Americas and Africa
The Americas and Africa caucus invites students to explore the complex history of intercultural encounter, exchange, and conflict that connects South, Central, and North America and the diverse nations of Africa. Courses in this concentration locate these regions within larger global movements of people, goods, and ideas. Major topical themes in the concentration include Indigenous history, African diaspora, immigration, gender, labor, religion, social movements, politics, and critical history of race. Courses in this concentration extend from the colonial era to the modern day and reflect interdisciplinary approaches to historical practice.
Major Requirements
The history major requires a minimum of 12 unique courses. At least eight of the 12 courses must be upper-division (HIS 100-199). A maximum of four courses, including the introductory survey course, may be lower-division (HIS 1-99).
Major Planning Worksheet
Copy a History Major Planning Worksheet and Sample Academic Plans to your UCSC Google Drive.
Region of Concentration: Americas and Africa (6 courses)
I. One lower-division introductory survey course:
- HIS 10A, United States History to 1877
- HIS 10B, United States History, 1877 to 1977
- HIS 11A, Latin America: Colonial Period
- HIS 11B, Latin America: National Period
- HIS 12, Introduction to Latino American History (Effective Fall 2022)
- HIS 30, The Making of Modern Africa
All of the above courses satisfy the Ethnicity and Race (ER) general education requirement.
II. Four additional Americas and Africa courses, three of which must be upper-division
III. One Americas and Africa Comprehensive Requirement
Historical Skills and Methods (1 course)
IV. HIS 100, Historical Skills and Methods
HIS 100 introduce history majors to historical methods and provides preparation for advanced historical research. Students develop critical reading, historical analysis, research, and disciplinary writing skills. HIS 100 also satisfies the Textual Analysis and Interpretation (TA) general education requirement.
Students who enter UCSC as frosh are expected to complete HIS 100 by the end of their second year. Transfer students are expected to complete HIS 100 no later than their second term at UCSC.
Catalog of Course Requirements
The History Catalog of Course Requirements indicates what region(s) of concentration and what chronological distribution requirement(s) individual history courses may apply toward.
Breadth Requirements (4 courses)
V. Two courses from each of the remaining two regions of concentration:
Upper-Division Elective (1 course)
One additional upper-division history course of your choice from any of the three regions of concentration
Distribution Requirements
Of the 12 courses required for the major, at least three must meet chronological distribution requirements. One must be set before 600 C.E., and two must be set in periods prior to the year 1800 C.E.
Intensive Major Option
The intensive history major offers students a pathway to enrich their study of history, refine their skills in writing and research, and receive a designation on their transcripts that signals their ambition and accomplishment to potential employers and graduate schools. All history majors are eligible to declare the intensive track, including junior transfers. If a student attempts but does not complete the intensive track they may still graduate with a standard history degree, provided the appropriate major coursework has been completed.
- Title
- Provost, Stevenson College
- Professor
- Division Humanities Division
- Department
- Stevenson College
- History Department
- Affiliations Latin American & Latino Studies, Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas
- Phone
- Office Location
- Humanities Building 1, 537
- Office Hours Spring 24 -- Mondays 2-3 or via appointment. For both options, please make an appointment in advance via email.
- Mail Stop Humanities Academic Services
- Mailing Address
- 1156 High Street
- Santa Cruz CA 95064
- Courses HIS 11B, Latin America: National Period; HIS 100, History Skills and Methods; HIS 134A, Colonial Mexico; HIS 134B, History of Mexico, 1850 to Present; HIS 190H, History of Time; HIS 190T, Latin America in the Cold War; HIS 204C, Colonialism, Nationalism and Race Research Seminar; HIS 280A, History Graduate Proseminar: Teaching Pedagogy
Research Interests
Mexico and Latin America; religion; political culture; history of time; bioprospecting and history of medicine
Biography, Education and Training
Ph. D. University of California, San Diego
B.A., University of California, Berkeley
Honors, Awards and Grants
National Endowment for the Humanities, Public Scholar, 2023-24
American Council of Learned Societies, Fellowship, 2013-14
American Philosophical Society, Franklin Research Grant, 2013-14
Kimberly S. Hanger Article Prize, 2013
Thomas McGann Award (book prize), 2010
James Alexander Robertson Memorial Prize for best article, American Historical Association-Conference on Latin American History, 2007
National Endowment for the Humanities, Faculty Research Award, 2005-6
Rockefeller Foundation Fellow in American Indian Studies, The Newberry Library, Chicago, IL, 2004-2005
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, The John Carter Brown Library, Brown University, Providence, R.I., 2004
Selected Publications
- Books
- The History of the Future in Colonial Mexico (Yale University Press, 2018).
- A Flock Divided: Race, Religion, and Politics in Mexico, 1749-1857 (Duke University Press, 2010).
- Imperial Subjects: Race and Identity in Colonial Latin America, co-edited with Andrew Fisher (Duke University Press, 2009)
- Articles
- "The Shadows of Curare: Histories and pre-Histories of Pharmaceutical Research in the Amazon," History of Pharmacy and Pharmaceuticals 63, no. 2 (2022): 247-269.
- "How to Read the Rock Face?: Getting Old in the Archive of Postcolonial Mexico," Hispanic American Historical Review 102, no. 3 (2022): 387-414.
- "Time and Christianity in Early Latin America," in Oxford Handbook of Latin American Christianity, eds. Susan Fitzpatrick-Behrens, David Orique, and Manuel Vásquez (Oxford University Press, 2019): 23-38.
- "Confession and the Art of Reading," in Imagining Histories of Colonial Latin America: Synoptic Methods and Practices, eds. Karen Melvin and Sylvia Sellers-García (University of New Mexico Press, 2017)
- "Anxiety and the Future at Mexican Independence," in Emotions and Daily Life in Colonial Mexico, eds. Sonya Lipsett-Rivera and Javier Villa-Flores (University of New Mexico Press, 2014): 198-220.
- "The History of Time in Colonial Latin America," History Compass 11, no. 1 (2013): 77-88.
- "The Supple Whip: Innovation and Tradition in Mexican Catholicism," American Historical Review 117, no. 5 (2012): 1373-1401.
- “El capital espiritual y la política local: la ciudad de México y curatos rurales en el México central,” in Religión, Política e Identidad en la Independencia de México, ed. Brian Connaughton (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, 2010).
- "The Orthodox Underworld of Colonial Mexico," Colonial Latin American Review 17, no. 2 (2008): 233-250.
- “Racial Identities and Their Interpreters in Colonial Latin America” (co-authored with Andrew Fisher) in Imperial Subjects: Race and Identity in Colonial Latin America, Matthew O’Hara and Andrew Fisher, eds. (Duke University Press, 2009): 1-34.
- “Miserables and Citizens: Indians, Legal Pluralism, and Religious Practice in Early Republican Mexico” in Religious Culture in Modern Mexico, ed. Martin Nesvig (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007): 14-34.
- “Stone, Mortar, and Memory: Church Construction and Communities in Late Colonial Mexico City” Hispanic American Historical Review 86:4 (2006): 647-680.
- “Politics and Piety: The Church in Colonial and Nineteenth-Century Mexico,” Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 17:1 (2001): 213-231.
