News & Updates

We the staff of the Center for Latin American Studies stand in solidarity with the 48,000 academic student employees on strike for a cost-of-living pay increase and additional demands that the University of California administration should honor, including disability justice, support for working parents, job security, and free passes for public transportation passes, among others. We cannot overemphasize how important graduate student participation is and has been for the Center of Latin American Studies.

Applications are now available for the 2023 CLAS Field Research Grants.

Field Research Grants support graduate student research about Latin America at the pre-dissertation level. Funding is generously provided by the Tinker Foundation through the Field Research Collaborative Program, and matched by the Center for Latin American Studies.

Applications are due at 11:59 pm on December 15, 2022.

Antonia Mardones Marshall, a 2022 CLAS Summer Dissertation Fellow, discusses the disparity between the overwhelming victory of the call for a new Constitution in Chile and the nearly as strong rejection of the initial draft put out by that country's constitutional convention.

Read "Chile’s Constitutional Process: What Went Wrong and How to Move Forward" on the CLAS Blog

Professor Rebecca Herman's new book, Cooperating with the Colossus: A Social and Political History of US Military Bases in World War II Latin America, is now available in hard copy form from Oxford University Press and other outlets.

She spoke about the book in a conversation with Professor Margaret Chowning and Kyle Jackson on September 28.

See the full press release in Berkeley News.

More than $12 million in new federal grants will drive dramatic expansion of UC Berkeley programs focused on international and regional studies, with benefits for both students and scholars, campus leaders announced today.

Applications are now open for funding for Research Working Groups.

Working groups comprised of UC Berkeley faculty, staff, and students who gather regularly to discuss and share research on topics of mutual interest. CLAS provides funds and other support for group meetings, events, and other activities. Groups can be formed based on any given country, region, topic, or discipline related to Latin America, and have covered a wide range of subject matter. See past groups from 2021-22 and 2020-21

The Center for Latin American Studies is pleased to have again been named a National Resource Center and a Foreign Language and Area Studies Grant Recipient by the U.S. Department of Education for 2022-25.

A new blog by Laura Álvarez López, a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Linguistics, is available on the CLAS Blog.

Professor Álvarez López outlines a recent spate of legislation, some actually enacted, that seeks to limit or ban the promotion of gender-neutral language in Latin America. 

Francia Márquez made history as an AfroColombian woman advancing to the final round of Colombia's 2022 elections as a vice presidential candidate.

Running with Gustavo Petro, their Historic Pact for Colombia ticket received the plurality of votes at over 40%, and advances to the runoff election on June 19, 2022.

CLAS announces three funding opportunities, with applications due this Spring semester. 

Event & Conference Cosponsorship Grants: Funding for UC Berkeley students, faculty, staff, and researchers to organize conferences, lectures, and cultural events. Applications are due 4/15 for fall 2022. More information here.

Jun q'olb'elb'il te kyiy / Greetings to you all,

Looking for a course for Spring 2022? CLAS has collected a list of Berkeley courses with Latin American content: https://clas.berkeley.edu/academics/courses/spring-2022

If you have comments or suggestions for more courses to be included in the list, please write to clas@berkeley.edu. 

The CLAS Community Library is now available for your browsing. Visit CLAS and take home one of our collection of books on and about Latin America. The Community Library is available during normal CLAS business hours, 9 am - 4 pm Monday through Thursday (donation suggested). 

Every academic year, CLAS cosponsors lectures, conferences, and events organized by UC Berkeley faculty, students, and staff.

Events must be organized by students, faculty, staff, or researchers affiliated with the university, must take place on campus (or virtually, hosted by a Berkeley account), and must be open to the public. Funds can be used towards honoraria, technical expenses, production costs, space rental, and/or transportation (food/refreshments are not allowed).

Proposals for Spring 2022 are due on October 15th. 

Valeria Ramírez Castañeda discusses a new approach in Colombia that takes on the goal of "objectivity" which has for so long isolated scientific practice from its social context. 

Read "Construyendo Ciencias para la Paz: Experiencias interdisciplinarias desde Colombia"

Daniel Payares Montoya, a consultant at the World Bank and former researcher at CLAS, discusses the impact of the pandemic on employment in Latin America, and argues for forward-looking policies for the region after Covid-19. Read "The Future of Work in Latin America."