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Ben Fallaw

Title

Professor of Latin American Studies

Department

Latin American Studies

Information

Address

5323 Mayflower Hill Waterville, Maine 04901-8853

Current Courses

Title Course Number(s) Section(s)
Disc: Hist Latin America LA173D,    LA173D,    HI173D,    HI173D A,    B,    A,    B
History of Latin America, 1491 to 1900 LA173,    HI173 A,    A
The History of the Maya LA277,    HI277 A,    A
Introduction to Latin American Studies HI174,    LA174 A,    A
Environmental History of Latin America HI372,    LA372 A,    A

Ben Fallaw received his PhD in Latin American history from the University of Chicago in December of 1995, and came to Colby in 2000.  Fallaw offers classes in Latin American History; Latin American Studies; the History of the Maya; Caudillos and Populism in Modern Latin America and Spain; Mexican History; and the U.S. in Latin America. As an interdisciplinary historian of Latin America, he brings his interests in anthropology and indigenous cultures, film, and literature into the classroom.  Fallaw lived in Mexico City and Merida in 1992-93 on a Fulbright fellowship, and in Mexico City in 2002-2003 while on an ACLS-Ryskamp fellowship. He enjoys working with students doing honors theses and independent studies on Latin American topics.

Fallaw is currently writing an ethnobiography of Bartolomé García Correa (1893-1978), governor of the southeastern Mexican state of Yucatan and co-founder of the PRI.  Its working title is "Between the Maya and the Mexican Revolution: Bartolome Garcia Correa's Mestizo Politics." He is also co-editing a collection of essays with David Nugent tentatively entitled “Vernacular Sovereignties: Beyond the Nation-State in Pacific-facing Latin America.” 

His past publications include The Transnational Construction of Mayanness: Reading Modern Mesoamerica through U.S. Archives (co-edited with Fernando Armstrong-Fumero),  State Formation in the Liberal Era:  Capitalisms and Claims of Citizenship in Mexico and Peru (co-edited with David Nugent),  Religion and State Formation in Postrevolutionary Mexico, 1929-1940,  Forced Marches:  Soldiers and Military Caciques in Modern Mexico (co-edited with Terry Rugeley), Peripheral Visions: Politics, Society, and the Challenges of Modernity in Yucatan (co-edited with Edward Terry, Gilbert Joseph, and Edward Moseley), Heroes and Hero Cults in Latin America (co-edited with Samuel Brunk), and Cárdenas Compromised:  The Failure of Reform in Postrevolutionary Yucatán.

Areas of Expertise

  • Yucatan, Mexico and modern Latin America
  • The Church and anticlericalism in Latin America
  • Maya ethnohistory
  • Militaries and paramilitaries in Mexico
  • Latin America and the Pacific Ocean world