2014 CALACS Outstanding Dissertation Award Winner
The purpose of the CALACS
Outstanding Dissertation Prize is to
provide recognition to a young
scholar who has significantly advanced our understanding of Latin
America or the Caribbean.
The 2014 competition received
14 nominations, which were evaluated by three members of CALACS’ Boards
of Directors. The selection committee and the CALACS Board of Directors
would like to congratulate all of the nominees
for the outstanding quality of their dissertations, and thank them and
their nominators for participating in the competition.
It is with great pleasure that CALACS announces the recipient of the 2014 CALACS Outstanding Dissertation Award:
Michael D. Kirkpatrick, Ph.D.
Optics and the Culture of Modernity in Guatemala City since the Liberal Reforms
2013
History
University of Saskatchewan*
Supervisor: Dr. Jim Handy
Please join us in celebrating
the award winner at special Awards Ceremony at the CALACS Congress’
Opening Reception on Friday, May 16th, 2014 at Laval University, in
Quebec City. The award will be presented by Dr.
Luc Mougeot, of the International Development Research Council (IDRC),
which financed this year’s award.
We are delighted to also
announce that Dr. Kirkpatrick accepted to discuss his work at the
upcoming CALACS Congress and present the paper “Seeing Red and Black:
Hidden Threats to the Liberal Order and Urban Cosmopolitanism
in Guatemala City during the 1890s”, in the panel “Urban Space: History,
Society, Environment”, on Saturday May 17 at 9:00 a.m.
Dr. Kirkpatrick’s
dissertation examines the urban experience of modernity for the
bourgeoisie in fin-de-siècle Guatemala City, between the Liberal
Revolution of 1871 and the Presidency of Jorge Ubico in the 1930s,
a period during which, Kirkpatrick argues, the promises of modernity and
progress emerged, yet remained forever unattainable. It analyzes the
tensions between the bourgeoisie’s visions of liberal utopia and the
economic crises that curtail such visions, which
results in a unique cultural phenomenon, what Dr. Kirkpatrick calls the
‘cultura de esperar’ – the culture of expecting, hoping, and waiting.
The study explores a wide diversity of topics, from bull fighting in
cinema to the arrival of the northern railway
to changes in architecture, topics that are woven together under the
notion of “optics” of cultural interaction. Kirkpatrick imaginatively
and thoughtfully describes how perception was altered with changing
experiences of the city, influenced by moving pictures
or increasing speed and height. The thesis provides a sophisticated and
complex history of modernity, especially of the tensions between its
many aspirations and the context of unsustainable economic
industrialization.
This work is beautifully
written, rich, imaginative, well researched, and theoretically
ambitious: it draws on a wealth of archival and documentary sources, and
links together a wide variety of theoretical approaches,
ranging from Marx to Walter Benjamin, and from studies of representation
to arts, urban spaces, architecture, economic history, spiritualism,
literature, and Guatemalan cultural history. The result is a unique and
original work, which significantly contributes
to understanding the tropes and ideals of modernity for an aspirational
bourgeoisie haunted by the specter of its rural, indigenous population.
Ultimately, this piece is unlike any other scholarly work on Guatemala,
and even on any Latin American city due
to the richly textured examination of a neglected time period in
Guatemalan historiography. Dr. Kirkpatrick’s dissertation is thus a
model of innovative scholarly work that reveals much about the
experiences of modernity in turn-of-the-century Guatemala and
beyond. Congratulations to Dr. Kirkpatrick for this outstanding,
original, complex, innovative work!
For more information on the CALACS Outstanding Dissertation Prize and a list of past winners, please visit
For more information on the CALACS Outstanding Dissertation Prize, please contact:
calacs@yorku.ca
*The original press release read "University of Saskatoon" and has been changed.
