Visiting Academics
Visiting Resource Professors
Visiting Resource Professors are invited by UT Latin Americanist faculty members to lecture for one to two weeks in either undergraduate or graduate classes.
The VRP program was conceived with three major goals in mind:
- to enhance the international community of scholars working on Latin American topics;
- to establish and strengthen contacts between Latin American institutions of higher learning and the University of Texas; an
- to allow Latin American scholars access to UT library collections and archives.
For more information, contact Paola Bueche at 512.232.2405.
Visiting Resource Professors
Fall 2008
Marina Alonso Bolaños
Dr. Bolaños is an ethnologist and historian affiliated with the Fonoteca of Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH). She has specialized in various issues related to indigenous peoples of Mexico, including cosmology, social organization, and territory, but her particular focus has been on musical practices. Dr. Bolaños has been a Visiting Scholar at the Universidad de la República de Uruguay. She has edited a number of important records issued by INAH and has overseen the production of several recording series focusing on traditional music of Mexico. Dr. Bolaños also has done extensive research on anthropological and historical issues on Chiapas since 1989.Juan de la Rivas Sanz
Dr. de la Rivas Sanz received his Ph.D. in 1988 from the University of Navarra, Spain. He is Professor of Planning and Urban Design at the Universidad de Valladolid, Spain, where he was previously Director of the Instituto Universitario de Urbanística. Dr. de la Rivas Sanz has been a Visiting Professor at the Politecnico de Milano, Italy, and Arizona State University. He also has taught at the Universidad de Guadalajara, the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas of the UNAM in México City, and the Instituto Superior Politécnico José Antonio Echeverría in Cuba.Roberto Gargarella
Professor Gargarella holds graduate degrees in law and sociology from the Universidad de Buenos Aires, an M.A. in political science from the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), a J.D. and LLM from the University of Chicago, and has conducted postdoctoral research at Balliol College, Oxford. Dr. Gargarella is Professor of Constitutional Theory and Political Philosophy at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. He has published extensively in English and Spanish on constitutional and democratic law and theory, with a special focus on economic and social rights. He has received numerous awards and scholarships, including a Tinker Scholarship, a Fulbright Scholarship, and a Harry Frank Guggenheim Fellowship.Fernando Groisman
Professor Groisman received his Ph.D. from the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLASCO Argentina) and his M.A. in social science with a concentration in macroeconomy from the Universidad de Buenos Aires. A member of the Argentinean government scientific and technical council, he is attached to the Universidad Nacional General Sarmiento in Buenos Aires. Dr. Groisman has served as President of the Asociación Argentina de Especialistas de Estudios del Trabajo and is a successful consultant on issues related to labor market, income distribution, and social policy.Elizabeth Kornfeld
Elizabeth Kornfeld is Chile’s leading human rights psychologist and Director of the Center of Ethics at the Universidad Jesuita Alberto Hurtado in Santiago. She is author and coauthor of numerous books and articles on political reconciliation and on memory therapy of victims of human rights violations. During 1999–2000, she served on the Mesa de Diálogo convened by Chile’s Minister of Defense in the aftermath of Pinochet’s arrest, and she recently served on the Valech Commission on Torture in Chile. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including LASA’s Premio Martín Diskin Award.Covadonga Meseguer
Dr. Meseguer received her Ph.D. in 2002 from the Center for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences at the Instituto Juan March, Spain. She is currently a Research Professor in the Department of International Studies at CIDE-Mexico. Dr. Meseguer is regarded as one of the most outstanding analysts of the cross-national diffusion of institutional and policy innovations. She has been a Visiting Professor in the Department of Social and Political Sciences at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain; a Visiting Fellow at the Kellog Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana; and a Jean Monnet Fellow at the Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute, Italy. Dr. Meseguer has a forthcoming book from Cambridge University Press entitled Learning, Policy Making, and Market Reforms.Rosemeire Moreira
Rosemeire Moreira holds a B.A. in music from the Universidade Estadual Paulista de São Paulo (UNESP) and an M.A. in voice from the Royal Academy of Music in London. She is an accomplished soprano and soloist at the Theatro Municipal de São Paulo, where she has performed, among other pieces, L’Orfeo by Monteverdi and Requiem and Motet Te Christe Solum Novimus by José Mauricio Nunes Garcia. She also has performed in England, France, and The Netherlands. Rosemeire Moreira was recipient of the first prize for the “Concurso de Interpretação da Canção de Câmara Brasileira” promoted by the Centro de Música Brasileira and Rotary Club of São Paulo.Ana Romaniuk
Ana Romaniuk holds a B.A. in fine Arts from the Universidad de Buenos Aires. She is a musicologist and ethnomusicologist based at the Conservatorio Superior de Música Manuel Falla and the Conservatorio Nacional de Música de Buenos Aires. A specialist in Argentinean folk traditions of the country’s northwestern region, she has focused her recent work on the relationship between music, popular religiosity, and social action in indigenous communities within the province of Salta. She also does research on the production and dissemination of folk music within the province of La Pampa. In addition, Professor Romaniuk’s work focuseson issues of folklorization, state intervention in musical representation, and counterhegemonic versions of nationalism.Licia Valladares
Dr. Valladares received her Ph.D. in 1974 from the University of Toulouse-le Mirail. An internationally renowed Brazilian sociologist, she was a senior researcher at the IUPERJ in Río de Janeiro and currently teaches at the University of Lille, France. Dr. Valladares has worked extensively on urban issues and is one of the leading authorities on favelas and urban informality in Brazil. She has been the project leader for Brazil and Venezuela of GURI (Global Urban Research Initiative), a project financed by the Ford Foundation and the World Bank. Dr. Valladares also has been Vice-President of the RC 21 (Sociology of Urban and Regional Research) of the International Sociological Association, Corresponding Editor of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, and an invited Fellow at Fitzwilliam College at Cambridge.
Spring 2008
Claudia Agostoni
Dr Agostoni received her Ph.D. in 1997 from the University of London and is a researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM), in Mexico City. Her research interests include the social and cultural history of medicine and public health during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Mexico and in Latin America more generally. In 2005, Dr Agostoni received the Mexican Academy of Science Annual Award for research in the Humanities. Dr Agostoni was a visiting scholar at the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine of the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland (2003-2004), at the Universidad General Sarmiento, Buenos Aires, Argentina (September 2002), and at the Center for Latin American Cultural Studies, King’s College London, University of London (April-May 2002). She has gained an impressive reputation at an international level as an innovative and creative scholar.Patricia Ravelo Blancas
Patricia Ravelo Blancas is a Professor at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropolog’a Social and currently a Visiting Professor at the University of Texas at El Paso. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, with a specialization in gender studies from El Colegio de México. Her current research project is "Protestal social y acciones colectivas en torno de la violencia sexual y de género en Ciudad Juárez, Chih./El Paso, TX."Martha Ulhoa
Professor de Ulhôa, an ethnomusicologist affiliated with the Instituto Villa-Lobos at the Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, is a renowned scholar of Brazilian popular music. She has served on the editorial board of Popular Music, the field’s leading journal, and she is currently a Member-at-Large of the Executive Committee of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. She has published widely in Latin America, the United States, and Europe, on Brazilian topics ranging from MPB to B-Rock to música sertaneja, and on other topics ranging from matters of prosody in Monteverdi’s operas to the history of Chilean pop. As a researcher whose work grapples with issues of class, gender, and public culture, her record of publication shows a commitment to dialogue across regional and disciplinary boundaries.
Fall 2007
Celina Manzoni
Dr. Manzoni is Professor at the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras of the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina. She specializes in Latin American literature of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with a focus on Caribbean literature.Daniel Bonilla
Dr. Bonilla is Associate Professor at the Universidad de los Andes School of Law in Bogotá, Colombia, from which he graduated in 1994. He earned his J.S.D. degree from Yale University. Dr. Bonilla is Director of the Public Interest Law Group of the Universidad de los Andes. Among his most recent publications are La Constitución Multicultural (The Multicultural Constitution) and Hacia un Nuevo Derecho Constitucional (Toward a New Constitutional Law). As Director of G-DIP, Dr. Bonilla works with students to bring cases before the Constitutional Court relating to a broad range of issues including racism, discrimination, indigenous rights, and the environment.Rachel Meneguello
Dr. Meneguello holds a Ph.D. in social sciences from the Universidade Estadual de Campinas UNICAMP, Brazil. A Professor of Political Science at UNICAMP, a researcher at the Center of Public Opinion, and the editor of Public Opinion magazine, she specializes in the study of political parties and electoral behavior.Eduardo Rios Neto
Dr. Rios Neto is Professor of Demography at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. He has served as president of the Brazilian Population Studies Association and has collaborated on several joint projects with the UT Population Research Center. He also has led several research projects to evaluate the impact of government policies in the areas of education, employment, and job training. Professor Rios Neto was the Edward Larocque Tinker Visiting Professor at UT during spring 2006.
Spring 2007
Paulo Fontes
Professor Fontes is a historian of Brazilian labor and working-class culture in São Paulo after World War II. He also has studied internal migration from the Northeast to São Paulo, the links between rural and urban workers, the role of place and communities in working-class formation, and the cultural aspects of popular organization and politics. He earned his Ph.D. in social history at the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP-Brazil). Dr. Fontes is currently a Visiting Associate Research Scholar and Visiting Assistant Professor in the Program in Latin American Studies and the History Department at Princeton University.Gilmar Jardim
Dr. Jardim is a composer, flutist, music arranger, conductor, and professor. Since 1984, he has been a professor in the Department of Music of the Communication and Arts Sector at the University of São Paulo (USP), where he teaches orchestral conducting. Since 2001, he has been the artistic director and head of the USP Chamber Orchestra (OCAM). Gil Jardim has been notable for his performance in concerts with several symphonic national and international orchestras. Since December 2005, he has been Chief of the Music Department at the University of São Paulo.Jorge Lanzaro
Dr. Lanzaro is Director of the Institute of Political Science at the Universidad de la República in Uruguay and a leading specialist on political parties and governmental institutions in Latin America. He is the founder of the first doctoral program in political science at this university. His work focuses on the rise of the political and partisan left in Latin America.
Ruben Mercado
Dr. Mercado is a 1987 honors graduate of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He received a Ph.D. in economics from UT Austin in 1996. His fields of specialization are computational economics, applied econometrics, economic development in Latin America, and macroeconomics. Dr. Mercado is currently a member of the board of IDES (Instituto de Desarrollo Económico y Social) and Senior Consultant for the Secretary of Economic Policy of Argentina.
Aldo Panfichi
Dr. Panfichi is Professor at the Catholic University of Peru and a well-known sociologist. He has written extensively on Peruvian politics, social movements, and the sociology of sports. He is an honorary AVINA civic leader and member of the Board of Alianza Lima soccer club. Dr. Panfichi also was a visiting scholar at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) at Harvard University in 2002.Teresa Sierra
A Ph.D. in sociology of the University of Paris, Dr. Sierra is Professor and Researcher at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) in Mexico City. Dr. Sierra has received numerous awards, among them the Casa Chata (1995–1996) from CIESAS for her research on “Indian Rights and Customary Law: A Case Study of the Nahuas of the Sierra de Puebla.”Julio Solórzano-Foppa
Julio Solórzano-Foppa is a Mexican writer, arts producer, and promoter researching the theme of arts and culture as a resource for development and job creation in Latin America. He has organized highly visible international cultural and artistic events and is a board member of the International Society for the Performing Arts. Solórzano-Foppa was associate producer of the film Cronos–the first film directed by Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth)–and produced and acted in Cabeza de Vaca, both New York Times Critic’s Picks.
Fall 2006
Liliana Obregón
Dr. Obregón is Professor of International Law and Director of the New International Law Center at the Universidad de los Andes Law School in Bogotá, Colombia. She specializes in the history and theory of international law and international institutions in Latin America and has a great deal of practical experience in the area of human rights.Francisco Ortega
Professor Ortega is a distinguished colonialist and Director of the Centro de Estudios Sociales of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. His research and writing focus on the political culture of colonial Spanish America.Aida Hernández Castillo
Prof. Hernández Castillo is an anthropologist and an activist who has worked with women's groups and indigenous communities. She earned her doctorate in anthropology from Stanford University in 1996 and is currently a Professor and Senior Researcher at CIESAS, the Center for Research and Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology in Mexico City.Maite Ezcurdia
Dr. Ezcurdia is a graduate of King's College London. She is a distinguished philosopher currently working in Mexico on the analytic tradition. Her research and teaching focus on cognitive science, problems in philosophy of language, and interpretive truth theories and philosophy of language.Diego Tatián
Dr. Tatián is Professor of Philosophy at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Argentina. He will participate in a seminar on the philosophical underpinnings of the thought of Jorge Luis Borges. In addition to his intellectual qualifications, Dr. Tatián is a mainstay of UT Austin's program in Córdoba.
Spring 2006
Richard Webb
Dr. Webb has a distinguished record as governor for the Central Reserve Bank in Peru and is currently Director of the Center for Economic Research at the Universidad de San Martin in Lima. His research focuses on political economy, growth, and equality in Latin America.Gabriel Infante-Lopez
Dr. Lopez received his doctoral degree in Computer Science from the University of Amsterdam. His area of specialization is probabilistic grammars for natural language parsing.Fabrice E. Lehoucq
Dr. Lehoucq is Research Professor in the Division of Political Studies at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) in Mexico. He specializes in the field of comparative politics, with focus on Costa Rica's elections, electoral institutions, and electoral fraud.Salvador Romero Ballivian
Dr. Romero is a well-known Bolivian political scientist, currently serving as one of the directors of the National Electoral Court in Bolivia. His research focuses on political behavior in Bolivia.
Fall 2005
Juan Carlos Aguiló
Dr. Aguiló is Dean of the Political and Social Sciences School at Universidad Nacional de Cuyo in Mendoza, Argentina. His areas of study are public policy and management, negotiation and design, and evaluation of social projects.Mauro Galetti
Dr. Galetti is Assistant Professor in the Departamento de Ecologia at Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) and Scientific Director (volunteer) at the Institute for Biological Conservation (IBC). He works on landscape ecology and conservation in Brazil and on plant-animal interactions.Florian Hoffman
Dr. Hoffman is Assistant Professor of Law (Public International Law and Human Rights) and Deputy Director, Núcleo de Direitos Humanos, Department of Law, at Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). His areas of study are public international law and international human rights.
Spring 2005
Marta Maria Azevedo
Dr. Azevedo is an anthropologist who works with indigenous communities in Brazil. She is an expert on the demography of indigenous populations and holds a doctorate from the Universidade de Campinas. Dr. Azevedo works at the Instituto Socioambiental, where she coordinates a project on "Violéncia, Sexualidade e rela??es de género em São Gabriel da Cachoeira."
E-mail: martazev@uol.com.br, martazev@socioambiental.orgRicardo Bernardes
Mr. Bernardes is a Brazilian conductor and musicologist who reconstructed the Missa de Nossa Senhora da Conceição by Brazilian composer José Maurício Nunes Garcia and transcribed it to computerized format, which allows for easy reproduction of the full score as well as orchestral and choral parts. He will participate in the UT-Austin symposium hosted jointly by LLILAS, the School of Music, and the College of Fine Arts on March 7-8, 2005, entitled Music and Culture in the Imperial Court of João VI in Rio de Janeiro.
E-mail: ricber@uol.com.br
Previous Resource Professors, Fall 2000 - Spring 2004 (PDF, 63K)
Visiting Resource Professors Papers
The LLILAS Visiting Resource Professors Papers is an electronic series featuring papers by scholars from Latin America who have been invited to the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies. Visiting Resource Professors are invited by UT Latin Americanist faculty members to lecture for one to two weeks in their undergraduate and graduate classes.
Full text of the VRP Papers in the LANIC Etext Collection