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Latin America
Associate Professor
Ph.D, State University of New York, Stony Brook, 1996
Office: HSSB 4227 Hours:
Fax: (805) 893-8795
"We can only attain the goal of an objective understanding of history to the degree that we make our inner life universal" –– R.A. Makkreel, on Dilthey. (more...)
"Sólo podemos lograr el entendimiento objetivo de la historia en la medida en que hacemos de nuestro mundo interno algo universal" ---R.A. Makkreel, sobre Dilthey
I am a Peruvian historian specialized in the social and political history of the Andean region from the late eighteenth century to the present.
After I graduated as a Licenciate in History in Lima in 1986, I took a teaching position in the Universidad de San Cristóbal de Huamanga, in the city of Ayaucho. In 1980 Ayacucho's mostly rural and Quechua-speaking hinterland become the epicenter of the political violence unleashed by Shining Path’s (Sendero Luminoso’s) terrorist insurgency. Deemed the biggest insurrection in the history of Peru, the inner war, which spanned from 1980 to 2000, claimed nearly 70,000 lives, most of them indigenous peasants.
My experience in Ayacucho, which took place before I entered graduate school in the U.S. turned out to be decisive in my in carreer and subsequent intellectual choices Thus, the largest portion of my research has been devoted to the study of the Andean indigenous peasantry in Peru in the context of the late colonial period and the nascent republican state.
My work calls the attention to the importance of the 19th century political developments in defining modern conceptions nationhood, ethnicity, and race.
My book in progress, "The Wars Within: Civil Strife, National Imaginings, and the Rural Basis of the Peruvian State" is a study on nineteenth-century civil wars, local governance, and state formation which draws inspiration in Peru`s most recent armed conflict.
Research and Teaching Interests- Latin America/ The Andean Region, 18th-21st centuries
- Indians, Peasants & the State, Military Populism; Race, Ethnicity, Nationalism
- Violence, Terrorism, and Human Rights / Learning History Through Film (search for course INT 94MA on link)
Revolutions and guerrillas sparked in various Latin America countries between the 1950s and 1980s, but Peru and Colombia are peculiar in that guerrillas rose up there to fight democratic governments, not military juntas.
- Historical Anthropology, Theory of History & Historiography, World History
Current Projects- The Wars Within: Civil Strife, National Imaginings, and the Rural Bases of the Peruvian State, 21st to 19th century
A study on nineteenth-century civil wars, local governance, and state formation which draws inspiration in Peru`s most recent civil war (1980-1999), when peasants banded together with the army to the defeat the Shining Path terrorist insurgency.
Selected Publications- De Indio a Serrano: Nociones de raza y geografía en el Perú, siglos XVIII-XXI/ From Indian to Highlander: Notions of Race and Geography in Peru
During the time of the Spaniards, indians could be found everywhere. However, at some point closer to our era, indians became "serranos" (highlanders), and "serrano", in turn, became an insult in Peru. When and why did this happen? Download here:
Méndez 2012 de Indio a Serrano Historica XXXV-1 2011-02.pdf - Obama y Humala: ¿Democracia y Nacionalismo?
On how presidential candidates Obama in the U.S. and Humala in Peru faced racist attacks from conservative critics. Case exemplifies how political claims of national belonging can mean something very different in poor and rich countries.
- "'Una Larga Espera'? Ironías de la Cruzada Postcolonialista en Hispanoamérica" (revised and updated)
Cuadernos CLACSO 27, Le Monde Diplomatique. La Paz, Junio 2010. A critique to the so called post-colonial theory from a Latin American perspective.
Méndez Le Monde cuadernos CLACSO jun 2010.pdf - "'Una Larga Espera'? Ironías de la Cruzada Postcolonialista en Hispanoamérica", Histórica Vol. XXX Nro. 2, Dec. 2006 [2008].
A slightly revised version appeared in Cuadernos CLACSO 27, Le Monde Diplomatique. La Paz, Junio 2010.
- "El Inglés y los Subalternos: Comentario a los artículos de Florencia Mallon y Klor de Alva" P. Sandoval (editor), Repensando la Subalternidad (Lim
I argue, against a trend that claims "globalization" is blurring national boundaries, that place matters in academia. Place matters and so does language.
Inglés y Subalternos 2009.pdf - “Nationalism: Latin America," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World, Peter Stearns ed, Oxford University Press, 2008, vol 5: 353-355
Nationalism Oxford 2008.pdf - "The Power of Naming, or the Construction of Ethnic and National Identities in Peru: Myth, History and the Iquichanos"
in Past and Present (Oxford U. Press), 171, May 2001, pp. 125-160
Power of Naming English.pdf - El Poder del Nombre o la Construcción de Identidades Étnicas y Nacionales en el Perú: Mito e Historia de los Iquichanos
(Lima: IEP, documento de trabajo no. 115, 2002)
Poder del Nombre IEP.pdf - The Plebeian Republic: The Huanta Rebellion and the Making of the Peruvian State, 1820-1850
Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2005
- Introduction to The Plebeian Republic (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2005)
Plebeian Republic intro 2005.pdf - "Populismo MIlitar y Etnicidad en los Andes" (presentation of dossier)
Iconos, Revista de Ciencias Sociales, Quito: FLACSO no 26, 2006. Here is the introduction of a special dossier on Militaries and Indians in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru that I edited for the Ecuadorean-based jounal Iconos
- “Las Paradojas del Autoritarismo: Ejército, Campesinado y Etnicidad en el Perú: siglos XIX al XXI”
(includes English abstract) Iconos, Revista de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO, Quito) no. 26 Sept. 2006, pp. 17-34
- "Tradiciones liberales en los Andes: militares y campesinos en la formación del estado peruano"
in Estudios Interdisciplinarios de America Latina y el Caribe (EIAL) University of Tel Aviv. vol 15, no. 1, 2004, pp 35-63
- "La Tentación del Olvido: Guerra, Nacionalismo e Historiadores en el Perú"
in Diálogos (Universidad Nacional de San Marcos, Lima), No. 2, 2000, pp. 231-248
- "Incas Sí, Indios No: Notes on Peruvian Creole Nationalism and its Contemporary Crisis"
in Journal of Latin American Studies, (Cambridge University, UK), 28, February 1996, pp. 197-225
Incas Si, 1996 ENG.pdf - Incas Sí, Indios No: Apuntes para el Estudio del Nacionalismo Criollo en el Perú
Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1993 (first edition)
Incas Si 1993 SPN.pdf - Incas Sí, Indios No: Apuntes para el Estudio del Nacionalismo Criollo en el Perú
Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1995 second edition (revised)
Incas 2nd ed 1995.pdf - Militares Populistas: Ejército, Etnicidad y Ciudadanía en el Perú
Militares Populistas 2009.pdf - Una vez más La Pena de Muerte (2nd edition, 1994)
Overview of legislation concerning criminal justice in Peru, particularly the death penalty, since the nineteenth century, a propos the political violence triggered by Shining Path and MRTA in the 1980s
Méndez Penalidad y Muerte 1994.pdf
Honors and Professional ActivitiesFellowships- National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) 2012-2013 Fellowship
for the project "The Wars Within: Civil Strife, National Imaginings, and the Rural Bases of the Peruvian State"
- Stanford Humanities Center Fellowship 2010-211
for the project: "The Wars Within: Civil Strife, National Imaginings, and the Rural Bases of the Peruvian State"
- University of Texas-Austin, Institute for Historical Studies Fellowship 2010-2011
Research: "The Wars Within: Civil Strife, National Imaginings, and the Rural Bases of the Peruvian State"
- Yale University Program in Agrarian Studie Fellowship 1996-1997
Research Project: "Peasant Justice and State Rule in Huanta 1830-1879"
- Governmnet of Spain Fellowship for Foreign Hispanist Researchers, 1994
Doctoral research in the Archive of Indies, Seville, Spain
- Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Doctoral Fellow 1993-1994
Fellowship to write up dissertation in Lima, Peru
- Social Science Research Council Doctoral Fellow 1991-1992
Dissertation: "Rebellion Without Resistance: Huanta's Monarchist Peasants and the Making of the Peruvian State"
- Wenner-Gren Foundation Doctoral Fellow 1991-1992
Dissertation: "Rebellion Without Resistance: Huanta's Monarchist Peasants and the Making of the Peruvian State"
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