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Faculty Bios

More information on LALS faculty members may be found in the Faculty Guide.

Jeronimo Arellano
Assistant Professor of Latin American Literature and Culture
Department of Romance Studies
Ph.D., Stanford University
(781) 736-3231
jarellan@brandeis.edu

Jeronimo Arellano's research and teaching focus on the intersections between art forms and cultural practices, particularly literature, visual art, collectionism, and material culture in the Americas.  Other areas of interest include postcolonial studies, comparative media, and the social and political history of affective life.

Silvia Marina Arrom
Professor of History;
Jane's Professor of Latin American Studies
Ph.D., Stanford University
(781) 736-2290
arrom@brandeis.edu

Silvia Arrom's research interests include Latin American social history, modern Mexico, women and the family, and U.S.-Latin American relations. Her books include "The Women of Mexico City, 1790-1857"; "Riots in the Cities: Popular Politics and the Urban Poor in Latin America" (with Servando Ortoll); and "Containing the Poor: The Mexico City Poor House, 1774-1871."

M. Christina Espinosa
Associate Professor, Heller School
Ph.D University of Florida
espinosa@brandeis.edu
(781) 736-7660

Christina Espinosa's expertise focuses on gender, culture, livelihoods, development/conservation. Her books include "Unveiling Differences, Finding a Balance" (IUCN, 2004) and Desenredando el Laberinto (IUCN, 2002).

Elizabeth Ferry
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University
(781) 736-2218
ferry@brandeis.edu

Elizabeth Ferry is the author of "Not Ours Alone: Patrimony, Value and Collectivity in Contemporary Mexico" (2005). Her research interests focus on political economy in Latin America, the politics of value, and mining and mineral collecting.

Ricardo Godoy
Professor, Heller School for Social Policy and Management
Ph.D., Columbia University
(781) 736-2784
rgodoy@brandeis.edu

Ricardo Godoy's research interests include the effects of modernization on the peoples of the rainforests and the quality of life in Puerto Rico compared to the United States. He is the author of "Indians, Markets and Rainforests: Theoretical, Comparative and Quantitative Explorations in the Neotropics" and "Mining and Agriculture in Highland Bolivia: Ecology, History and Commerce Among the Jukumanis."

Charles Golden
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
(781) 736-2217
cgolden@brandeis.edu

Charles Golden's dissertation is "Disentangling Culture Change from Chronology: The Early Classic/Later Classic Divide at Piedras Negras, Guatemala." His research interests include Maya archaeology and architecture. He has done field work in Belize, Guatemala and Honduras.

Donald Hindley
Professor of Politics
Ph.D., Australian National University
(781) 736-2757
hindley@brandeis.edu

Donald Hindley's areas of interest are Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia. His most recent publication is a translation (with Dian Fox) of "The Physician of His Honour/El medico de su honra."

Ricardo A. Lopez
Assistant Professor of Economics in the International Business School
Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles
(781) 736-4823
rlopez@brandeis.edu

Ricardo A. López specializes in international trade, economic development, productivity analysis and Latin America. His research focuses on firms’ behavior in international markets and the role of international trade as a source of economic growth.

James Mandrell
Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies; Comparative Literature; Women's and Gender Studies; and Film, Television and Interactive Media
Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University
(781) 736-3215
mandrell@brandeis.edu

James Mandrell's special interests are the picaresque; the historical novel; genre and gender; and literary theory. He is the author of "Don Juan and the Point of Honor: Seduction, Patriarchal Society and Literary Tradition."

 

Wellington Nyangoni
Professor of African and Afro-American Studies
Ph.D., Howard University
(781) 736-2091
nyangoni@brandeis.edu

Wellington Nyangoni specializes in comparative Third World politics. He is the author of "Caribbean Economic Integration and the Search for Economic Viability" and "African and Caribbean States and Superpower Diplomacy."

 

Lucia Reyes de Deu
Lecturer in Hispanic Studies
M.A., Suny at Stony Brook
(781) 736-2692
lreyes@brandeis.edu

A native of Argentina, Lucia Reyes de Deu is the recipient of a Tinker Field Research Grant and an Excellence in Teaching Award from SUNY at Stony Brook. Her research interests are sociological approaches to Latin American culture and literatures, cultural studies and Andean culture and literatures.

 

Fernando Rosenberg
Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies and Comparative Literature
Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University
(781) 736-3209
ferosen@brandeis.edu

A native of Argentina, Fernando Rosenberg is the author of "The Avant-Garde and Geopolitics in Latin America" and is a member of the editorial board of the Hispanic Poetry Review. His areas of interest are 19th- and 20th-century poetry, narrative and critical theory.

 

Laurence Simon
Professor and Director, Sustainable International Development Programs; Associate Dean, Academic Planning Ph.D., Clark University
(781)736-4148
simon@brandeis.edu

Laurence Simon led Oxfam America's work in Central America and the Caribbean and its policy analysis worldwide. He is the author of "El Salvador Land Reform, 1980-1981" (with James Stephens). Simon has done field work in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Haiti, Cuba and Jamaica, among other countries.

 

Faith Smith
Associate Professor of African and Afro-American Studies; English
Ph.D., Duke University
(781) 736-2094
fsmith@brandeis.edu

A native of Jamaica, Faith Smith's research interests are gender, nationalism and culture in the Caribbean. She is the author of "Creole Recitations: John Jacob Thomas and Colonial Formation in the Late Nineteenth-Century Caribbean." Her current projects are an edited collection of essays on sexuality in the Caribbean and a manuscript on late 19th-century modernity in the Caribbean.

 

Ibrahim Sundiata
Samuel and Augusta Spector Professor of History
Ph.D., Northwestern University
(781) 736-2286
sundiata@brandeis.edu

Ibrahim Sundiata's research interests are slavery throughout the world and race relations in the United States and Latin America. He has published on race relations in Brazil, Cuba and Puerto Rico, has conducted fieldwork in Brazil and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Sundiata is the author of four books.

 

Javier Urcid
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Ph.D., Yale University
(781) 736-2223
urcid@brandeis.edu

A native of Mexico, Javier Urcid has done field work throughout Mexico and Belize. He is the author of "Zapotec Hieroglyphic Writing" and articles on the scribal traditions of southwestern Mexico. He is currently conducting an archeological project in the Gulf Lowlands of Southern Veracruz, Mexico, on the region's political economy. He is a consultant to the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.