Teaching
My teaching focuses on Latin American history and sexual diversity. I have taught courses on these topics at the University of Toronto and at the University of Guelph, including introductory courses and upper-year seminars. I have also worked as a Teaching Assistant in courses on colonial, modern, and contemporary Latin America, the Caribbean, and U.S. history, as well as in courses on gender, sexuality, and race.
History of Sexual Diversity in Latin America
University of Toronto, 2023 (3rd year seminar)
This seminar explored the history of sexual diversity in Latin America from the pre-colonial period to the present. First, we examined ideas of gender, sex, and sexuality among Indigenous groups of Mesoamerica and the Andes through a study of visual and material culture—including codex paintings, murals, pottery, and ritual items—and written sources from the colonial period. Then, we examined how the colonial period reconfigured ideas of sex in the Americas and established new parameters of norms, deviancy, and sin. In the third part of the course, we focused on cultural representations of homoerotic desire in the 19th and 20th centuries and on the relationship between these representations and larger histories of gender, sexuality, race, and nationalism in the region. In the final part of the course, we surveyed the history of LGBTQ+ activism in Latin America from a transnational perspective and with a particular focus on cultural production.
Graciela Iturbide, Magnolia, Juchitán, México, 1986
LGBT Liberation: Archives, Periodicals and Visual Culture
University of Toronto, 2022 (4th year seminar)
This seminar offered an in-depth analysis of LGBT liberation movements across the Americas with a focus on primary sources. Through a transnational, comparative, and intersectional approach, the course explored over five decades of activism from the 1960s to the present day in Canadian, U.S., and Latin American contexts. We used archival sources, queer periodicals (magazines and newspapers), and visual representations as points of entry to explore how queer communities have advocated for their liberation and rights in changing historical contexts shaped by the Cold War, neoliberalism, and globalization. We examined the production, circulation, and reception of these documents in order to understand their role in the transnational history of LGBT liberation and in the formation of queer communities and identities.
Cover of Somos, Argentina’s gay liberation periodical, 1974
Revolutions and Nations in Latin America
University of Toronto, 2020 (3rd year course)
This course explored the revolutionary episodes that took place in Latin America throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—including social, political, economic, and sexual revolutions—and their relationship with nation-building projects. First, the course focused on the wars of independence in Spanish America and the construction of nation-states in the 19th century. Then, the course took a close look at the Mexican Revolution, a defining event in twentieth century Latin America. The second half of the course examined economic and political transformations in the early twentieth century, revolutionary and counter-revolutionary politics during the Cold War, and contemporary social movements, including LGBT and indigenous movements. The course took an interdisciplinary approach. Students learned about the history of Latin American nations and revolutions through primary and secondary sources, and through the region’s cultural production—literature, films, and other visual arts.
“From the Porfirismo to the Revolution,” mural by David Alfaro Siqueiros, Mexico City, 1966
Modern Latin American History Survey
This course, which I have taught at the University of Toronto (2020) and at the University of Guelph (2022), surveyed the history of Latin America from the late colonial period to the present day. The course began in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries with a focus on the wars of independence in Spanish America, followed by the construction of nation-states in post- and neo-colonial contexts. Then, the course focused on the rise of liberal and export-oriented regimes, the revolutionary nationalism of the twentieth century, the Cold War, and social movements of the 1960s-1980s period—including student, women's liberation, and LGBT rights movements. The course concluded with an examination of the post-1989 period of Neoliberalism, new social movements, and twenty-first century political and social issues. Particular emphasis was placed on the relationship between race, gender, class, and nationalism in modern Latin American history.
Antonio Turok, Demolition of Diego Mazariegos’ Statue, Chiapas, Mexico, 1992
Primary Source Workshop organized for the course "The Criminalization of Protest in Latin American History." University of Toronto, fall 2023.
Primary Source Workshop organized for the course "History of Sexual Diversity in Latin America." University of Toronto, winter 2023.
David Fernández, Head of Special Collections at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, and me.
Primary Source Workshop organized for the course "The Criminalization of Protest in Latin American History." University of Toronto, fall 2023.
I enjoy organizing workshops on primary sources as part of my courses. I have partnered with David Fernández, Head of Special Collections at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, to introduce students to the Latin American and queer collections at the University of Toronto. This gave them hands-on experience with analyzing a wide variety of print and visual sources, including rare books, periodicals, and artwork.
Invited Lectures
