The Archives Speaker Series celebrates a milestone this Wednesday, October 21, at 4:30 p.m. when Gladys McCormick, PhD, presents “The Politics of Memory in the Archive: Using Oral Histories and Intelligence Reports to Decode State Terrorism in Latin America.” McCormick becomes the 20th speaker in this series which also commemorates American Archives Month. The event will take place on the first floor of the Andrew L. Bouwhuis Library. It is free and open to the public.
Each semester since 2007, the Canisius College Rev. J. Clayton Murray, SJ, Archives and Special Collections has offered the Archives Speaker Series as an opportunity to share a scholar’s research experience through personal use of archives and special collections. The result of each speaker’s work is a tangible expression of scholarship. Among speakers’ achievements have been publications, film, artwork and photography, documentation of historic sites and architecturally significant buildings and a wide-range of other projects dependent on use of original primary resources.
McCormick, currently an assistant professor of history at the Syracuse University Maxwell School of Public Affairs and Citizenship, will present her research on political violence, drawing from declassified intelligence reports in the U.S. and Mexico, as well as oral histories, both archived and one she gathers, herself. She will share methodologies related to using these documents to reach a holistic picture of what surrounds political events, and explore how historical memory can be used to popularize or mythologize political figures.
Among her research interests are 19th and 20th-century Mexican history; political and economic history of Latin America and the Caribbean; comparative history; questions of historical memory and political violence; gender; and the experiences of rural peoples. Most recently, Dr. McCormick has focused on Mexico’s political prisoners and use of torture in the 1970s; and the role of informants with Mexican secret police.
The fall 2015 Archives Speaker Series is sponsored by the Rev. J. Clayton Murray, SJ, Archives and Special Collections; Andrew L. Bouwhuis Library; Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs; Modern Languages Department; and the Women and Gender Studies Club.
For more information, contact Kathleen De Laney, archivist and special collections librarian, at delaneyk@canisius.edu or at Ext. 8421.
Submitted by: Kathleen DeLaney, archivist/reference librarian
