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Associate Professor of History

I am an associate professor of history specializing in the history of Colonial Latin America. I received my B.A. and M.A. degrees from the Ãå±±ÂÖ¼é of New Mexico and my Ph.D. from the Ãå±±ÂÖ¼é of Arizona. My research and scholarly interests include the Hispanic World, the intellectual history of Latin America, and the Spanish Borderlands. My first book, titled The Intimate Frontier: Friendship Civil Society in Northern New Spain, (Tucson: Ãå±±ÂÖ¼é of Arizona Press, 2019) looks at the role of friendship in the social and intellectual construction of frontier society. In this book I argue that the ideals, rhetoric, logic, and emotions of friendship played an important role in the multilayered lives of frontier Indians, Spaniards, and mixed-raced people. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, I use friendship as a lens through which to more clearly view the nuanced struggle for power and influence along the northern reaches of imperial power. My second book project, currently in its research phase, is tentatively titled The Hispanic World: From Creole Patriotism to Chicano Nationalism.

In 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2023, I directed an NEH funded Summer Institute for middle and high school teachers. The 2023 institute, entitled “Tales from the Chihuahuan Desert: Borderlands Narratives about Identity and Binationalism,” provided teachers from across the country with the intellectual and scholarly tools for teaching the history and literature of the borderlands.

Courses taught:

World History to 1500 (Introductory Survey Course)

The Spanish Borderlands (Upper Division Course)

Colonial Mexico to 1900 (Upper Division Course)

Religion in Colonial Latin America (Upper Division Course)

Central America and the Caribbean (Upper Division Co-Convened Course)

Mexico as a Frontier Society (Graduate Readings Course)

Race, Class, and Gender in Colonial Latin America (Graduate Readings Course)

Knowledge and Power in Colonial Latin America (Graduate Readings Course)

Seminar on Ethnohistory (Graduate Research Seminar)

Seminar on Colonial Latin America (Graduate Research Seminar)

Curriculum vitae

Contact Info:

Liberal Arts 316

(915) 747-7054

Email: imartinez26@utep.edu