Category Archives: Benson Latin American Collection

Alumni, Archives, Benson Latin American Collection, Digital Scholarship, Global Studies, LLILAS Benson, Open Access

Seminario en Guatemala Conmemora la Colaboración en Archivos y Derechos Humanos

August 3, 2018 Susanna Sharpe Leave a comment

Documentos en el Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional (AHPN). Foto: AHPN.

POR HANNAH ALPERT-ABRAMS

Nota editorial: Citamos un reportaje del Archivo de Seguridad Nacional (National Security Archive) de George Washington University: “El renombrado Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional de Guatemala (AHPN) se encuentra en crisis después de que su director, Gustavo Meoño Brenner, fue despedido de manera súbita, resultado de una serie de acciones orquestradas por el gobierno guatemalteco y una oficina de las Naciones Unidas. Estas mismas acciones dejaron el personal del archivo, más de 50 personas, bajo contrato provisional, y transfirió la responsabilidad por el archivo al Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes, quitándola del archivo nacional, donde ha residido desde el 2009.”

Esta situación materializó el 3 de agosto, una semana después de un seminario patrocinado por LLILAS Benson Colecciones y Estudios Latinoamericanos y el Centro Rapoport para los Derechos Humanos y la Justicia, que tuvo lugar en AHPN. Bajo el título “Archivos y derechos humanos: experiencia de colaboración entre el AHPN y la Universidad de Texas,” el seminario ofreció la oportunidad de reflexionar sobre los siete años de colaboración entre la Universidad de Texas y el AHPN.

Dado las novedades inquietantes sobre el AHPN, la Dra. Virginia Garrard, directora de LLILAS Benson, dijo, “LLILAS Benson afirma su compromiso a AHPN y su apoyo por la preservación de esta colección histórica, la cual es fundamental para la búsqueda de la justicia, el rescate de la memoria histórica en Guatemala y al resguardo de la historia nacional guatemalteca desde el siglo XIX.”

Read this article in English.

El personal de LLILAS Benson Colecciones y Latinoamericanos y el Centro Rapoport para los Derechos Humanos y la Justicia viajó a la Ciudad de Guatemala para participar en un seminario sobre la alianza entre la Universidad de Texas y varias instituciones guatemaltecas que trabajan con archivos.

El evento tuvo como título “Archivos y derechos humanos: experiencia de colaboración entre el AHPN y la Universidad de Texas,” y se realizó el 27 de julio en el Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional (AHPN), que se ubica en un hospital inacabado en donde, en 2005, se descubrieron más de ochenta millones de archivos pertenecientes a la Policía Nacional, bastantes de ellos encontrados en estado precario. Durante más de diez años, un equipo de archiveros guatemaltecos ha trabajado intensivamente para preservar, organizar y dar acceso a esta colección en riesgo.

Gustavo Meoño, director del AHPN, habla. Sentados, desde la izquierda: Virginia Garrard, Dan Brinks y Theresa Polk.

Durante el seminario, los participantes reflejaron sobre la alianza de más de siete años entre el AHPN y la Universidad de Texas. Esta alianza ha permitido la fundación de colaboraciones digitales, académicas y pedagógicas, incluyendo la introducción, en 2011, de un acervo digital alojado por el sistema de bibliotecas de la Universidad de Texas.

Los anfitriones del seminario fueron Gustavo Meoño, director del AHPN, y Anna Carla Ericastilla, directora del Archivo General de Centroamérica. Virginia Garrard, la directora de LLILAS Benson; Dan Brinks, el co-director del Centro Rapoport; y Theresa Polk, la directora del programa de materiales digitales de LLILAS Benson; y fueron quienes expusieron sobre la historia de la alianza internacional y su importancia para la recuperación de la memoria histórica y la búsqueda de democracia y justicia transicional en Centroamérica.

Brinks (izq.) del Centro Rapoport, con Garrard (LLILAS Benson) y Meoño (AHPN). Foto: H. Alpert-Abrams.

Giovanni Batz, Brenda Xum, María Aguilar, and Hannah Alpert-Abrams—todos ex-alumnos y ex-alumnas de LLILAS Benson—hablaron sobre el impacto del archivo tanto en sus carreras como en su entendimiento de la historia de Guatemala. Especialmente conmovedores fueron los comentarios de ex alumnos guatemaltecos de la Universidad de Texas cuya comprensión de su patrimonio cultural fue moldeada por el estudio del AHPN. Como comentó Brenda Xum, “los archivos cuentan una historia humana.”

Brenda Xum, ex-alumna de LLILAS Benson. Foto: H. Alpert-Abrams.

Dos socias del archivo, Enmy Morán y Tamy Guberek, ofrecieron una visión para el futuro de AHPN, incluyendo nuevas técnicas en la preservación de los archivos y nuevos métodos cuantitativos para descubrir las historias contenidas en ellos.

Alrededor de 75 investigadores, archivistas, estudiantes y miembros de la comunidad asistieron al evento, que fue abierto al público. Estos participantes tuvieron la oportunidad de hacer preguntas. Entre ellas, hubo preguntas sobre los desafíos de la preservación digital, la dificultad de acceder la información archivística y las cuestiones éticas implícitas en publicar información delicada en línea.

Durante una tarde bastante cálida, los participantes comentaron sobre la manera en que la conferencia reanimó su interés en las investigaciones archivísticas y la historia guatemalteca. Al final, una participante se paró de pié para felicitar a las personas miembras del panel durante el evento. “Antes, realmente no conocía este archivo,” dijo. “Tampoco sabía sobre su importancia en la historia de mi país.”

______________________

El seminario “Archivos y derechos humanos: experiencia de colaboración entre AHPN y UT Austin” fue patrocinado por el Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional (AHPN), LLILAS Benson Colecciones y Estudios Latinoamericanos y el Centro Rapoport para los Derechos Humanos y la Justicia.

Hannah Alpert-Abrams, PhD, es becaria posdoctoral CLIR en LLILAS Benson Colecciones y Estudios Latinoamericanos. Traducido del inglés por Hannah Alpert-Abrams y Susanna Sharpe.

Alumni, Archives, Benson Latin American Collection, Digital Humanities, Digital Scholarship, LLILAS Benson, News, Open Access, Preservation, Social Sciences

Seminar Commemorates Collaboration with Guatemala on Archives and Human Rights

August 3, 2018 Susanna Sharpe Leave a comment

Documents at the Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional (AHPN, Guatemalan National Police Historic Archive). Photo: AHPN.

BY HANNAH ALPERT-ABRAMS

Lea en español.

Editor’s note: From the National Security Archive at George Washington University: “Guatemala’s renowned Historical Archive of the National Police (AHPN) is in crisis after its director, Gustavo Meoño Brenner, was abruptly removed in one of a series of recent actions orchestrated by the Guatemalan government and a United Nations office. The actions also placed the AHPN’s remaining staff of more than fifty people on temporary contract, and transferred oversight for the repository from the country’s national archives, where it had functioned since 2009, to the Ministry of Culture and Sports.” (See Guatemala Police Archive Under Threat.)

These actions took place on August 3, a week after LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections joined UT’s Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice in Guatemala City to host “Archives and Human Rights: A History of Collaboration between the University of Texas and the Historic Archive of the National Police.” The one-day seminar was an opportunity to reflect on seven years of partnership between the University of Texas and the AHPN, which preserves records documenting over one hundred years of police activity in Guatemala.

Given the recent alarming developments at AHPN, Virginia Garrard, director of LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections at The University of Texas at Austin, stated, “LLILAS Benson affirms its commitment to supporting the preservation of this historic collection, which is so fundamental to the pursuit of justice, the recovery of historical memory in Guatemala, and to the preservation of Guatemala’s national history dating back all the way to the nineteenth century.”

___________________________________________________

Representatives from LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections and the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice visited Guatemala City on July 27 for a seminar on archival partnerships between the University of Texas and Guatemalan institutions.

The event, “Archives and Human Rights: A History of Collaboration between the AHPN and the University of Texas” was held at the Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional (Guatemala National Police Archive, or AHPN). The AHPN is located in the unfinished hospital building where over 80 million pages of archival materials were found, in various states of preservation, in 2005. For over ten years, Guatemalan archivists have been working to preserve, organize, and provide access to this vulnerable collection.

Gustavo Meoño, director of the AHPN, addresses the seminar. Seated (l-r) are Virginia Garrard, Daniel Brinks, and Theresa Polk. Photo: Hannah Alpert-Abrams.

During the seminar, speakers reflected on the seven-year partnership between the AHPN and the University of Texas, which has featured scholarly, pedagogical, and digital collaborations, including the 2011 launch of the UT-hosted digital portal to the AHPN.

The one-day event was hosted by the director of the AHPN, Gustavo Meoño, and by Anna Carla Ericastilla, the director of the Archivo General de Centroamérica. Virginia Garrard, director of LLILAS Benson; Dan Brinks, co-director of the Rapoport Center; and Theresa Polk, director of digital initiatives for LLILAS Benson, spoke about the history of the partnership and its importance for reconstructing historical memory and the pursuit of democracy and transitional justice in Central America.

Daniel Brinks (l), co-director of the Rapoport Center; Virginia Garrard, director of LLILAS Benson; and Gustavo Meoño, director of AHPN. Photo: Hannah Alpert-Abrams.

LLILAS Benson alumni Giovanni Batz, Brenda Xum, María Aguilar, and Hannah Alpert-Abrams discussed the impact of teaching and learning with the archive on their professional careers and their personal understanding of Guatemalan history. Especially moving were personal stories from former UT students whose understanding of their cultural heritage was shaped by studying the AHPN. As Brenda Xum remarked: “los archivos cuentan una historia humana” (“the archives tell a human story”).

LLILAS alumna Brenda Xum. Photo: Hannah Alpert-Abrams.

Longtime AHPN affiliates Enmy Morán and Tamy Guberek offered visions of the future of research with the AHPN, including new approaches to archival practice and new quantitative methods for uncovering archival histories.

About seventy-five scholars, archivists, students, and community members attended the conference, which was open to the public. Among the topics addressed in audience questions were the challenges of digital preservation, the difficulties of accessing archival information, and the ethics of publishing sensitive information online.

Throughout the very warm afternoon, participants commented on the ways that the conference had reinvigorated their interest in archival research and Guatemalan history. At the end of the day, one audience member stood to congratulate the panelists on a successful event. “Before this event I didn’t really know about this archive,” she said, “and I didn’t know about its importance to my country’s history.”

___________________________

The seminar “Archivos y derechos humanos: experiencia de colaboración entre AHPN y UT Austin” was co-sponsored by Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional (AHPN), LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections, and the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice.

Hannah Alpert-Abrams, PhD, is the CLIR postdoctoral fellow in data curation at LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections.

Benson Latin American Collection, Books, Distinctive Collections, LLILAS Benson

The Benson Gets a Book

August 3, 2018 Texlibris Leave a comment

The University of Texas Press has published the first encyclopedic examination of the renowned Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection (Benson), providing a window into the rich Latin American resources for research and study at The University of Texas at Austin.

Showcasing the incredible depth, diversity and history of the Benson Collection, “A Library for the Americas” presents rare books and manuscripts, maps, photographs, music, oral histories, art and objects dating from around 1500 to the present.

Founded in 1921, the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection at The University of Texas at Austin has become one of the world’s great libraries for the study of Latin America, as well as the largest university library collection of Latin American materials in the United States. Encompassing all areas of the Western Hemisphere that were ever part of the Spanish or Portuguese empires, the Benson Collection documents Latin American history and culture from the first European contacts to the current activities of Latina/os in the United States. The Benson is partner in an innovative collaboration with the Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies — collectively called LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections — that attracts top students, scholars and researchers from around the world.

The Benson collections represent one of the most extensive compilations of materials related to Latin American culture and history in the world, housing approximately 1 million volumes, 4,000 linear feet of manuscripts over 400,000 slides and photographs and an additional 50,000 other items of ephemera and media, representing North, Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean.

The 229-page volume features color images and plates of the unique holdings paired with essays and reflections by distinguished scholars of Latin American and Latina/o studies, who describe the role that the Benson Collection has played in the research and intellectual contributions that have defined their careers.

Benson Librarian and Director Melissa Guy is elated by the book’s publication.

“’A Library for the Americas’ is unique in that it is both a beautiful representation of the Benson’s holdings, as well as a selection of thought-provoking essays from researchers who have used the Benson’s vast holdings to do their work,” says Guy. “Both the seasoned Benson user and the casual observer will find it fascinating.”

“A Library for the Americas” was edited by Julianne Gilland and José Montelongo, and includes contributions from faculty, researchers and historians of Latin American from across the hemisphere. The book features analysis of the overall collections with special focus on collections of distinction like the Relaciones Geográficas, the Gloria Anzaldúa papers, the Ricardo and Harriet Romo print collection and the Borderlands archive, with accompanying full-color imagery.

The Libraries will host a preview and benefit dinner on September 6 in preparation for the upcoming centennial (2021) of the acquisition of the Genaro García Collection, which served as the foundation of the Benson Latin American Collection. Attendees to the event will receive a copy of the book with their tax-deductible contribution. For more information on attending the event, contact Natalie Hester at 512-495-4349 or nataliehester@austin.utexas.edu.

“A Library for the Americas” is available for purchase through the University of Texas Press at utpress.utexas.edu.

Awards, Benson Latin American Collection, Digital Scholarship, Diversity, iSchool, LLILAS Benson, Texas Digital Library

Alicia Niwagaba Wins TDL Graduate Student Excellence Award

May 23, 2018 Susanna Sharpe Leave a comment

Alicia Niwagaba, graduate research assistant at the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA), was awarded the Graduate Student Excellence Award by the Texas Digital Library (TDL). She accepted the award during the Texas Conference on Digital Libraries on May 17. Niwagaba is a recent graduate of the Master of Science in Information Systems (MSIS) program at the UT School of Information.

During her time at AILLA, Niwagaba has worked on developing an open educational curriculum designed to teach language documentation researchers how to organize and arrange their materials and metadata to facilitate their ingestion into a digital language archive like AILLA. This work is supported by the National Science Foundation under grant BCS-1653380, Transforming Access and Archiving for Endangered Language Data through Exploratory Methodologies of Curation.

Niwagaba is a key member of the project team, which additionally consists of AILLA manager Susan Kung and AILLA language curator J. Ryan Sullivant. “Niwagaba contributes valuable insight gained from her training in libraries and digital archives to improve the quality of the curriculum content and to incorporate literature and viewpoints that would not have been considered otherwise,” says Kung. The curriculum she is helping to develop will be taught as a weeklong course at the Institute on Collaborative Language Research (CoLang) at the University of Florida, June 18-22, 2018. Thereafter, the curriculum will be available as an open-access educational resource on AILLA’s website.

During her time at AILLA, Niwagaba developed a series of educational video tutorials about language archiving. These are designed to supplement the written curriculum or to stand alone as individual, shareable resources. Some of these engaging videos have already been widely shared throughout the language documentation community. This includes two that are available on YouTube: Language Metadata in AILLA and Filenaming.

Filenaming video created by Niwagaba (YouTube)

AILLA manager Kung is grateful for Niwagaba’s contribution to the archive’s work, calling her “a critical member of AILLA’s curriculum development team.” Kung adds that Niwagaba “brings unique insight and perspective to the work that AILLA does. In fact, her efforts on this project have improved the level and convenience of service that AILLA is able to provide to our important stakeholders, the language documenters who entrust their precious, irreplaceable language materials to this repository. We are delighted that Alicia Niwagaba has won this award.”

View the Texas Digital Library awards announcement.

Appointment, Archives, Awards, Benson Latin American Collection, Digital Humanities, Digital Scholarship, Distinctive Collections, LLILAS Benson, Open Access, People, Research, Technology

Jennifer Isasi to Join LLILAS Benson as CLIR Fellow for Data Curation

May 7, 2018 Susanna Sharpe Leave a comment

LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections is pleased to announce that Jennifer Isasi, PhD, will join the staff as CLIR Fellow for Data Curation in Latin American and Latina/o Studies. Isasi will work with Digital Scholarship Coordinator Albert A. Palacios to contribute to “collections as data” efforts, educational resources, and digital scholarship initiatives at LLILAS Benson. She will hold her position from July 29 through June 2020.

In her role as CLIR fellow, Isasi will have the opportunity to alter the way in which students, researchers, and affiliated communities access and engage with the digitized historical record.

According to CLIR (the Council on Library and Information Resources) the CLIR postdoctoral position “offers recent PhD graduates the chance to develop research tools, resources, and services while exploring new career opportunities. . . . Fellows work on projects that forge and strengthen connections among library collections, educational technologies, and current research.”

In addition to her work with Palacios, Isasi will work closely with the current CLIR fellow Hannah Alpert-Abrams as well as University of Texas Libraries academic engagement staff and LLILAS affiliated faculty to develop curated data sets, curricula, and workshops centered on digital assets and tools, and open-access resources that support scholarly and public engagement with digital materials.

Isasi will also work closely with the post-custodial archival team and partners in the United States and Latin America to inform the development of forthcoming digital collections and facilitate their use in digital research and pedagogy. As such, she will have the opportunity to alter the way in which students, researchers, and affiliated communities access and engage with the digitized historical record.

Jennifer Isasi holds a PhD in Hispanic Studies with a specialization in Digital Humanities from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her dissertation, “Data Mining Possibilities for the Analysis of the Literary Character in the Spanish Novel: The Case of Galdós and the ‘Episodios nacionales’” (written in Spanish) establishes a computational reading methodology to extract, analyze, and visualize literary character-systems or social networks, noting how they reflect novel genres and degrees of historicity that replicate close readings of the novels. Currently, she is a lecturer of Spanish at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, where she teaches Spanish, Commercial Spanish, and Foundations of Literacy.

Archives, Benson Latin American Collection, Digital Scholarship, Grants, LLILAS Benson, Open Access

NEH Grant Will Fund Transcription of Indigenous Language Collection

April 17, 2018 Susanna Sharpe Leave a comment

BY J. RYAN SULLIVANT

The Archive of Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA) has received a pilot grant from the Humanities Collections and Reference Resources program of the National Endowment for the Humanities. This grant will improve access to some of the archive’s thousands of audio recordings in indigenous languages by supporting pilot efforts to crowdsource the creation of digital texts for manuscript transcriptions and translations that accompany recordings already in AILLA’s collections. Specifically, the grant will support the transcription of materials in the Mixtec languages of Mexico that are included in the MesoAmerican Languages Collection of Kathryn Josserand. These materials include a very broad survey of the grammar and vocabulary of the Mixtec languages spoken in over 100 towns and villages of southern Mexico.

Transcription of Tehuelche, from the AILLA archive of Jorge Suárez

Digital transcriptions will improve users’ access to these materials and will also facilitate their reuse for humanistic and especially linguistic research studying the dialectology of the Mixtec languages, which, decades after these materials were collected, is still not completely understood. They will also contribute to research on the prehistory of the Mixtec-speaking people, who today number almost a half-million in Mexico. One component of the project will be the development of educational modules that will use the transcription task to teach lessons on linguistic transcription, language description, and historical linguistics. This pilot project will also allow AILLA to develop transcription workflows that can be applied to other significant collections of handwritten documents in the archive’s collections.

Pilot project will improve access to a collection of Mixtec audio recordings.

The project’s principal investigator is Professor Virginia Garrard, director of LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections. The project manager is Ryan Sullivant, AILLA language data curator.

Survey in Chalcatongo Mixtec (with Spanish above), from the AILLA collection of J. Kathryn Josserand

The National Endowment for the Humanities, created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at www.neh.gov.

For more information on the AILLA transcription project, contact Ryan Sullivant.

Archives, Benson Latin American Collection, Faculty, Global Studies, Grants, In the News, LLILAS Benson, News, Open Access, Preservation, Technology

AILLA Awarded Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities

April 9, 2018 Susanna Sharpe Leave a comment

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded a Documenting Endangered Languages Preservation Grant of $227,365 to Patience Epps and Susan Smythe Kung of the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA) for support of their upcoming project entitled “Archiving Significant Collections of Endangered Languages: Two Multilingual Regions of Northwestern South America.”

The AILLA grant is one among 199 grants, totaling $18.6 million, announced by the NEH on April 9, 2018.

This is a three-year project that will gather together, curate, and digitize a set of eight significant collections of South American indigenous languages, the results of decades of research by senior scholars. The collections will be archived at AILLA, a digital repository dedicated to the long-term preservation of multimedia in indigenous languages. These materials constitute an important resource for further linguistic, ethnographic, and ethnomusicological research, and are of high value to community members and scholars. They include six legacy collections from the Upper Rio Negro region of the northwest Amazon (Brazil and Colombia), and two collections focused on Ecuadorian Kichwa, most notably the Cañar variety.

Women spinning wool, Juncal, Cañar, Ecuador; photo: Niels Fock/Eva Krener, 1973

All of the languages concerned are endangered or vulnerable to varying degrees, and the collections are heavily focused on threatened forms of discourse, such as ritual speech and song. Of the Upper Rio Negro set, the collections of Elsa Gomez-Imbert, Stephen Hugh-Jones, and Arthur P. Sorensen, Jr., include the East Tukanoan languages Bará, Barasana, Eduria, Karapana, Tatuyo, Makuna, and Tukano. The collections of Howard Reid and Renato Athias are focused on Hup, while Reid’s collection also contains a few materials from two languages of the wider region, Nukak and Hotï (yua, isolate). Robin Wright’s collection involves Baniwa. Of the Ecuadorian Kichwa set, Judy Blankenship’s and Allison Adrian’s collections are both focused on Cañar Highland Kichwa, while Adrian’s also includes some material from Loja Highland Kichwa (qvj, Quechua).

The two regions targeted by these collections are highly significant for our understanding of language contact and diversity in indigenous South America. The multilingual Upper Rio Negro region, famous for the linguistic exogamy practiced by some of its peoples, has much to tell us about language contact and maintenance, while Ecuadorian Kichwa varieties can shed light on the dynamics of pre-Colombian language shift. These collections will be made accessible in AILLA in standard formats, and will provide a foundation for further study of these fascinating regions and multilingual dynamics.

Acquisitions/Foreign Travel, Benson Latin American Collection, Development

The Benson Needs YOU

April 2, 2018 Texlibris Leave a comment

The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, cited by many as the collection of record for Latin America in this hemisphere, is home to some of the most unique and rare collections on the Forty Acres and beyond.

Make no mistake, the Benson is more than just a special collection.

The groundbreaking LLILAS Benson partnership—a collaboration with the world-renowned Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies—is emblematic of the future of libraries. It embeds librarians in the research cycle and curriculum and produces access to unique digital resources that are available globally, further cementing UT Austin as a research destination physically and digitally.

Over the last century, librarians and archivists associated with the Benson have pushed the boundaries of collecting, preserving, and providing access to information. Most notable among these are Carlos Castañeda, Nettie Lee Benson herself, Laura Gutiérrez-Witt, Ann Hartness, David Block, Julianne Gilland and most recently, Melissa Guy.

The legacies of these great leaders lives on today as this generation of librarians continues to travel to places like Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Cuba, and more, returning to Austin with resources of all types: books, magazines, and journals discovered in tiny, hidden bookshops, cluttered train station bookstalls, or through miraculous acts of exploration at international book festivals. Many materials, like maps, political pamphlets, and children’s books, would never find their way to the Benson otherwise. These gems provide researchers with unique snapshots of Latin America.

The year 2021 marks the Benson’s centennial, yet the future is anything but certain. With the rising cost of resources, endowments supply much-needed annual support for the Benson. We need your help to take the Benson into the next century. Former head librarian Laura Gutiérrez-Witt has graciously pledged to match the first $20,000 donated to the endowment she generously created, The Robert Charles Witt and Laura Gutiérrez-Witt Library Fund for Latin America.

Become part of our story. Consider making a gift today.

Benson Latin American Collection, LLILAS Benson, News

Thoma Visiting Scholars in Viceregal Latin American Art: Call for Proposals

March 26, 2018 Susanna Sharpe Leave a comment

The Child Mary Spinning (detail), Collection of Carl & Marilynn Thoma

In collaboration with the Thoma Foundation and the Blanton Museum of Art, LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections is pleased to announce a convocatoria / call for proposals for the Becas Thoma para Investigación en Arte Virreinal Latinoamericano (Thoma Visiting Scholars in Spanish Colonial Art). The Becas Thoma will fund short-term visits for six scholars to conduct research on South American colonial art based on a long-term loan to the Blanton by the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation. Researchers will have access to over thirty works now at the Blanton as well as the extensive resources of the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, one of the premier libraries in the world focused on colonial Latin American materials.

Presentation of Mary in the Temple, Cuzco, 18th c. Collection of Carl & Marilynn Thoma

Becas Thoma para Investigación en Arte Virreinal Latinoamericano

En el contexto del préstamo de larga duración de más de treinta obras de arte colonial sudamericano que la Fundación Carl & Marilynn Thoma ha hecho al Museo Blanton de la Universidad de Texas en Austin se han creado las Becas Thoma de Investigación en Arte Virreinal Latinoamericano. Estas becas, organizadas en colaboración con LLILAS Benson Colecciones y Estudios Latinoamericanos, permitirán a investigadores seleccionados visitar el campus de la Universidad para investigar sobre cualquier tema relacionado con la producción, significado, recepción, coleccionismo o exhibición de la cultura visual y material del periodo virreinal latinoamericano. El objetivo principal es realizar estudios comparativos, interdisciplinarios y/o interregionales, que incluyan pero no se limiten a los materiales que alberga la Colección Latinoamericana Nettie Lee Benson y/o de la casi tercera parte de la Colección Thoma que estará en préstamo en el Museo Blanton por un periodo de tres años.

Esta convocatoria está abierta a estudiantes de doctorado, profesores, curadores e investigadores independientes de todo género. Se dará preferencia a nacionales latinoamericanos, pero también se habrá de considerar la candidatura de personas norteamericanas y europeas.

En esta convocatoria se otorgarán tres becas cortas de investigación. Cada una de ellas consiste en un monto de hasta $5,000 dólares americanos para cubrir gastos de viaje (visa+ tarifas aéreas), alojamiento y manutención por un periodo de hasta cuatro semanas. La presente convocatoria estará abierta hasta el 31 de Mayo de 2018. Las estancias de investigación deberán efectuarse idealmente entre fines de agosto y principios de diciembre de 2018.

The House at Nazareth (detail). Collection of Carl & Marilynn Thoma

Requisitos

Acreditarse como estudiante de doctorado, profesor(a), curador(a) o investigador(a)
Tener grado mínimo de maestría.
Carta de postulación que muestre un conocimiento mínimo de la Colección Carl & Marilynn Thoma de arte virreinal sudamericano y de la Colección Latinoamericana Nettie Lee Benson de la Universidad de Texas en Austin, además de la descripción del proyecto de investigación y el beneficio que se espera recibir al trabajar directamente con estas colecciones, e incluso otras dentro del campus universitario (máximo dos hojas).
Curriculum Vitae (máximo dos hojas).
Una carta de recomendación en la que se acredite el trabajo académico del/la solicitante.

Los becarios y becarias serán elegidos por un comité interdisciplinario. Durante el periodo de la estancia serán reconocidos como Thoma Visiting Scholars in Spanish Colonial Art (TVSSCA), adquiriendo el compromiso de permanecer en Austin por un período de entre 14 y 30 días en los cuales tendrán acceso tanto a las colecciones Thoma y Benson como a las bases de datos de la Universidad. Igualmente, los y las TVSSCA se comprometen a realizar mientras estén en Austin una presentación pública para difusión de su proyecto de investigación.

Death of Saint Joseph (detail). Collection of Carl & Marilynn Thoma

Así mismo, al término de la estancia los y las TVSSCA entregarán un reporte de máximo dos hojas evaluando la utilidad de los materiales consultados en la biblioteca y el museo. Los y las TVSSCA también deberán presentar los resultados de su investigación un periodo no mayor a seis meses después del término de la estancia en algún foro público (publicación académica o de difusión-impresa o electrónica-, conferencia, ponencia en congreso o podcast). Los y las TVSSCA darán crédito a la Fundación Thoma, al Museo Blanton y a la Colección Latinoamericana Nettie Lee Benson en todos los casos, y entregarán una copia de dichas publicaciones a cada una de las tres instituciones que permitieron su estancia de investigación.

Las solicitudes deberán enviarse en un sólo archivo en formato PDF antes del jueves 31 de mayo de 2018.

No se aceptarán documentos después de esa fecha ni por separado.

Los resultados del concurso se darán a conocer alrededor del 30 de junio de 2018.

Para envío de solicitudes, aclaración de dudas, e información general sobre las colecciones Thoma y Benson, favor de dirigirse a:

Rosario I. Granados, Ph. D. Carl & Marilynn Thoma, Associate Curator of Spanish Colonial Art

Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin rosario.granados@blantonmuseum.org

(+1) (+1) 512.232.1450

Archives, Benson Latin American Collection, Collections, Distinctive Collections, Faculty, Fine Arts Library, In Memoriam, LLILAS Benson, News, People

Legacy of Art Historian Jacqueline Barnitz to Be Celebrated with Remembrance and Archive Exhibit

March 15, 2018 Susanna Sharpe 1 Comment

The Benson Latin American Collection is pleased to announce the acquisition of the archive of Jacqueline Barnitz (1923–2017). The life and collection of the late art historian and professor emeritus will be celebrated in the Benson’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Reading Room on Tuesday, March 27, at 3 p.m. Selected materials from the archive will be on view in an exhibition titled The Legacy of Jacqueline Barnitz.

Jackie Barnitz in her slide collection. Photo: Mike Wellen.

The exhibit provides a glimpse into the archive of the world-renowned modern Latin American art historian who taught at The University of Texas at Austin from 1981 until her retirement in 2007. Barnitz donated the archive to the Benson shortly before her death, and its contents include correspondence, research notes, teaching materials, art slides, notebooks, rare art and art history publications, and an exceptional array of exhibition catalogs from Latin America spanning much of the twentieth century.

An artist in her own right, Jackie Barnitz made a living during her early professional career as a portrait painter and eventually turned to abstract expressionism. In 1962, she traveled to Argentina, where she became enthralled with the dynamic arts culture of Buenos Aires. Upon returning to her home in New York City, she wrote about Latin American art for multiple publications, bringing crucial exposure for Latin American artists in the 1960s and 70s, especially those who had left their home countries for New York in the wake of political unrest. She continued to travel to Mexico and South America throughout her career. Barnitz earned her PhD in art history from the City University of New York after having taught courses on Latin American art at the college level.

Barnitz joined the art history faculty of UT Austin as the first professor to hold a university tenure-track position in modern Latin American art. She was a dedicated mentor and teacher whose students have moved on to research, teaching, and curatorial positions in major institutions around the world. Her textbook, Twentieth-Century Art of Latin America, published by University of Texas Press in 2001, with a second, expanded edition in collaboration with Patrick Frank issued in 2015, is the textbook of choice for most university courses on modern Latin American art.

Barnitz with Patrick Frank, co-author of second edition of "Twentieth-Century Art of Latin America." Photo: Gayanne DeVry — Barnitz with Patrick Frank, co-author of second edition of “Twentieth-Century Art of Latin America.” Photo: Gayanne DeVry

Barnitz’s contribution to the field of Latin American art history in Austin and beyond is emphasized by Beverly Adams, curator of Latin American art at the Blanton Museum. “Jackie was a true innovator, pioneer, and steward of the field of Latin American art history. From her salons in New York City to her far-ranging travel and research, she constantly sought meaningful connections with artists and intellectuals throughout the Americas. In the Art History department, she helped form a generation of scholars. At the Benson, her archive and library will surely continue to inspire new generations of students.”

Barnitz with students during a lecture. Photo courtesy Mike Wellan.

The Blanton Museum of Art was the beneficiary of several remarkable gifts from Barnitz over the years, ranging from thoughtful catalogue essays, class tours of the collection, and her frequent donations of art. According to curator Adams, Barnitz made her most recent gift to the Blanton last year, “a number of fascinating works on paper of important artists such as María Luisa Pacheco, Cildo Meireles, Paulo Bruscky, Regina Silveira, and Leandro Katz,” which will soon be seen in the museum’s galleries.

According to Melissa Guy, director of the Benson Latin American Collection, the acquisition of Barnitz’s collection further strengthens the Benson’s holdings in Latin American art and art history, which also include the José Gómez Sicre Papers, the Barbara Doyle Duncan Papers, and the Stanton Loomis Catlin Papers. “Jacqueline’s collection brings incredible richness and depth to the Benson’s art and art history holdings, and reflects her stature as the preeminent scholar of modern Latin American art history. The exhibition catalogs alone, covering nearly the entire region from the 1960s into the twenty-first century, warrant special attention by students and researchers,” said Guy.

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Attend The Event

RSVP requested: attend.com/barnitz

This event is co-hosted by the University of Texas Libraries and LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections, who gratefully acknowledge the following co-sponsors: Blanton Museum of Art, Center for Latin American Visual Studies, Department of Art and Art History, College of Fine Arts.

About the Benson Latin American Collection

The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection is one of the foremost collections of library materials on Latin America worldwide. Established in 1921 as the Latin American Library, the Benson is approaching its centennial. Through its partnership established with the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies in 2011, the Benson continues to be at the forefront of Latin American and U.S. Latina/o librarianship through its collections and digital initiatives.

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