(Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2022-10-03) Adrianzén Ponce, Cayetana
Archives provide the basis for national historical narratives, a premise for nation-building. However, Peru’s government administration problems extend to national archives: insufficient maintenance resources and inadequate service to the public. This creates a duality (i.e., enormous potential yet bad services), which is especially noticeable in the «Archivo Agrario». Collected in the 1970s by Peruvian researchers, the «Archivo Agrario» is unique in Latin America, given the variety and origin of the documents. In this essay, and using my research as an example, I explore the challenges and, more importantly, the opportunities afforded by this archive and the urgent need to transform it radically.
(Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2022-10-03) Peralta Ruiz, Víctor
Jaime Edmundo Rodríguez Ordóñez was, beyond doubt, one of Latin America’s most outstanding historians. This note provides a biographical portrait and describes his key contribution to the understanding of South American independence. Jaime Rodríguez’s production was wide-ranging and always in dialogue with Latin American and European historiography.
(Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2022-10-03) Chocano, Magdalena
This article examines the chronology-building of Peruvian Independence based on calendars published between 1821 and 1840. It also analyzes different approaches to the Independence process by authors like Valdez y Palacios, Pruvonena (Riva Agüero), S. Távara, C. Lissón, S. Lorente, M. F. Paz Soldán, and Rodríguez. Their writings show a diversity of solutions to the ambiguity that marked the process and their efforts to enclose it within an unambiguous and continuous temporal sequence.
(Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2022-10-03) Montalvo, Enmanuel
The Bourbon reforms sparked a political struggle between the local elite and the Spanish officials commissioned to execute them. This is a key issue since, in the long term, successful implementation relied on a coincidence of interest between both groups. The police reform is a clear example of how this political struggle was key to defining a specific body of legislation for the city and Cabildo of Lima, governed by guidelines established by the Crown, but also resulting from intense negotiation between the local elite and visitador Jorge de Escobedo.
(Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2022-10-03) Aguirre, Carlos
Open Veins of Latin America, by Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, one of the most emblematic books of social thought in Latin America during the second half of the 20th century, was first published in 1971. Before it went into print, Galeano submitted his manuscript that same year to the Casa de las Américas Prize contest in the essay category, but came short of winning. Using as a point of departure the anecdotal fact that a book that would eventually become a classic did not receive the Casa de las Américas Prize, this article reconstructs Cuba’s complex political and cultural environment between 1968 and 1971; the tensions around literary contests promoted by the most important institutions of the Revolution; and, more generally, the debate around the role of Latin American intellectuals in the process of political and social transformation in the 1960s.
(Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2022-10-03) Fonseca, Juan
At the turn of the 20th century, as part of their settlement in Peru, Protestant missionaries developed a large production of texts focused mainly on the Andean world, which they described, analyzed, categorized, and evaluated, just like other Western explorers in the age of imperialism. In this note, I argue that this bibliographical corpus constitutes a specific literary subgenre: the missionary chronicle. From a historiographical perspective, the Protestant missionary chronicles are valuable sources for both the history of the Protestantism and the study of the Andean world from its interaction with missionaries amid the rise of Western imperialism.
(Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2022-10-03) Di Stefano, Roberto
In Argentine history, the 1880s are famous for the public debate around the definition of secularism. In that decade, three legislative projects were discussed and promulgated, giving form to the «secular laws» of education, civil registration, and civil marriage. In 1886, a trivial conflict between a parish priest from the suburbs of Buenos Aires and the archbishop fueled a confrontation that reached the highest political and ecclesiastical spheres, attracted the attention of leading public figures, and even led to the adoption of relevant legislation measures. The story of that episode is interesting because it put on the table crucial issues that defined secularism; shows how a fortuitous event, initially inconsequential, can acquire importance in decision-making at the highest level; illustrates the intricate relationships that mediate between events, conjunctures, and structural transformations; and informs about the dialectical links between discourses and their contexts of enunciation.