Yvonne Berliner, the department’s Latin American History instructor, will present a paper on ‘Mexican Feminism in the Twentieth Century’ at a Colloquium on Mexico to be held at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, WA. February 9-11, 2016.

Berliner will trace the struggle for political rights for women in Mexico, culminating in the right to vote in 1953. In addition, the presentation will include the bridging of class differences among women, as the fight for political rights began as a middle class initiative and only became more inclusive in the 1970s. In the last decades of the 20th century, feminism with popular and indigenous roots joined in advocating for gender and class equality. Industrial workers, employees, agricultural workers and indigenous community groups from poor urban sectors have become part of a wider movement for gender equality in Mexico.

In 2015 Berliner co-authored a book on the Mexican Revolution and a chapter on Feminism in the Americas for another book, with special emphasis on Mexico.

Jesse Spohnholz’s new book, The Convent of Wesel: The Event that Never Was and the Invention of Tradition, has been accepted for publication with Cambridge University Press, and his co-edited volume Archaeologies of Confession: Writing Histories of Religion in Germany, 1517-2017 has been accepted for publication with Berghahn Press. Both books will be available within the year.

A long-running dispute over land use in Oregon escalated into the armed occupation of the federal Malheur National Wildlife Refuge by a “militia” led by the rancher Ammon Bundy on Jan. 2. Bundy and his followers dispute the constitutional right of the U.S. government to manage public lands in Oregon, which was also the cause of a standoff between Ammon’s father, Cliven, and federal officials in southern Nevada in 2014.

Read the rest of the opinion piece published in Portland’s The Oregonian:
Oregon standoff: Bundy-style land management has been tried and rejected (OPINION)