Latin American History
Convenor
Description
UNC’s program in Latin American history has a long tradition, with library resources and institutional support to match. The field has great strengths in South American, Central American, and Caribbean history, stretching from sixteenth-century Peru to modern and contemporary Cuba, including issues of cross-cultural relations, race and ethnicity, national and regional identity, and popular and political culture.
Graduate Program
We admit only two or three students a year, and we are committed to seeing all of them get a PhD. Our students get ample teaching experience, and they can expect to teach at least one course with full responsibility before entering the job market (where our recent graduates have been quite successful).
The program draws further advantage from participation in the Consortium in Latin American Studies that UNC shares with Duke University, allowing students to take courses on both campuses. Other benefits are the summer travel grants that all our recent students have received to conduct preliminary research. Many students also receive Foreign Language and Areas Studies grants for training in Portuguese.
Many of our students have chosen to focus on the nineteenth century, and many on Cuba. We emphasize cross-disciplinary approaches and place a premium on clear, vigorous prose of the sort that finds its way easily into print. Prospective students interested in exploring their “fit” with UNC’s graduate program in Latin American history are encouraged to contact faculty by email.
For information on the Latin American field graduate comprehensive exams, consult the Graduate Student Handbook.
For a current list of graduate students working in the Field of Latin American History, please go to the Graduate Students page and click “Latin American History” in the Interests/Concentrations tab.