DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

Interests

Geographic Field(s):  Latin American and Caribbean History

Thematic Field(s):  Political and Policy History; Legal and Criminal History; War and Empire in History

Principal Research Interest(s):  Latin American History. Social History, Modern Mexico

Biography

Paul Gillingham (DPhil, Oxon, 2006), Professor of History and Director of Graduate Studies, specializes in politics, culture and violence in modern Mexico, and has published numerous articles and book chapters on these subjects. His most recent book is Unrevolutionary Mexico: The Birth of a Strange Dictatorship (2021). His first book, Cuauhtémoc’s Bones: Forging National Identity in Modern Mexico (2011), was awarded the Conference on Latin American History’s Mexican history prize. Gillingham is the co-editor of Dictablanda: Politics, Work, and Culture in Mexico, 1938-1968 (2014), Journalism, Satire, and Censorship in Mexico (2018), and the Violence in Latin American History series at the University of California Press. He has translated Oscar Altamirano’s monograph on Edgar Allen Poe, Poe: The Trauma of an Era (2017) and is currently writing a history of Mexico since 1511. He directs the Mexican Intelligence Digital Archives project (MIDAS), an open access collection of documents from Mexico’s security agencies at https://www.crl.edu/midas.

Affiliated Programs

• The Northwestern University Latin American & Caribbean Studies Program
• The University of California Violence in Latin American History

Publications

Books

• Unrevolutionary Mexico: The Birth of a Strange Dictatorship (Yale, 2021) 
• Cuauhtémoc’s Bones: Forging National Identity in Modern Mexico (University of New Mexico Press, 2011)
• Dictablanda: Politics, Work, and Culture in Mexico, 1938-1968 (edited with Benjamin T. Smith, Duke University Press, 2014)
• Poe: The Trauma of an Era (translation of Oscar Xávier Altamirano, Poe. El trauma de un era, Peter Lang, 2017)
• Journalism, Satire, and Censorship in Mexico (edited with Michael Lettieri and Benjamin T. Smith, University of New Mexico Press, 2018)

Selected Articles & Book Chapters

• “Thoughts on Citizenship in Latin America, with Particular Reference to Mexico”, Mexican Studies/estudios mexicanos.
• “The Emperor of Ixcateopan: Fraud, Nationalism and Memory in Modern Mexico,” Journal of Latin American Studies 37:3 (2005).
• “Ambiguous Missionaries: Rural Teachers and State Façades in Guerrero, 1930-1950”, Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 22:2 (2006).
• “Maximino’s Bulls: Popular Protest after the Mexican Revolution,” Past and Present 206 (Feb. 2010).
• “The Strange Business of Memory: Relic Forgery in Latin America,” Past and Present (Aug. 2010).
• “Mexican Elections, 1910-1994: Voters, Violence and Veto Power” in The Oxford Handbook of Mexican Politics, ed. Roderic Ai Camp (Oxford University Press, 2011).
• “Sex, Death and Structuralism: Alternative Views of the Twentieth Century” in A Companion to Mexican History and Culture, ed. William Beezley (Blackwells, 2011).
• “Who killed Crispín Aguilar? Violence and Order in the Post-revolutionary Countryside,” in Violence, Coercion and State-Making in Twentieth-Century Mexico, ed. Wil Pansters (Stanford University Press, 2012).
• “Military Caciquismo in the PRIísta State” in Forced Marches: Militaries, Cacicazgos, and the Uneven Development of Mexican Politics, eds. Ben Fallaw & Terry Rugeley (University of Arizona Press, 2012).
• Preface & introduction, “The Paradoxes of Revolution” in Dictablanda, eds. Gillingham & Smith (Duke University Press, 2014).

Teaching Interests

Undergraduate Courses

• HIS 103-6-21: A Beginner’s Guide to Forgery.
• HIS 200-0-26: The End of Citizenship. 
• HIS 260-2-1: History of Latin America in the Modern Period, c.1789 to the Present.
• HIS 300-0-26: New Lectures in History: People and Power in Modern Mexico.
• HIS 300-0-26: New Lectures in History: Revolution and Empire in Cuba.
• HIS 300-0-26: Mexico: Five Centuries.
• HIS 300-0-26: Revolution and Empire in Cuba.

Graduate Courses

• HIS 405-0-22: Seminar in Historical Analysis: Revolution.