the Americas (Rutgers University 2001) and A Place to Be: Brazilian, Guatemalan, and Mexican Immigrants in Florida’s New Destinations (Rutgers University Press, 2009). He recently co-authored, Living “Illegal”: The Human Face of Unauthorized Immigration (The New Press, 2011).

His scholarly work has appeared in numerous edited volumes and journals such as Comparative Politics, Journal of Latin American Studies, Latin American Research Review, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, Latin American Perspectives, Latino Studies, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, and Journal of Church and State.

Williams has received a number of prestigious fellowships and grants from Fulbright, North-South Center, United States Institute of Peace, Pew Charitable Trusts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. Recently he received a major grant from the Ford Foundation to support a three year study on Latin American immigrants in the New South.