Notes From the Editors

Abstract

Notes From the Editors Gregory S. Crider and Jürgen Buchenau The Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies convened our Sixty-Sixth Annual Meeting at the Instituto Cultural Oaxaca, Mexico, 26–31 March 2019. With the support from the Center for U.S.-Latin American Initiatives and the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas, the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs (CLASP), and the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center, Florida International University, the conference featured eighty-five panels on a wide variety of themes. It was one of the largest programs in the history of the organization. Program chairs Charles St. Georges (Denison University) and Jimmy Huck (Tulane University) completed the yeoman task of putting panels together in the areas of Literature & Humanities and History & Social Sciences, respectively. Monica Rankin (University of Texas at Dallas), Jürgen Buchenau (University of North Carolina Charlotte), Steven Hyland (Wingate University) and Gregory Crider (Winthrop University) organized local arrangements; we especially note Monica's integral role in coordinating with the Instituto Cultural Oaxaca. As part of the SECOLAS Awards Banquet on March 29, Dr. Mary Kay Vaughan (Professor Emerita at the University of Maryland, College Park) gave a presentation related to historical biography that included insights from her recent monograph, Portrait of a Young Painter: Pepe Zúñiga and Mexico's Rebel Generation. The conference also included a number of educational excursions, including Monte Albán and Arrazola, a tour of female-owned businesses with the help of Fundación En Vía, and Mitla and Hierva de Agua. This conference could not have happened without the tremendous hospitality displayed by Lucero Topete, the director of the Instituto Cultural Oaxaca, and her terrific staff. We are now beginning our second year of collaboration with our new publisher, the University of North Carolina Press. We enjoy the broader readership afforded by our inclusion in Project MUSE, an online database of peer-reviewed academic journals and books. We also highlight our ongoing collaboration with the SECOLAS podcast, Historias, which frequently includes interviews with TLA authors and other Latin Americanists from diverse disciplines. As always, the editors welcome new ideas and suggestions. This volume features some of the best papers from the conference in article format. Twenty of the 304 presenters at the conference submitted revised papers of their papers for publication. Following editorial and peer review and another round of revisions, the eight articles published in this issue represent a range of disciplines in both the humanities and social sciences. In presenting these articles, we appreciate the help by our graduate assistant, Ana M. Vásconez and the Managing Editor of The Latin Americanist, Leah Walton. [End Page 7] UNC Charlotte, Winthrop University, and Wingate University, the three SECOLAS host institutions, offer significant financial and institutional support for the publication and success of this journal. In particular, we offer our gratitude to Dr. Nancy Gutierrez, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at UNC Charlotte; to Dr. Takita Sumter, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Ellison Capers Palmer, Jr. Professorship of History at Winthrop; and to Dr. Robert Supernaw, Interim Provost at Wingate University, for their continuing encouragement of both The Latin Americanist and SECOLAS. [End Page 8] Copyright © 2020 Southeastern Council on Latin American Studies