UF Center for Latin American Studies
The Latinamericanist features the impact of the UF Center for Latin American Studies through the experiences and accomplishments of its students, faculty, alumni, and staff.
January 12, 2022
The Latinamericanist is available in digital edition! Read it here, or scroll below.
This publication has existed since 1964, shortly after UF’s School of Inter-American Studies became the Center for Latin American Studies, endowed with Title VI funding and appointed a National Resource Center. Ever since, its purpose is to keep the Center’s community up to date with the latest news and accomplishments of its scholars and graduates.
As the Center continues to evolve toward its centenary, it’s clear that the driving force behind its longevity is the students, faculty, alumni, and staff whose excellence shapes the Center’s identity. Enduring a global pandemic has only strengthened this sense that our people make up the core of the Center’s success.
It’s this characteristic that guides the new direction of The Latinamericanist: we seek to tell the stories of our community through the people who define it, whether about student research, faculty innovation, or alumni achievement. We aim to feature stories about mentorship, like Victoria Reyes Garcia’s and Marianne Schmink’s (p. 17) and collaboration, like Carlos de la Torre’s and Treethep Srisa-Nga’s (p. 5). We want to highlight the real-world impact of Latin American Studies, like the public scholarship of its professors (p. 7), outreach with other institutions (p. 12), interdisciplinary projects and funding (pp. 9, 13, 16) and the fieldwork research of its students (pp. 15, 16). It’s also vital to share the scholarly work of students and faculty, like the writing of visiting doctoral student Diego Palacios Ocles (p. 14).
We know it’s impossible to fully capture the scope and magnitude of each individual’s contributions to the Center in just 24 pages once a semester. Latin American Studies sprawls across disciplines and borders, yielding a community of scholars immense in number, diverse in knowledge, and rich in thought. But this is what makes our community distinct: the interconnectedness of ideas and people, working to find opportunities and solutions in real-world contexts. With every issue of the Latinamericanist, it’s our mission to continue featuring these stories, and share in the standard of excellence set by the Center’s constituents.
If you have a story you’d like to see included in an upcoming Latinamericanist, please email the editor, Christa Markley, at communications@latam.ufl.edu.
