Latin American Studies at Lewis & Clark

We are in the second year of a grant from the Andrew W. Mellow Foundation to develop a postdoctoral program in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. The postdoctoral fellows teach a slate of courses and conduct research beyond their dissertation work. The main goals of the program are to infuse new ideas into our humanities curriculum and mentor members of the next generation of professors.

In 2008-09 the Latin American Studies Program at the College (with support from the Ethnic Studies and Gender Studies programs) conducted a search for a postdoctoral fellow. The top choice was Dr. Marie Sarita Gaytan, a recent Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Dr. Gaytan taught one course in the fall of 2008, “Gender and Sexuality in Latin America,” and is currently teaching two courses “Food, Culture, and Power in the Americas” and a course “Introduction to Chicano and Latino Popular Culture.” The latter two courses were of her own design, in response to her own teaching areas, and areas of interest to others in the Latin American Studies program.