The History Department is pleased to welcome Lia Schraeder to our program as a Lecturer in Latin American history. Currently completing her PhD in Modern Mexican history at UC Davis, Ms. Schraeder will join our department in the fall and will teach a lower-division survey in Latin American history (HIST 240).

Having grown up in rural east San Diego County, Ms. Schraeder completed her BA at UC Santa Barbara before moving to Davis, where she did a Masters degree in U.S. history. She is working this summer to complete her doctoral dissertation: “The Spirits of Modern Mexico: Spiritism and Politics in Liberal and Revolutionary Eras.” She has taught courses at UC Davis in Latin American Social Revolutions and the History of Modern Latin America.

We are pleased to have Ms. Schraeder teach courses in Modern Mexico (HIST 443), Colonial Mexico (HIST 442), and Latin American history (HIST 340) next year. She will also contribute to staffing some lower-division surveys, including our ancient world civilizations course (HIST 210) and Modern U.S. history (HIST 232).

Here is Ms. Schraeder’s own comment on how she moved toward studying Mexico and Latin America: “I began my graduate studies in U.S. history with an interest in the role of cultural symbols in Latino and Native American activism of the 1960s. After I received my MA I traveled throughout Latin America and Mexico, and in that formative time I became fascinated by religiosity in Latin America—both as a deeply important aspect of people's daily lives and as a tradition richly represented in sources emerging from art, shrines, pilgrimages, and religion-inspired rebellions. I'm delighted that I now get to teach the history of Latin America as I pursue research on the history of religious devotion and its intersection with struggles for social change.”

And we are delighted that she will be joining our faculty in September!